Elizabeth Nielson: This is the Prosper Stronger Podcast, a community where LDS women gather to cultivate covenant connections and strive to be devoted disciples of Jesus Christ.
Hi and welcome to the Prosper Stronger Podcast. Today, I get to share with you a little bit about my experience in speaking in sacrament meeting.
I was asked last week if I would fill in for somebody that couldn't make it. And I was given the topic of 1st John 4, verses 18 and 19. And this is one that is really pretty well known and really short actually. So the topic or the verses are, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." And then verse 19, "We love him because he first loved us."
Now when I first read this, I thought, oh, easy, no problem. But as I started studying and researching the context around these two verses, my mind was blown away. My eyes were opened and I came to love 1st John like I have never even felt before. I had no idea of the mastery of what was in this book of scripture.
And it was really amazing to be able to study it in the depth that I did and had the opportunity to do this past week. And at first I thought, oh, I know what this is. I know perfect love. That's the love of God. That's charity. That is the pure love of Christ.
And yes, that is part of it, but there's actually so much more in these small verses, these short verses. There is an entire sermon. It's been amazing to have the opportunity to study it. And one of the first things that I did was I went to my Gospel Library and I went to General Conferences and looked at topics and just started listening to and looking up talks about love, especially the love of God or perfect love.
And what was interesting to me is that the first one opened up with a quote about Heavenly Father's plan. And then the second one I went to, same thing, and the third one, and the fourth one, and the fifth one. So I want to share with you one of the first ones.
This is from D. Todd Christofferson's talk called "The Love of God", and he gave this in October 2021. This is his opening paragraph. He says,
"Our Heavenly Father loves us profoundly and perfectly. In His love, He created a plan of redemption and happiness, to open to us all the opportunities and joys we are willing to receive, up to and including all that He has and is. To achieve this, He was even willing to offer His beloved son, Jesus Christ, as our Redeemer. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. His is a Father's pure love, universal to all, yet personal to each. And Jesus Christ shares with the Father this same perfect love."
Wow, what a powerful quote. What a powerful opening. And it opened my eyes and my mind to think about perfect love in a different way. And the more that I studied it, the more that I realized that the perfect love John is referring to here is not just the love of Jesus Christ. It's not just charity, but before that piece of it, it is the love of our Heavenly Father and His desire for us to return to Him, to return back. To His presence, to dwell with him and abide with him forever.
Which of course ties in with the idea of prosper stronger to prosperous, to be in his presence, to have His presence with us. So I was all excited about this. I thought, wow, this is great. What a new perspective on this and maybe I'm just focusing on it a lot, but I just feel like all these messages are saying from our Father in Heaven.
"You are my child. Please come back to me. I love you. I want you. I'm giving you everything you need. Please choose me. Please choose to come back."
And as I say that, I worry maybe some people think, oh, all He cares about is him. That's not it at all. As a matter of fact, President Uchtdorf gave a talk also entitled "The Love of God", and this was given in 2009. And what he said was, this is a quote from it.
" God the Eternal Father did not give that first great commandment, or the commandment to love Him, because He needs us to love Him. His power and glory are not diminished should we disregard, deny, or even defile His name. His influence and dominion extend through time and space, independent of our acceptance and approval or admiration. No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God. For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. And what we think and do determines who we are and who we will become."
Isn't that a beautiful concept, that God gives us His love. It cannot be taken away, but in return, He asks for or commands us to love Him, not for Him, but for us. We live in a world that is full of challenges. We live in a world that is full of confusion and distractions and deceptions and there's anger and emotion. There's a lot of struggle in our world and there is a lot of fear.
So I started off my talk by asking this question, what is it that you fear? And I want you to think about that for a minute.
I believe in one of my previous podcasts, I talked about how I find that too often I'm acting out of fear instead of faith and that I have been trying this last year in particular to recognize when I'm acting out of fear and I've been asking the Lord to help me. To open my eyes to see that, to see when I am acting out of fear.
