Friday, December 25, 2009
Picturing the Savior
Merry Christmas! I know that the Savior is aware of our needs and that we can reach to him for help. This video - the teachings therein contained - comforts me every time I watch it.
As we approach a new year's ward goal of coming unto Christ, this video and others like it will hopefully help each of us have a clearer picture in our minds of who Christ really is and how we can become more like Him.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wonderful Christmas Video
Like me, you may have missed this video among the other MormonMessages productions. I think it has been added recently. It was created as a Christmas gift this time a year ago for those who donated funds to help in the production of the movie Emma Smith: My Story.
Elder Holland testifies of how Christmas helps us find meaning in life's difficulties.
Elder Holland testifies of how Christmas helps us find meaning in life's difficulties.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Setting your sights and moving forward
A few conferences ago President Uchtdorf related an important personal lesson he had learned from his days as an airline pilot for Lufthansa. He said that the flight crew has to make absolutely sure that they are exact when they navigate and do not deviate in the slightest from their charted course. Doing so will lead the plane off course and take them to the wrong place. My father was in situation a where this lesson came to life.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Which Goal is Most Important
As we prepare for upcoming New Year's Resolutions, consider this quote from Brigham Young:
I will tell you what to do in order to gain your exaltation, which you cannot obtain except you take this course. If your affections are placed upon anything so as to hinder you in the least from dedicating them to the Lord, make a dedication of that thing in the first place, that the dedication of the whole may be complete (DNW, 5 Jan. 1854, 2).
What hinders this people from being as holy as the church of Enoch? I can tell you the reason in a few words. It is because you will not cultivate the disposition to be so: this comprehends the whole. If my heart is not fully given up to this work, I will give my time, my talents, my hands, and my possessions, until my heart consents to be subject; I will make my hands labour in the cause of God, until my heart bows in submission to it (DNW, 5 Jan. 1854, 2).
I have now told you what course to pursue to obtain an exaltation. The Lord must be first and foremost in our affections; the building up of his cause and kingdom demands our first consideration (DNW, 5 Jan. 1854, 2).Start first on that which distances you from being fully devoted to the Lord. Leave weight loss and other less imperative goals to take care of themselves as we first focus on the crucial.
Why is Christmas so important?
Why is Christmas such an important holiday for millions of people around the world? In the two two thousand year history of Christianity, our understand and celebration of Christmas is a rather recent innovation. In fact some historians believe that Christmas was invented to replace pre-Christian festivals and traditions which were so important to early converts to the faith.
The winter solstice marked an important turning point for almost everyone living in northern Europe. It meant that the bitter cold and short days were coming to an end and there was hope of a coming spring when the world would literally come back to life, or wake up, from the cold dark months of winter.
As time passed, Christmas slowly evolved into the grand holiday it is now and, other than the commercialism that accompanies the holiday in North America, I like Christmas. But again, why is it so important?
We celebrate the birth of Christ (an English transliteration of the Greek word christos meaning annointed). His birth has become significant to us because of what he would do thirty or so years from that night in Bethlehem.
Christmas is and can be important only because Jesus would overthrow the twin tyrants of sin and death and through his victory would give us a preview of what the final victory would be like. Christmas is important because it commemorates when the world's best and only hope condescended from his place with the Father redeem all of the good creation and save and exalt all the children that bear God's image.
With all of this in mind, let us not merely celebrate the babe in Bethlehem, but also rejoice in the God who himself came into the world to make all of creation at one with its' creator and allow the children of the great Heavenly King to take their place with him as joint-heirs in a new world to come.
Merry Christmas
The winter solstice marked an important turning point for almost everyone living in northern Europe. It meant that the bitter cold and short days were coming to an end and there was hope of a coming spring when the world would literally come back to life, or wake up, from the cold dark months of winter.
As time passed, Christmas slowly evolved into the grand holiday it is now and, other than the commercialism that accompanies the holiday in North America, I like Christmas. But again, why is it so important?
We celebrate the birth of Christ (an English transliteration of the Greek word christos meaning annointed). His birth has become significant to us because of what he would do thirty or so years from that night in Bethlehem.
Christmas is and can be important only because Jesus would overthrow the twin tyrants of sin and death and through his victory would give us a preview of what the final victory would be like. Christmas is important because it commemorates when the world's best and only hope condescended from his place with the Father redeem all of the good creation and save and exalt all the children that bear God's image.
With all of this in mind, let us not merely celebrate the babe in Bethlehem, but also rejoice in the God who himself came into the world to make all of creation at one with its' creator and allow the children of the great Heavenly King to take their place with him as joint-heirs in a new world to come.
Merry Christmas
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Share Your Tradition
Would you like to share some Christmas spirit? Share how you bring Christ into your Christmas season.
This is a simple thing, but doing it will bring the spirit to your day and perhaps even touch someone else somewhere in the world in need of any sense of optimism and of a happy world, different from their present world of sadness. That's a gift worth giving.
This is a simple thing, but doing it will bring the spirit to your day and perhaps even touch someone else somewhere in the world in need of any sense of optimism and of a happy world, different from their present world of sadness. That's a gift worth giving.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Compassion, Kindness and Christmas
In light of our fifth Sunday conversation concerning the Church's resources to help with some of mortality's more oppressive challenges, I thought this quote from Elder Maxwell was both fitting and insightful:
"There are clearly special cases of individuals in mortality who have special limitations in life, which conditions we mortals cannot now fully fathom. For all we now know, the seeming limitations may have been an agreed-upon spur to achievement--a "thorn in the flesh." Like him who was blind from birth, some come to bring glory to God (John 9:1–3). We must be exceedingly careful about imputing either wrong causes or wrong rewards to all in such circumstances. They are in the Lord's hands, and he loves them perfectly. Indeed, some of those who have required much waiting upon in this life may be waited upon again by the rest of us in the next world--but for the highest of reasons."
http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6197&x=117&y=4
I hope we all can become a little more compassionate and less judgmental towards those with needs and challenges are different from our own, not only during this Christmas season but also throughout the upcoming new year. Myself included.
May we pray to be filled with love. (Moro. 7:48)
One little practical tip to help us in this regard: When we encounter someone towards whom we are having a hard time feeling or conveying love, we can ask ourselves mentally, "How does my Heavenly Father feel about this person? How do this person's deceased relatives feel for this person as they look down on them and yearn for their well-being?"
Merry Christmas,
-
Bishop Macdonald
"There are clearly special cases of individuals in mortality who have special limitations in life, which conditions we mortals cannot now fully fathom. For all we now know, the seeming limitations may have been an agreed-upon spur to achievement--a "thorn in the flesh." Like him who was blind from birth, some come to bring glory to God (John 9:1–3). We must be exceedingly careful about imputing either wrong causes or wrong rewards to all in such circumstances. They are in the Lord's hands, and he loves them perfectly. Indeed, some of those who have required much waiting upon in this life may be waited upon again by the rest of us in the next world--but for the highest of reasons."
http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=6197&x=117&y=4
I hope we all can become a little more compassionate and less judgmental towards those with needs and challenges are different from our own, not only during this Christmas season but also throughout the upcoming new year. Myself included.
May we pray to be filled with love. (Moro. 7:48)
One little practical tip to help us in this regard: When we encounter someone towards whom we are having a hard time feeling or conveying love, we can ask ourselves mentally, "How does my Heavenly Father feel about this person? How do this person's deceased relatives feel for this person as they look down on them and yearn for their well-being?"
Merry Christmas,
-
Bishop Macdonald
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