Mission Farewell Talk
Throughout the scriptures there is a constant call to action. It is that of following Christ’s example.
John 13:15
For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
John 14:16
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Ephesians 5:1
Be ye therefore followers of God
3 Nephi 12:48
Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
So the question is how do we follow Christ’s example?
We need to become even as he is. - We need to become perfect.
Since we are human and therefor imperfect beings we cannot actually be perfect like Christ. If we truly had to be perfect, even as Christ is, to return again to live in the presence of our Heavenly father we would surly fail. However, We have been given the greatest mercy of all, to help us reach that perfection. That mercy is the Atonement. Christ suffered for our sins and afflictions so that we could return to live with Him again. Without the atonement we could not be saved. Christ was willing to suffer for us so that he could make up for what we cannot do. All that is asked of us is to do our very best and give all that we have, and Christ will make up for the rest.
A story that is often used to relate this, is the story of the little girl who wanted to buy a bike. She and her Father were walking by the bike store one day and she saw the most beautiful bike ever. She knew that she had to have it. The Father knew that she would not be able to get it, but he made a deal with her that if she saved up all her money for a certain period of time, they would come back and see if she had enough. After about a month or so, the little girl had saved up a few dollars. This was clearly not enough to buy the bike. The Father told her that she had done well in saving her money, but she could not buy the bike, but if she gave him all her money he would go ahead and pay for the rest.
We are like the little girl, and the father is Christ. We however are striving to obtain a much greater goal, eternal life. And we cannot just save up our money either. Our task is much harder, but is not impossible. The great mercy of the Atonement is that if you only save a $1 or if you save $50, as long as it is your very best, Christ will still make up the rest.
So how do we build up our spiritual dollars? We need to develop Christlike Attributes. We need to develop attributes such as Faith, Hope, Charity and Love, Virtue, Knowledge, Patience, Humility, Diligence, and Obedience. These of course are not all of them but are many of the key attributes exemplified by Christ.
Now we have the attributes that we need to develop. But how do we develop them. Someone might say “well I did what my boss told me to do (after the third time) so I’m good on obedience” or “I didn’t show off that I have more awards then everyone this time so I’ve been humble.” Truly having a Christlike Attribute is more then just having one example of it, or only exemplifying the attribute when you are asked to or when it is convenient. Christlike attributes are gifts from God and can only be achieved with his help and through righteously exercising your agency.
In order to do this I have made a four step plan to sum up the process of gaining Christlike attributes. The four steps are
1. Recognize
2. Incorporate
3. Achieve
4. Lead
1.) The first step is that you must first recognize your weaknesses. If you cannot see what you are doing wrong then you will never take action to fix yourself. Recognizing your weaknesses is key to being humble as well. We need to see and understand that we are not perfect and strive to change that. We need to see our weaknesses and be ready and willing to change and improve. We need to come before God in humble prayer and ask Him for help. We need to admit to him our weakness and ask how we can change. Ask for guidance, and ask for the gift you are striving to gain. We must also have faith and hope that God will help us.
Ether 12:27 states it well.
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
2.) Once you have recognized your weakness you need to begin to incorporate the attribute you wish to achieve into your life. You must learn to seek out opportunities to be charitable, faithful, or what ever attribute it is you are striving to achieve. This is the part of the process where diligence, patience and obedience come into play. We need to be diligent in staying true and not wavering from the path. We need to be obedient to all the commandments, and when the Holy Spirit promotes us we need to act upon it. We also need to be patient with ourselves. Developing a Christlike attribute is not something you do over night. It is something that you will constantly be striving to do your whole life. You will make mistakes, but if you continue to strive to be better and stay on course you will succeed.
President Thomas S. Monson said, “Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required.”
Elder L. Tom Perry said, “The discipline contained in daily obedience and clean living and wholesome lives builds an armor around you of protection and safety from the temptations that beset you as you proceed through mortality.”
It is not an easy task to go through life striving to live like Christ, but the more we live like Christ and the harder we try the easier it becomes. We also have been given the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us on our way. He can comfort us in time of need, and prompt us in the right direction and keep us from danger. We must stay steady on our path to incorporating Christlike attributes into our lives.
3.) Now that you have recognized your weakness and have adjusted your life to incorporate the changes you need to develop the Christlike attribute, you have achieved your goal. If you have worked with God in this process and done all that you can you have successfully developed the Christlike attribute you were working on. You now have the knowledge of how to obtain these attributes, and what works for you and what does not. You better know your weaknesses and your strengths in life. Since you are still not perfect you will still have to strive to keep this attribute. At times it will be tested and sometimes you will fail. But that does not mean you should give up. It means you should just get back up on your feet and continue to improve. It is important to remember that becoming like Christ is a lifetime pursuit.
4.) Striving to become like Christ does not just end there. You may have developed these attributes for yourself but nothing Christ does is for himself. Christ’s life and one of his most important attributes is service. We are not to keep our knowledge, gifts, or experiences to ourselves. We are to share them with others to help them along. Christ’s ministry was all about bringing others to salvation, and we need to strive to bring others to salvation as well. We need to become leaders in God’s kingdom. Those who have the knowledge and capacity to help others should not sit and watch to see if others can get to where they are, but go to them and help them along the way. As leaders we need to stay virtuous and always have a charitable heart. Many may think that they are not good enough to be a leader. It is important to know that you do not have to have every attribute of Christ or know how to help with everyone’s problems to be a leader. You may only be able to help one person with one certain issue. But that one act could change their lives forever. In Doctrine and Covenants 46:12 it states that, “To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby.” The vast majority of us will never have every Christlike attribute down, and that is why we have each other. We have our families, our friends, and our church leaders to help us where we lack.
So now you have the four-step plan to striving to become like Christ and developing the attributes that will help us along the way. In order for this process to work you must actively use all the Christlike attributes that you are striving to gain. If you wish to gain Christlike attributes you must exercise Christlike attributes. It uses redundancy to help cement itself in you. So once you have accomplished one, the next one will become even easier, and so on.
Now how do you remember all of this? If you take the first letter of each step you get RIAL, which at first glance your probably thinking that doesn’t help or even work. However if you look up in the dictionary to see if it is even a real word you find out that it is a monetary unit of Iran. Now think back upon the story of the little girl. Now it starts to come together. With these steps you are building up your “spiritual money”, your Christlike attributes. Just as the little girl saved her real money for her bike. We can save our “spiritual money,” RIAL, to help us obtain salvation, and become even as Christ is.
John 13:15
For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
John 14:16
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Ephesians 5:1
Be ye therefore followers of God
3 Nephi 12:48
Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.
So the question is how do we follow Christ’s example?
We need to become even as he is. - We need to become perfect.
Since we are human and therefor imperfect beings we cannot actually be perfect like Christ. If we truly had to be perfect, even as Christ is, to return again to live in the presence of our Heavenly father we would surly fail. However, We have been given the greatest mercy of all, to help us reach that perfection. That mercy is the Atonement. Christ suffered for our sins and afflictions so that we could return to live with Him again. Without the atonement we could not be saved. Christ was willing to suffer for us so that he could make up for what we cannot do. All that is asked of us is to do our very best and give all that we have, and Christ will make up for the rest.
A story that is often used to relate this, is the story of the little girl who wanted to buy a bike. She and her Father were walking by the bike store one day and she saw the most beautiful bike ever. She knew that she had to have it. The Father knew that she would not be able to get it, but he made a deal with her that if she saved up all her money for a certain period of time, they would come back and see if she had enough. After about a month or so, the little girl had saved up a few dollars. This was clearly not enough to buy the bike. The Father told her that she had done well in saving her money, but she could not buy the bike, but if she gave him all her money he would go ahead and pay for the rest.
We are like the little girl, and the father is Christ. We however are striving to obtain a much greater goal, eternal life. And we cannot just save up our money either. Our task is much harder, but is not impossible. The great mercy of the Atonement is that if you only save a $1 or if you save $50, as long as it is your very best, Christ will still make up the rest.
So how do we build up our spiritual dollars? We need to develop Christlike Attributes. We need to develop attributes such as Faith, Hope, Charity and Love, Virtue, Knowledge, Patience, Humility, Diligence, and Obedience. These of course are not all of them but are many of the key attributes exemplified by Christ.
Now we have the attributes that we need to develop. But how do we develop them. Someone might say “well I did what my boss told me to do (after the third time) so I’m good on obedience” or “I didn’t show off that I have more awards then everyone this time so I’ve been humble.” Truly having a Christlike Attribute is more then just having one example of it, or only exemplifying the attribute when you are asked to or when it is convenient. Christlike attributes are gifts from God and can only be achieved with his help and through righteously exercising your agency.
In order to do this I have made a four step plan to sum up the process of gaining Christlike attributes. The four steps are
1. Recognize
2. Incorporate
3. Achieve
4. Lead
1.) The first step is that you must first recognize your weaknesses. If you cannot see what you are doing wrong then you will never take action to fix yourself. Recognizing your weaknesses is key to being humble as well. We need to see and understand that we are not perfect and strive to change that. We need to see our weaknesses and be ready and willing to change and improve. We need to come before God in humble prayer and ask Him for help. We need to admit to him our weakness and ask how we can change. Ask for guidance, and ask for the gift you are striving to gain. We must also have faith and hope that God will help us.
Ether 12:27 states it well.
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
2.) Once you have recognized your weakness you need to begin to incorporate the attribute you wish to achieve into your life. You must learn to seek out opportunities to be charitable, faithful, or what ever attribute it is you are striving to achieve. This is the part of the process where diligence, patience and obedience come into play. We need to be diligent in staying true and not wavering from the path. We need to be obedient to all the commandments, and when the Holy Spirit promotes us we need to act upon it. We also need to be patient with ourselves. Developing a Christlike attribute is not something you do over night. It is something that you will constantly be striving to do your whole life. You will make mistakes, but if you continue to strive to be better and stay on course you will succeed.
President Thomas S. Monson said, “Life is full of difficulties, some minor and others of a more serious nature. There seems to be an unending supply of challenges for one and all. Our problem is that we often expect instantaneous solutions to such challenges, forgetting that frequently the heavenly virtue of patience is required.”
Elder L. Tom Perry said, “The discipline contained in daily obedience and clean living and wholesome lives builds an armor around you of protection and safety from the temptations that beset you as you proceed through mortality.”
It is not an easy task to go through life striving to live like Christ, but the more we live like Christ and the harder we try the easier it becomes. We also have been given the gift of the Holy Ghost to help us on our way. He can comfort us in time of need, and prompt us in the right direction and keep us from danger. We must stay steady on our path to incorporating Christlike attributes into our lives.
3.) Now that you have recognized your weakness and have adjusted your life to incorporate the changes you need to develop the Christlike attribute, you have achieved your goal. If you have worked with God in this process and done all that you can you have successfully developed the Christlike attribute you were working on. You now have the knowledge of how to obtain these attributes, and what works for you and what does not. You better know your weaknesses and your strengths in life. Since you are still not perfect you will still have to strive to keep this attribute. At times it will be tested and sometimes you will fail. But that does not mean you should give up. It means you should just get back up on your feet and continue to improve. It is important to remember that becoming like Christ is a lifetime pursuit.
4.) Striving to become like Christ does not just end there. You may have developed these attributes for yourself but nothing Christ does is for himself. Christ’s life and one of his most important attributes is service. We are not to keep our knowledge, gifts, or experiences to ourselves. We are to share them with others to help them along. Christ’s ministry was all about bringing others to salvation, and we need to strive to bring others to salvation as well. We need to become leaders in God’s kingdom. Those who have the knowledge and capacity to help others should not sit and watch to see if others can get to where they are, but go to them and help them along the way. As leaders we need to stay virtuous and always have a charitable heart. Many may think that they are not good enough to be a leader. It is important to know that you do not have to have every attribute of Christ or know how to help with everyone’s problems to be a leader. You may only be able to help one person with one certain issue. But that one act could change their lives forever. In Doctrine and Covenants 46:12 it states that, “To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby.” The vast majority of us will never have every Christlike attribute down, and that is why we have each other. We have our families, our friends, and our church leaders to help us where we lack.
So now you have the four-step plan to striving to become like Christ and developing the attributes that will help us along the way. In order for this process to work you must actively use all the Christlike attributes that you are striving to gain. If you wish to gain Christlike attributes you must exercise Christlike attributes. It uses redundancy to help cement itself in you. So once you have accomplished one, the next one will become even easier, and so on.
Now how do you remember all of this? If you take the first letter of each step you get RIAL, which at first glance your probably thinking that doesn’t help or even work. However if you look up in the dictionary to see if it is even a real word you find out that it is a monetary unit of Iran. Now think back upon the story of the little girl. Now it starts to come together. With these steps you are building up your “spiritual money”, your Christlike attributes. Just as the little girl saved her real money for her bike. We can save our “spiritual money,” RIAL, to help us obtain salvation, and become even as Christ is.