So what is it that you fear? I actually fear quite a few things. And one of them today was, there was a musical number just before I spoke and it was a young woman in our ward who did a beautiful job on a piano solo. And honestly, I fear playing the piano in public. I can play it myself in private and in front of family and as long as there's no pressure.
But even since I was a child and a youth, as soon as I was playing for a performance, it was like my fingers would just freeze. They would go rock, like rigid, rock solid. And I just, couldn't do it. It is something I fear, but that's, we are normal, we all have different fears like that. As a matter of fact, I looked up what are some of the most common fears and the fear of public speaking, though not in the top five was a relatively common one.
Another one was the fear of spiders. Not surprising. I don't like spiders. I know there are some people that really do, but I don't know if I know them personally. Everybody in my family, at least all my children don't like spiders. And so it, it's common. These are common fears.
And why do we fear it? I think that's my question is why are we afraid? And I thought, I think a lot of those come down to fearing failure, fearing what other people will think of me. And fearing that I won't be accepted. And that is actually number three on the top five of fears is fear of failure.
The top fear, at least from the Google search I did, was the fear of death. And then number two was the fear of being abandoned. And as I think about that, I'm like, that's the fear of being alone, of not being loved perhaps. So death, abandonment, failure.
Number four was. The fear of loss of identity, interesting, so interesting to me because I think our identity is huge. Knowing our identity and knowing who we are is such a big foundation, such an important foundation for each and everyone of us. And so to lose our identity, it's a big fear, it's a big deal.
And then the fifth one is loss of meaning and purpose. I don't know if you've ever felt that. I have had times when I've wondered, do I even matter? Is there a work for me to do? What is it? Why am I here? What does God need me to do? And I think we all at times experience some of these fears, but the thing that's so beautiful is again, the verse says there is no fear in love. And as you look at the footnote there for that word love, it actually points us to the Topical Guide to family, to love within a family.
And that made me think, it's like, huh, there is no fear in love. There's no fear in having love within a family. And isn't that interesting how that ties into Heavenly Father's plan? Because we are all part of His family. We are all part of the family of God because we are all His sons and daughters where we belong to Him and He wants us back.
So there's no fear because we can be with Him. We don't need to fear abandonment because we belong with Him.
This last weekend was Thanksgiving, and for the first time in several years, I actually had all of my children home for four days. That has not happened in at least two, maybe two and a half years.
And I know that doesn't seem like a long time, but since it was only four and a half years ago that they started to leave home. Having two years without them felt like a long time. And so as a mother, it was such a treat for me to have all of my children home and my daughter-in-law too. That was the best part.
The food was good, but it really didn't matter that much. The activities were fun, but the value in them was spending time with my family. Just being able to be around each other to have our home filled again with those who belong here with my husband and my children and my family and then our extended family my brother and his wife and Seeing my other brother and his wife and there were other brothers We were missing but my dad my stepmom to have family with us. We all know how important that is and how it fills our hearts and our souls when we have healthy loving relationships with our family members.
And even when we don't, because sometimes we don't, we still long for those. There is a yearning for those relationships to be made whole, to be loving, to be made strong and secure. And so as I thought about that, that it was interesting that the use of love referred to family. There is no fear in love within a family.
And I don't know about you, but when I'm around my family, I feel like I can just be myself. And that's a great feeling. I can stop having to always be, quote, "on". I can relax. I can put my feet up if I want to. I can wear my comfy clothes and that's okay. I can go without makeup and that's okay too. And if I don't feel like I can do an entire meal, I could say, hey guys, we're not having a whole meal today.
We're going to pull out some other snacks and everybody help out. I can be myself and that's a safe place to be. And I think that's part of what's beautiful about this idea of perfect love. It's a Heavenly Father, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows who we were before we came. He knows our potential. He knows what we can become, and He knows that we all, each and everyone of us, have the capacity to become like Him and to receive everything that He has promised us, everything that He has made available to us. President Uchtdorf, well, I say president because he gave this talk when he was in the first presidency, but he goes, he says.
"Heavenly Father offers to His children the promise of a glorious and infinite existence and has provided a way for us to progress in knowledge and glory until we receive a fullness of joy. He has promised us all that He hath, all that He hath. If all that is not enough reason to love our Heavenly Father, perhaps we can learn from the words of the Apostle John who said, We love him because he first loved us."
So we know what He has offered to us is all, is everything. And every single one of His children, you, me, everyone you know, has the divine capacity to receive all that the Heavenly Father has offered to us and become like Him.
So then, what do we do with this knowledge? What do we do with this idea of perfect love? The perfect love, as I mentioned before, is the Great Plan of Happiness. The Great Plan of Salvation that comes from our perfectly loving Father in Heaven who wants us to return to live with Him forever. And become and be all that He is and all that He has and be our very best version of ourselves.
That's the first part. The second part of perfect love is the atonement of Jesus Christ, that our Heavenly Father, because He loves us. He sent his son to atone for our sins, to make it possible for us to return to live with Him again, that through the Savior, we can be resurrected and redeemed. And that takes care of the first fear, death, because of our Savior.
As Alma teaches us, we can be rescued. He has overcome both physical death through resurrection and spiritual death through redemption when we choose to repent. So we no longer need to fear death. He has overcome. That fear through His perfect love.
So then what is our part in being made perfect through his love?
In the verses that I shared with you, verse 18, it goes on to say he that feareth is not made perfect in love. So that got me thinking. So what does it mean to be made perfect in love? And I think that's different than perfect love, right? So there's so much contained in here, and I will say that in 1st John. The entire sermon, the entire book talks about this and teaches us so much and gives us so much greater context. In chapter three, verses 20 through 24, it teaches us that our love is perfect. When we choose to align our will and our heart with God, and then through the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be made perfect in Him, through Him. And then our love is made perfect.
So we can love as Christ loves. We can pray for charity. We can pray with all the energy of our heart, like Moroni tells us, that we may be filled with this love. And when I have done that, I have felt the power of it. I honestly sometimes don't even have words to explain. I wish I could remember to pray for all the things that I need help with everyday, like praying for charity, praying for forgiveness, praying to see God's hand, praying to see the joy, praying to know how to better keep my covenants.
The list could go on and on, but I have at times taken and focused on one of those things and multiple times it has been charity. And every time I sincerely and honestly pray with all the energy of my heart that I will be filled with the pure love of Christ. With charity, my days are different, my thoughts are different, my actions are different.
I did this actually about eight days ago, and I knew I had a really busy day. There was not a lot of extra time, but I knew that I needed to feel His love more fully in my life. I needed to be able to serve, and throughout the day. The Spirit prompted me to do a lot of little things and most of it honestly was texting.
I had not expected that. I thought it would be, dropping something off here or calling a friend or delivering something like making a meal and delivering it or, a little bit more active involvement. And yet it was a bunch of different texts to multiple friends, many of whom I hadn't thought of or communicated with in months and some even over a year.
But throughout the day, I just had these little impressions like you should just send a text to this friend and then an idea of what the text should say. And most of the time they were very simple. So I acted on the first one and then a little while later felt the prompting to send a text to another friend.
And later another, and it kept going until at the end of the day I realized that He had directed me to text eight friends that I had not thought of previously that would need a friend or a text. But their responses showed that Heavenly Father was aware of them. And that He loved them and that he was willing to let me be an instrument in his hands simply because I asked and I showed Him that I was willing.
So this points actually to another quote from President Uchtdorf from October 2009, where he said,
"Since God is love. The closer we approach Him, the more profoundly we experience love."
So the closer we are to Christ, the more we do to draw near to Him, the more we can feel His love, and the more we can be instruments in His hands of spreading that love to others around us.
But I also know, based on my study in this last week, that as we do we align our hearts with His. And that is what we learn in 1 John chapter 3, verse 20 to 24. Like I mentioned before, he says, and he's been talking about how God loves us because he sent His son. And because He sent his son, what can we do? What do we need to do? Because I think there's two parts to perfect love. The first is God's love for us, but the second is our love for Him. So what do we do? And he says,
"Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." And he goes on to say, "for if our heart to condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Beloved", so this is John speaking to the other disciples and to us, beloved, "if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God and whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment."
So this is interesting because throughout John, and I haven't counted, I've wanted to count, but I haven't done it. He is telling us what do we need to do? What we need to keep His commandments. If you love me, keep my commandments. And he says it over and over again in a multitude of different ways. I actually mark them here on my paper. I've got my research paper here with all these scriptures and notes and about every other one says.
And hereby we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandment. Who so keepeth His word in Him barely is the love of God perfected. Hereby we know that we are in Him. And on he goes on to say, "and this is his commandment." So he's telling us we need to keep his commandments. Okay. So is there a long list of commandments?
What is it we need to do? I always, when I hear the word commandment, I also add in covenant because I believe that keeping our covenants. It's a stronger, more powerful way for me to think about it. It helps me lean into it more. So I do that. I think about it. The commandment and covenants are hand in hand. But John says, "this is His commandment. First that we should believe in the name of His son, Jesus Christ. And second, that we love one another."
And so we can feel God's love as we think about and learn about His plan and as we learn about and follow and trust and apply the atonement of Jesus Christ. But the question that we are being asked by God, and by D. Todd Christofferson, is, says this, in acknowledging that God loves us perfectly, we might each ask, how well do I love God? So the question is, are we still willing? Like the talk from elder Kevin W. Pearson that he gave in October 2022, in it he says,
"Mortality, by divine design, is not easy and at times can be overwhelming. However, we are that we might have joy. Focusing on our Savior and our covenants brings lasting joy."
So there it is again. I just keep finding this word joy tied to keeping the covenants, keeping the commandments of God. The purpose of mortality is to prove our willingness. Quote, this is from Elder President, Ezra Taft Bent said,
"The great task of life and the cost of discipleship is to learn the will of the Lord and then do it."
True discipleship leads to a fullness of joy. Are we willing to pay the price of discipleship? Are we willing to show God that we truly love Him? Then he goes on. "The covenant path is not a simple checklist. It is a process of spiritual growth and deepening commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. The central purpose of every commandment, principle, covenant, and ordinance is to build faith and trust in Christ. Our determination to center our lives on Christ, therefore, must be consistent, not conditional. Situational or superficial. We cannot afford to take vacation days or personal time off from our willingness to quote, stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places end quote. Discipleship is not cheap because the companionship of the Holy Ghost is priceless."
I love this talk. I love this idea of the price of discipleship, the cost of discipleship. Are we willing to pay that price? Are we willing to show God that we truly love Him by keeping His commandment, by choosing to believe and follow and covenant with Jesus Christ and by loving one another.
Elder D. Todd Christofferson also tells us that "the love of the father and the son is freely given. We know this." This is me, not Elder Joseph Christofferson. "We know this. His love is free to us, and it will not change. Nothing can separate us from the love of God." He loves us. He loves you, no matter what you've done, no matter what you fear, no matter what you think. He loves you freely and always.
Then Elder Christofferson continues, "The love of the Father and the Son is freely given, but also includes hopes and expectations." Then he quotes President Nelson saying, "God's laws are motivated entirely by His infinite love for us."
So His laws are tied to love. And he gave a great talk on this that we'll have to talk about another day. But going on with his quote, "God's laws are motivated entirely by His infinite love for us and His desire for us to become all we can become." And I would add there, His desire for us to return home, to live and dwell with him again for eternity.
Then, D. Todd Christofferson continues, "Because Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you, they do not want to leave you just as you are. Because they love you, they want you to have joy and success. Because they love you, they want you to repent because that is a path to happiness." And he goes on to say, "Our Father and our Redeemer have blessed us with commandments. They are blessings. And in obeying their commandments, we feel their perfect love more fully and more profoundly."
So obeying his commandments is one piece of showing our love, one piece of perfect love. And again, it leads to, as we draw near to Him, as we seek to become more like Him, we can feel and experience a greater portion of their perfect love.
So then what else does it mean to love perfectly? What does it mean to love one another? And this one is a challenge because in our world today, what we're being told is if you love someone, you just let them do whatever they want to do. And you don't try to teach them or correct them or guide them. You just simply accept and even celebrate their choices, even if those choices are not in alignment with God's commandments.
And this is a struggle. This is hard. It's a confusing world. And as I've thought about this a lot, because why is it that when things happen and we see our friends and neighbors or family members cheering others on or supporting others. It's hard to distinguish, is that God's love? How do we do it? How do we show God's love for those who are making choices that are not aligned with his commandment? How do we express that love?
And I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to study this because something for a long time has not sat well with me. And it's hard because in our world, if we don't say and do things the way the world wants us to say and do them, then we are labeled as not being loving. And that's not true.
It is false.
And I don't want to call out anybody in particular, and myself as well, because we all are in different circumstances. But there are those who, let me just say for an example, my husband, as I've mentioned, chose to leave the church 18 years ago. He chose to leave his covenants and he has since chosen to not believe in God anymore.
And sometimes when I've been teaching or talking with others, I say things like in my own life, I have to put forth the effort to invite more light into not only my soul, into my own life, but into my home. I have to make an added effort to increase the amount of light that is available to us here. And I think it brings protection. Because there is darkness dwelling with us.
Now, I have had people come up to me and say, your husband is not evil. You can't say darkness. That is wrong. You need to love him. And I've thought a lot about that and really, I think that's the misuse of love. Because When someone turns and starts to distance themselves from God, they are choosing to distance themselves from His love, but also if they have made covenants they are turning their back on God, and we know that means that they are therefore under the influence of the power of Satan, and he is the Prince of Darkness.
So I'm not saying that my husband is evil. I am not saying that, and hear me now. I am not saying that. He has a good heart and he does such good things and he does so much great work and service for our family and he strives to be a good dad and to be a good husband. But he is missing the light and love and truth that Jesus Christ offers. He is missing that influence in his life.
So that is just one example of how in our effort to love others, it can be misconstrued in our world. And Jeffrey R. Holland actually teaches us that we need to distinguish, that we need to be more careful.
He said, "Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget, that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin, which he had an infinite capacity to do, and the warning against condoning it, which he never ever did even once." And then he goes on to say, "As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld His love from anyone, but He also never once said to anyone, because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments."
So it is to us to learn what it means to love, especially when we are loving those who have chosen to turn away from God. It is our choice whether or not. We come unto Him and it is our choice to learn how to love. In my own circumstances I have had experiences on several occasions where I have not known how to love those close to me.
And those that are acquaintances who have taken different paths, who have made different choices, and I have had to seek help. And I believe this is part of why Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are united, why we have each one of them in the Godhead, and why President Nelson is pleading with us to learn how to receive personal revelation and to strengthen our relationship with the Holy Ghost.
Because in my effort to learn how to show love in meaningful ways, but that also align with the commandments of God and help me keep my covenants. That in reaching out to the Holy Ghost and seeking direction to personal revelation, I have received direct specific answers for me and for those that I'm concerned about.
One day it was for my son and I didn't know how to reach him. And as I studied and as I prayed in the morning, a phrase came to me and then the thought came say this to your son throughout the day. And the first thought was to say it to him every hour, but he was attending school. I couldn't get to him every hour.
But by the end of the day, I think I had said it to him and I had texted it to him at least five or six times, maybe more. And it got to the point by the evening that I would start saying it and he would start to laugh because he was like, why is mom doing this? And it was something very simple.
It was really just saying that he was awesome and I loved him, but saying it the same way every time and doing it with intention made all the difference and doing it with the power of God. Knowing that Christ was sharing part of his perfect love for my son through me as I made this statement to him over and over again, that power came through and I believe it touched his heart. And at the end of the day, we had a sweet experience together.
That's just one time. I've had even more powerful experiences than that. And I wish I could say I have them everyday, but I don't, but I do have them. So I know that Heavenly Father will help us know how to love others. And it goes beyond just taking a meal or sending a text. Whatever it is, He will help us.
Some days it is a text. Some days it is a mill, some days it's hard, and it's big love, and it takes a lot from us. Like the story of Corrie Ten Boom, where she had to forgive the guard who came up to her after she spoke, and how she prayed and needed help, and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ sent their love into her, to him, so that even though perhaps she couldn't feel love for him. She could feel their love for him and extend that to him. I believe sometimes that is what is required of us.
And another thing to remember is that we are not their judge. I had another experience with this where I felt like I started to judge my husband thinking he wasn't worthy of God's love. And that was wrong.
And as I sat in the temple one day. It became very clear and I was chastened and I was taught that it is not my role to judge. That role belongs to the Savior, to Jesus Christ. And He alone will make that judgment. But my role is to love and not to judge anyone's worthiness or qualification. So it's a challenge.
It's hard. It's hard to know how to love. It's hard to know how to love without making that kind of a judgment. And I appreciate what Elder D. Todd Christofferson shared in his talk, "The Love of God", because I struggled with this. I was like, how am I supposed to love and do it in a way that extends God's love? And yet they are making choices that pull them away from His love.
And they, their argument is that his love should be unconditional and they should be able to do whatever they want. And so I really appreciated Elder Christofferson's quote here. He said, "because God's love is all embracing, some speak of it as unconditional. And in their minds, they may project that thought to mean that God's blessings are unconditional, and that salvation is unconditional. They are not. Some will want to say, the Savior loves me just as I am. And that is certainly true. But He cannot take any of us into His kingdom just as we are. For no unclean thing can dwell there or dwell in his presence. Our sins must first be resolved."
And I love that clarification because I knew that the word, the way they were using unconditional wasn't right. It didn't work. It didn't follow God's laws. It didn't follow the gospel. He does love us forever and always, but He cannot allow us into his kingdom if we are unclean.
And Elder Christofferson says, "it is our choice. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ honor our agency. You must choose to love them, to serve them, to keep their commandments. Then and only then can they more abundantly bless you as well as love you. And then and only then. Can you be made perfect in their love? Can you then come to dwell in perfect love forever in the Celestial Kingdom with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and other loved ones who have made the same choice to come and abide with them?"
And so I submit to you that if we truly love one another, then we will strive to lead them to Christ. We will strive to live and be examples in our actions and our words so that if people see us, they will want to know Christ.
I've thought about that a lot. I can't remember exactly how they say it, but it's something like, would someone want to know Christ better because they know me? And I asked myself that a lot. I hope that's true. I hope by what I do, other people will be drawn to Christ. That I can be an example. I'm not perfect, not even close, but I hope by my kindness, I hope by staying true to my standards, I hope by keeping my covenants, I can be an example that will help others see the path back to Him and desire to come and join the covenant path and join us and come into Christ.
That's truly what He desires. That is loving one another. And we also know it from Elder Ringwood, from a talk entitled, "For God So Loved Us", from April 2022. He said, "Why does Heavenly Father's personalized plan for us include helping others return to Him? Because this is how we become like Jesus Christ."
That was the entire mission of Jesus Christ, was to enable us to return to Him. He is the way for us to return to our Father. That is His mission, to save God's children, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of all of God's children. So if we are to become like Him, like Christ, then to truly love someone is to help them return to Christ. Help them love Christ. Help them come to Him. Help them follow Him. Help them on the covenant path. Help them draw nearer to the Savior. Draw nearer to the Heavenly Father so that they can feel and experience God's perfect love for them and qualify to be able to experience it forever and ever.
We know this from President Nelson. He says, "I love you. I assure you that our Heavenly Father and his beloved son, Jesus Christ, love you. They are intimately aware of your circumstances, your goodness, your needs, and your prayers for help. Again and again, I pray for you to feel their love for you. Experiencing their love is vital."
I actually love that he uses the word vital because as a doctor, I'm quite sure that he knows what that means. And I know that I have prayed and prayed for my loved ones who are struggling that they might feel the love of God. And I pray that you too might feel God's love as you choose to draw nearer to Him, as you choose to more fully keep His commandments, make and keep and honor your covenants and Love others as He loves them, as He desires you to love them.
Love them in a way that will point them back to Him. Love them in a way that will lead to them being with you and with Him for the eternities. I have been so blessed to study 1 John this last week. To have a greater understanding and appreciation of what God's perfect love truly is. And I know that it does cast out fear, the fear of death, the fear of abandonment, because we are never alone with Christ, and He will never fail us.
We belong with Him and with our Heavenly parents. We need not fear failure, because through Christ, we can be made perfect, and we can always feel His love. We need not fear the loss of our identity, because we know who we are. He has taught us this over and over and over.
He told Abraham and Moses and Enoch and Joseph Smith and so many more. You are my son. He called them by name. He has called me by name and He calls you by name. You are His daughter. You are His son. You are an heir to His kingdom if you choose to receive His love. If you choose to accept that honor and that role, you need not worry about your identity. It was given to you and nothing will ever change that.
Just as my daughter and my son, or I should say my daughters and my sons will always be my daughters and my sons. Nothing will ever take that away. There is nothing that will change the fact that my husband and I are the earthly parents, physical parents of our children. They belong to us and we belong to them.
And because of the great plan of happiness, the great Plan of Salvation that Heavenly Father made and created for us, because He loves us, we do not need to fear the loss of meaning and purpose in our lives. We do not need to fear because in love there is no fear.
Because we can be made perfect in Christ. We can experience His perfect love. And we can, as John tells us, that God is love, and He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, that we may be able to stand before Him with our hearts pure. That our hearts will not condemn us, that we may be able to abide with Him forever and dwell with Him forever. And their promise is that they will dwell with us and abide with us.
And we know from Elder Bednar and Elder Holland that to abide means to stay forever. It's a permanent relationship. This is what is available to us.
We can be made perfect. And we can experience His perfect love forever, here, while on earth, and throughout the eternities. This I know to be true. I pray that you may seek to feel His love more fully in your life this week and in the coming days, and that you also might pray for charity to know how to extend that love to those that might be difficult to love, so that we together can help gather His children and bring them home to Him, and we might all. Be joyful together that we might all prosper stronger together is my hope and my wish.
And I invite you to study 1st John, it's amazing. It's beautiful. And I also think it ties perfectly to all the present Nelson has been teaching us, especially his "Think Celestial" talk from October, 2023 from the conference we just had.
I know He loves you. I feel that love for you. I know it's perfect and we can be perfect in Him.
If you would like to have an experience with knowing and feeling his love more fully, I invite you to go to ProsperStronger.com and download the free guide for personal revelation. It comes directly from President Nelson, Sister Wendy Watson Nelson, and Elder Richard G. Scott and others. And it's an exercise that I do frequently. And every time I do, I feel His love. And I filled his love for those around me. So it's free. His love is free. I hope you go and choose to receive it. Have a great day.
Thank you for joining the Prosper Stronger podcast today. We hope that you have felt inspired and empowered. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast and share it with your friends and family. I also invite you to join me at ProsperStronger.com where you will find free resources to help you grow and learn, as well as join in our discussions where we go deeper into some of the things that we talk about here on our podcast.
Remember that you are loved and cherished by Heavenly Father who wants you to prosper and thrive. Until next time, may you continue to cultivate covenant connections with God, with others, and with yourself, and find strength in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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