I used to think one of the biggest lessons to learn in life is how to be self-confident.
How to walk into a room and not worry about who you are going to sit by— just sitting down and knowing you’ll be fine no matter what.
How to make decisions and feel confident about them.
How to plan events and host.
And it’s not like these things aren’t important…
Being confident has blessed my life in many ways.
But I’ve recently been starting to get a glimpse of something much more important.
Love and service.
Walking into a room and looking for someone I could sit next to who might need a friend.
Not always making the most efficient decisions because they would leave some people out.
Hosting in a way that I’m still able to connect with others, and not in self-serving ways.
With this idea sitting in my mind a lot recently, I couldn’t help but see a new perspective to this pretty popular verse:
“For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.” D&C 128:15
Why can’t we be perfect without performing proxy ordinances for every single person who has ever existed?
Because that is the loving and compassionate thing to do.
It isn’t enough to just be righteous and confident people who keep to ourselves.
It isn’t enough to just worry about ourselves.
Why?
Because Jesus isn’t just worried about Himself.
So if we are asked to become like Jesus…
Then we can’t just worry about “our own salvation”.
Because “our own salvation” requires us to become Christlike.
Which means we are filled with so much compassion and love that we HAVE to, no, we WANT to do the work for absolutely everyone else.
We would never be content with just our own perfection.
Because Christ isn’t content just with His.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
