The Charity Challenge

The greatest commandment is to love God. He has said the way to love him is to love others. “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (KJV Matt. 25:40) ” When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” (BOM Mosiah 2:17)

Keeping all the commandments is good, but all that hard work will be for not if we do not possess the pure love of Christ. In the Book of Mormon, Moroni 7:46-47 states, “My beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth…But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever.”

The prophet Mormon warns us that if we are not charitable, we are living a purposeless life. All our other goals and missions in life will fail in the end. Only our charity will endure and stand as our witness at the Judgment Bar.

Let’s try a little exercise: write down your own definition of charity, without using the words “pure love of Christ” and NO DICTIONARY! Ready? Go!

Hard isn’t it? You might put down some words like mine, “devotion to servicing others”. It’s close, but still missing the mark.

The purpose of this exercise is to get you thinking about what charity means and how you can get it. Because, without it, well, we’re nothing.

Mormon also gives us the formula for attaining charity. “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love,…that when he shall appear we shall be like him,…that we may be purified even as he is pure.” (BOM Moroni 7:48)

The Charity Challenge is to ask myself every day: “Have I done any good in the world today? [Have I prayed for charity?]…If not, I have failed indeed.” – “Have I Done Any Good” (#223, HYMNS of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints)