Ministering—“That Ye Love One Another; as I Have Loved You”
Ministering is truly loving and caring for others as the Savior would. It is a way of being; it is the way of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
In my first general conference message, I briefly shared how the transformative power of the Savior’s Atonement changed my father.Should we not all be able to say that we have "experienced a mighty change"? Can you testify that the Savior's Atonement has "changed" you?
Today I would like to tell you a little more about how that change began. My father hit a very low point in his life when two ministering brothers began to visit him. Change often begins when we are at our lowest. Discerning members will be aware of this and seek to minister at this pivitol point. One of them invited my father to come with him and his wife to the temple. There were 2 assigned. 1 extended the invitation to do more than just visit. He accepted the invitation. Each week they picked him up and drove to the next city to worship and serve in the house of the Lord. It is easy to see how we serve in the temple, but what does worship look like?This continued for three years. Notice no one gave up during the 3 years. They attended each week. "The Lord love effort" (RMN). Then my dad decided to become a temple worker. Something was happening during the 3 years of weekly visits.
I remember seeing changes in my father during that time. He became aware and attentive to the needs of others. This is significant! Just as the ministering brothers had become aware and attentive to his needs, he began to do so with others. He took better care of his health. This suggests a change in his view of his mortal body. He began to care about His relationship with God and subsequently all the relationships in his life. One affects the other. Which one comes first? The change was real. He now had the Spirit with him, and I felt it. It should be discernable to others that we have the Spirit with us. We act different. We care differently.
Bless this ministering couple for helping my dad. They didn’t judge him for where he was in his life. They walked with him and helped him to develop his relationship with God. They are still my father’s closest and dearest friends. This is the hardest part of ministering. Becoming close and dear friends.
Because these humble and devoted disciples of the Savior quietly ministered to a seemingly lost and dejected man, my family and I have been eternally blessed.
When we choose to minister in our inspired assignments Do I see my "assignment" as "inspired"? and our daily interactions, We can minister outside of our "assignment" we are helping to bless someone’s father, someone’s sister, someone’s son. When we minister, we are helping to answer each other’s prayers. We are the Savior’s hands. Oh, how I am grateful for all those who have blessed families like mine by ministering with compassion. When we feel there is nothing we can do to influence our loved ones, we can pray for the Lord to bring others into their lives that will minister to them. We need to try to be the answer to someone else's prayers too.
I know the Lord is aware of you and your struggles as you strive to keep your covenants and minister to others. He has promised blessings and divine help for you and your family as you exercise your faith to serve Him. Sometimes we think we can't serve because we have too many struggles of our own. But if we exercise our faith to serve the Lord by serving others, there are promised blessings and divine help for our our problems.
We may not be able to fix difficult or heartbreaking circumstances as we hope; some changes are not ours to make. But we can choose to love and minister as the Savior would.Love and minister independent of results.
Ministering by the Spirit invites the Savior’s healing into our lives and the lives of those we minister to. I often find peace, clarity, healing, and purpose when I minister. I find the Savior when I minister. This is by divine design. This goes back to the "Lord's Economy". No sacrifice goes unblessed. You will always receive more than you give. Your prayers will be answered as you answer other's prayers.
Ministering is truly loving and caring for others as the Savior would. It is a way of being; it is the way of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is not a program or a checklist; ministering is the essence of who God is and who we can become as we follow Him. This was and is the goal "ministering" vs "Home/Visiting Teaching". There's not "monthly" required/expected visit to report. We don't "do" it because we are "supposed to". We do it because it's who we are. That requires a lot of introspection and humility and prayer and faith.
We are not called to or released from ministering. It is part of fulfilling the covenants we made at baptism and in the temple. We covenanted to take upon us the Savior’s name—becoming as He is as we sacrifice and consecrate our lives to Him. He sacrificed His life and comfort to minister to us/others. When we minister as He would, we begin to think, feel, and love as He would. This is starting to look like being 'born again'. We have been blessed with the gift of charity and begin to love as the Savior because we have experienced that love and been given that love.
Our Father in Heaven carries out His eternal work by ministering to the individual needs of His children one by one. The Savior showed us this pattern often during His mortal ministry as He compassionately blessed, healed, and cared for “the one.” He invites us to do likewise—to minister in individual and personal ways, ways that help us to feel the love of God.Interesting that she doesn't say ministering helps them feel the love of God, but helps us feel the love of God. When we feel loved and seen by Him, it changes everything. And when we bless the one, we bless the whole.
The Savior shows us the ultimate individuality of God’s love through His atoning sacrifice and the divine capacity He has to heal and minister to you and me on an intimate level. This, again, sounds like the 'new birth' that we are to each individually experience. It heals us and ministers to us intimately.
Jesus Christ chose to suffer for our sins and to atone in indescribable agony that we might be saved and receive divine succor. This is redemption. Being saved and receiving Divine succor. All this He did without the assurance that we would love Him in return. We too must love without any assurance of results or being loved in return. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
This is the kind of love He has for you and me. And this is the kind of love He desires us to have for each other: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you.” We can demonstrate our love for Him by keeping His commandments and ministering to others while they and we are yet imperfect.
We’ve been sent here to learn to love God and each other as the Savior did—to love in sacrificial and transformational ways, ways that will bring our greatest happiness.Sacrificial love transforms! If we are not seeing that, perhaps we are not loving as He did... Through the Savior’s Atonement we can come to love in ways that may feel impossible. Elder Quentin L. Cook taught, “Our love of God and our fellow man is the ultimate test of the condition of our spirit.” These are two important sentences. Loving in ways that feel impossible is evidence of transformation that only comes from being born again. If we lack this condition it will be evident in how we show love to God and others. He has said we show love to Him by keeping His commandments to love and serve others.
Choosing to minister isn’t always convenient or comfortable. It requires sacrifice, faith, vulnerability, and trusting things will work out as we let God prevail. When we pause and choose to care for someone over something, His Spirit and love can enter in and we can receive the peace and perspective that we really need. Incovenient - we have to make time. Not confortable - we have to overcome fear and judgement. We need to be willing to sacrifice time, money, comfort, ego; we must exercise our faith in God's power and love; we must trust and let God prevail...even if there seems to be no fruit. Take time to ask where your treasure is. God can give peace in the place of fear and perspective in the place of our mortal desires and judgments.
A young sister sharned that she often feels nervous about ministering because she doesn’t know how others will respond. I asked how she works through that. She smiled and said, “I go—and it usually turns out much better than I thought.” She exercises faith, and the Lord helps her. This is a common fear. We truly don't know how others will respond. It takes faith to act anyway and take the risk. The Lord loves effort. Trust He will help you.
As we minister in faith, we do not go alone. The Lord will be with us. He will “provide [the] means whereby [we] can accomplish the thing which he has commanded”—including the blessing of God’s priesthood power as we keep our covenants and His priesthood authority to represent Him through our assignment.Do you see yourself ministering in priesthood authority? The Lord knows the hearts of those we minister to. He loves them and He loves you. He will help you to bless them in the ways they need. Trust Him.
Think of the significance of our ministering assignments. Relief Society and elders quorum presidencies receive revelation from the Lord to extend inspired assignments to you and me—assignments to represent Him and labor with Him in caring for God’s children. This is both a charge to those leaders to actually labor in the spirit to make inspired assignmnets and a challenge to us to see our assignments as coming from Him. He is our true "partner". As President Jeffrey R. Holland taught, we are invited to give “the God and Father of us all a helping hand with His staggering task of answering prayers, … drying tears, and strengthening feeble knees.”
If you want to feel grounded, gain a sense of divine belonging, and make a real difference in the world, I invite you to follow the Savior and minister in His name. Never was the need greater than now for souls to be lifted, strengthened, and healed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. “So many of us desperately need to feel of His love.” As His disciples, you and I have the covenant blessing and responsibility to bring the Savior’s love and relief to all of God’s children. When we offer His love and belonging to others, we will find it ourselves. The Savior promised, “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” He is the promised blessing from ministering in the Lord's way. What you give, you will receive.
The Savior did not limit His ministering to His family and close associations. He ministered to all and invites us to do the same. Sometimes we think our only obligation is to our family and that they take all of our time. But can reach out to others as well. We receive ministering assignments to grow our capacity to love others and to ensure no one is forgotten. We pray for them, care for their needs, and strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ. God can help us "grow" our capacity to love more and better.
I believe our Father in Heaven wants you to be happy. He loves you. His work, including ministering, is designed to bring you and me the greatest joy we can experience.
I testify that ministering not only “brings forth the blessings of heaven,” it is the way of heaven. Minister is the way of heaven! Ponder that! I testify that Jesus Christ lives. As we emulate His sacrifice by loving and ministering as He would, we will be blessed to find our own joy, healing, and relief in Him. We will become even as He is. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment