How could you make the biggest impact for good on others that you possibly can? ⁣

It’s gotta be something big right?!⁣

A big event. ⁣

An elaborate service project⁣

A huge social media account. ⁣

Greatest good = tons of people, right?⁣

I want to flip the question a bit. ⁣

What things have made the biggest impact in YOUR life?⁣

Who has inspired you to live the gospel with integrity, and how did they inspire you?⁣

Who has taught you how to be kinder and more loving, and how did they teach it?⁣

For me, the answers to those questions are not big. ⁣

At least, they don’t look big. ⁣

They look like a text message sent at exactly the right moment. ⁣

They look like a leader who always lived the gospel with integrity.⁣

They look like someone teaching a lesson that they probably never got thanked for, but one phrase completely changed me. ⁣

Doing the greatest good seems to not look like large, grandiose gestures. ⁣

Doing the greatest good looks an awful lot like becoming a Christlike person who tries to do the little things that He would do. ⁣

So what’s the greatest good you could be doing right now?

It probably looks a lot like unthanked and overlooked service, love, and integrity that we will never fully see the impact of.

“And in doing these things thou wilt do the greatest good unto thy fellow beings.” (D&C 81:4)

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Greatest good  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Here’s the thing:

Asking “What would Jesus do?” is a GREAT question to guide our lives as Christians.

Jesus even taught:

“Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” (3 Nephi 27:27)

But… what do you do when you don’t know what Jesus would do in your exact situation?

The other day, my daughter did something that could potentially be dangerous.

I got on her level, calmly asked her to stop, and explained why she shouldn’t do that.

And then a minute later, she tried it again. ⁣

I told her to stop and she said, “No!”⁣

I picked her up and removed her from the dangerous situation.

When I placed her down, I said a little prayer in my heart, “What would Jesus do or say in this situation?”

Like, how exactly would Jesus react to a child who kept making a poor choice even if it looked fun to them? How would He react in the moment? How would He teach?

The quick answer that came to my mind wasn’t as clear as I wanted, but it still answered my question:

“You’ll learn. Just try your best right now.”

Life doesn’t always present scenarios where we choose to be either mean or nice.

Most of the time, there are shades of niceness and meanness and every other intent in between.

So how do we do what the Savior would do?

I think the key is to have the Spirit with us.

And then we just try to move forward the best we can with the information we have.

The Spirit can’t always tell us the exact answer in the moment.

(In fact, that would make things a bit too easy!)

But He can give us the next step to help us learn how to actually become more Christlike.

And what my daughter needs as a Christlike reaction might be very different than what another child needs.

I love that the Spirit is here to help us in the nitty gritty as we work through trial and error to figure out what Jesus would really do.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post What WOULD Jesus do?!  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

It will never fail us to not envy. ⁣

It will never fail us to not puff ourselves up with pride. ⁣

We won’t fail if we don’t anger easily.

We won’t fail if we don’t rejoice in doing iniquity. ⁣

We cannot fail if we rejoice in the truth.

Bear all things.

Believe all things.

Hope all things.

Endure all things. ⁣

“Charity never faileth” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

Charity, the true love of Christ, will never fail us.

And having charity will never fail those around us who we desperately hope to help.

Which parts of charity do you feel like are your strengths? ⁣

Which parts of charity are you working to cultivate right now?⁣

Paul’s teachings found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 are world-famous for good reason!

He gives us a literal checklist to work on to develop this elusive quality of “charity”. ⁣

How could we ever love purely in the way that Christ does? ⁣

How could we ever become truly Christlike?

By developing these qualities over a lifetime of trial, error, repentance, and refinement. ⁣

For when we have charity, or are working to develop charity, we cannot fail.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Charity never faileth first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

“There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.” (Acts 5:16)

If I hadn’t posted that this scripture was in the book of Acts, who would you have thought this was referring to?⁣

This man that people traveled from near and far to visit, with hopes of being healed?

And he healed them ALL?⁣

It sounds a lot like Jesus Christ. ⁣

But, surprise… it’s Peter! ⁣

Peter did EXACTLY what the Savior would have done if He was on the earth in that situation. ⁣

Food for thought:

Wouldn’t it be cool if someone described your actions, and others could identify it as being EXACTLY what the Savior would have done in that situation?

I think that’s a new goal of mine.

I’m not going to always get it right, of course.

Some descriptions of my actions will still totally be “me.”

But I think that as I study the Savior’s life more and more, I can have more moments where I’m right in sync with Jesus.

Just like Peter was.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Peter is described just like Jesus first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I think the adversary is super good at helping us get caught up in false benchmarks.

“Ugh, once I can actually stay up with the Come, Follow Me schedule, I’ll be okay.”

“I reach out to my ministering sisters once a month so I’m good.”

“If he serves a mission and gets married in the temple, then he’ll be fine.”

Building our own benchmarks.

Building our own tower, brick by brick.

While those are fine and worthy goals to have, those aren’t what save us or change us.

The people in Babel had their sights set on the wrong benchmark.

“Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven”. (Genesis 11:4)

We need to get closer to heaven? Okay, let’s build a big building to get there, and everything will be fine. God will bless us then.

It’s relying too much on our outward appearance to judge our closeness to the Savior.

So… what are your benchmarks to know if you are actually coming closer to Christ?

They probably don’t look too impressive from the outside.

Here are a few benchmarks that I’ve tried:

Benchmarks like… becoming slower and slower to anger.

Reacting with compassion when someone tells me a story instead of judgment.

Desiring more opportunities for service and honestly seeking them out.

Finding excuses to show love as often as possible.

Meeting outward benchmarks will never save us, just like the Tower of Babel didn’t save the citizens of Babel.

It’s what’s in the inside that matters, and that’s a little bit more difficult to achieve.

The post Benchmarks for heaven  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

How could you make the biggest impact for good on others that you possibly can?

It’s gotta be something big right?!

A big event.

An elaborate service project

A huge social media account.

Greatest good = tons of people, right?

I want to flip the question a bit.

What things have made the biggest impact in YOUR life?

Who has inspired you to live the gospel with integrity, and how did they inspire you?

Who has taught you how to be kinder and more loving, and how did they teach it?

For me, the answers to those questions are not big.

At least, they don’t look big.

They look like a text message sent at exactly the right moment.

They look like a leader who always lived the gospel with integrity.

They look like someone teaching a lesson that they probably never got thanked for, but one phrase completely changed me.

Doing the greatest good seems to not look like large, grandiose gestures.

Doing the greatest good looks an awful lot like becoming a Christlike person who tries to do the little things that He would do.

So what’s the greatest good you could be doing right now?

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post The greatest good first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Growing up, we are taught about the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do.

That’s what I’m teaching my little kids right now.

But somewhere along the way, I realized life is a whole lot messier than that.

Whether or not we serve others, attend the temple, or choose to be a good spouse are crazy complicated questions that have entire spectrums of choices we get to make each day!

Like… there are a lot of options for every single little thing.

In D&C 29:35, the Lord teaches:

“Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself” (meaning Adam).

Agency is the power that we have to become whoever we want to be.

In the million degrees of every aspect of life, we get to choose and work toward where we want to be.

How service-oriented, how kind, how educated, how devoted to a calling, how temple-loving, how patient…

We get to choose.

Not so much in a “big picture” kind of way (because I would totally choose to be awesome at every single one of those and more!)

But in the day-to-day interactions.

How much am I going to push, to get outside my comfort zone, to decide to become a little bit better person instead of staying as who I am?

That’s the real test of agency.

I can only imagine our Heavenly Parents watching us and seeing opportunity after opportunity pass by, and then cheering when we decide to move a step forward that day.

We aren’t going to reach the “best” in every area, or even come close.

But we can decide to use our agency to move that need forward just a tick every single day.

Agency is so important to our Heavenly Father that He allows so many people to use it terribly each and every day.

It is so so so important that we all choose exactly who we want to be.

So who am I choosing to be today? Where are my priorities and my heart?

Do I like the person I’m choosing to be?

Because agency gives me the power to become whoever I’d like to become.

And… I think I’d like to become just like my Savior.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post The overwhelm of agency first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Yesterday, my daughter did something, and I asked her to stop and explained why she shouldn’t do that.

And then a minute later, she tried it again.

I asked her to stop, and she said, “no!”

She usually has pretty good behavior for a two-year-old, so I was a little surprised.

I picked her up and removed her from the potentially dangerous situation, and while I placed her down, I said a little prayer in my heart:

“What would the Savior do in this situation?”

The quick answer that came to my mind?

“You’ll learn. Just try your best right now.”

I tried something. I think it worked okay. And then I hugged her and told her I loved her.

It wasn’t perfect.

I literally don’t know exactly how the Savior would respond in that situation.

I have ideas and options in my head, but I honestly just don’t know sometimes.

I’ve run into this exact situation a few times lately-

How can I be Christlike when I’m not even sure what being Christlike looks like in this situation?

How can we be men and women just as he was, when we don’t always know what that should look like?

First, I know I’ve learned that I need to be worthy to have the Spirit with me at all times.

Because I know the Spirit can teach me.

But secondly, the lesson I was taught again yesterday was that the Spirit is NOT going to show me exactly what to do every single time I ask.

Because… that’s the whole point.

I need to learn what is the most Christlike response.

And I’ve noticed that Christ didn’t always respond in the same way to everyone.

He tailored his responses and his actions to exactly what the person with whom he was interacting needed.

So the most Christlike response to my daughter’s defiance might look differently than the most Christlike response to someone else’s defiance.

But at the root of being Christlike is knowledge and love.

The more that I love someone, and the more that I learn about them, the better I am able to know what “Christlike” looks for them.

And that’s a long process.

So when I’m asked to be a woman with the same manner that our Savior had, I know that it will take love, knowledge, and a lifetime of learning to discover what exactly that looks like.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post For when we don’t know what Jesus would do first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I love getting these questions, and I have practical advice and tips to share.

But in many of the messages, I hear my own concerns from a few years ago echoing in their words:

“I would be so much more righteous if I could actually read my scriptures every day. God is probably disappointed that I can’t even get this right.”

In our church, reading the scriptures and praying every day are preached so often, that sometimes we mistakenly start to think that salvation comes through their repetition.

So I want you to think for a second:

WHY do YOU study the scriptures?

What’s your reason?

If it’s to fulfill your “righteousness checklist” for the day, then it might be helpful to look at the Anti-Nephi-Lehies’ example.

They kept the Law of Moses with exactness after their conversion. But…

“They did not suppose that salvation came by the law of Moses; but the law of Moses did serve to strengthen their faith in Christ”. Alma 25:16

THAT is why we are asked to read and pray every day.

Not because they will complete the checklist and get us into heaven.

But because those actions strengthen our faith in the Savior.

Those actions help us become more Christlike.

And that’s what God IS looking for.

People who try. People who are kind and caring. People who serve. People who have the desire to be a little bit better.

And our daily scripture study and prayers are powerful tools to help us make that mighty transformation.

So if you are caught up in the guilt of the checklist, try instead asking yourself, “What can I do today in order to become more Christlike?”

And I think you might more willingly place studying and praying at the top of your activity list.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Where does salvation come from? first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I’ve been a Ward Choir Director who waits for someone else to tell me what to do and when. And I’ve been a Ward Choir Director who makes decisions through the Spirit, gets approval from certain leaders, and moves forward with confidence and authority.

I’ve been a teacher who prepares my lesson, comes to church, and teaches it. And I’ve been a teacher who gets to know the youth that I teach, tailors lessons to their needs, and follows the Spirit with how to conduct my classes.

I’ve been a presidency member who shows up to meetings and completes assignments. And I’ve been a presidency member who seeks revelation about what I contribute, takes initiative instead of waiting to be instructed, and connects with the people I serve.

Why does it matter if I’m the former or the latter example for each calling?

Absolutely, connecting with others and building up my ward family is so important.

But honestly, if my Heavenly Father needs to get a message to a 13-year-old sitting in my class, and I’m not accessing the Spirit and authority that I have, He will just find someone else to deliver the message who is more in-tune.

At the end of the day, my church callings are about my Heavenly Father and me.

Am I going to learn, as Jacob teaches, how to magnify and take responsibility?

Am I going to learn that when I am set apart for a calling, I am given priesthood authority to act?

Am I going to learn that I can still show love to imperfect people that I interact with?

Am I going to learn that I can ALWAYS choose to be Christlike, no matter the limitations I face?

The lessons I can learn are endless.

And sometimes, the lesson is that it’s okay to scale back and focus on myself for a bit.

When I look at church callings through the lens of my personal relationship with my Savior, I keep everything in perspective a little better. The frustrations, limitations and exhaustion don’t matter as much, and I seem to make better decisions on how to fulfill my assignments appropriately.

How do I use every opportunity that I can in order to be a little bit better? A little bit more Christlike?

And whenever I become more Christlike, I am magnifying my calling, no matter what it may, or may not, be.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Magnifying with Christ first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.