Dressing up nicely?

Caring for the things that we own?⁣

These are the questions that swirl in my head when I read Mormon 8:37:⁣

“Ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel…”⁣

The remainder of verse 37 seems to have the answer, though.⁣

“MORE THAN ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.”⁣

What do we love MORE?

Looking great and making lots of money? ⁣

Or caring for the less-fortunate around us?⁣

As with almost every gospel principle, it’s a subject that’s difficult to judge from the outside, looking at others.⁣

(Actually, it’s pretty easy to judge other people about this, but very difficult to ACCURATELY judge, no matter how well we know them.)⁣

There are wealthy people with beautiful homes who open up their house for every occasion, give generously, and love the Lord. ⁣

And there are wealthy people who let their abundance turn into fulfilling selfish desires and stinginess.

There are people who love enhancing their beauty with makeup and cute clothes, but aren’t afraid to get dirty in the name of service, or donate items they no longer need.⁣

And there are people who let their pride keep them from being seen in ways that wouldn’t keep up with their appearance.⁣

It’s okay to seek for a better-paying job in order to create financial stability, to buy new clothes that help you feel amazing, to enjoy your latest gadget that you saved up for…⁣

But it’s when these things become MORE THAN our love for God and our fellow man, that we can’t possibly imagine living without them, that we lose our gratitude and humility…⁣

That’s when they become sins.⁣

So what can we control?

It actually doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account, or how many clothes are in your closet, in order to fall victim to LOVING them more than God and others.⁣

Which makes this a beautiful month to use our gratitude to reflect on what we’ve been given from God, and how we can use however little or however much we’ve been given in order to build up the kingdom of God.

Make sure we can always confidently say that we love God more.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Which do we love more?  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Now, after coming back from Disneyland I think it actually is a really interesting question to ponder.

I’ve heard many people say something along the lines of:

“Having lots of money just makes you more of who you already are.”

And I think I agree with this.

If you are just barely scraping by financially right now, but you still pay your tithing and help a neighbor out when they need a meal, then you would likely be a wealthy person who still pays their tithing and is able to help out people in much more dramatic ways.

And if you are living well right now, but stingy with giving away any money, then it’s probably likely that you would find reasons to be stingy with your money when you had a lot of it, too.

The Lord says something along the same lines in D&C 56:16-17:

“Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls….

“Wo unto you poor men, whose hearts are not broken, whose spirits are not contrite”.

So, if both the rich and the poor are getting warnings from the Lord here, what can we do to make sure we are doing as we should?

The Lord answers that in verse 18:

The “pure in heart, whose hearts are broken, and whose spirits are contrite”.

In other words, we need to have a soft heart!

If our hearts are broken and humbled before the Lord, then it doesn’t matter what our bank account looks like.

Rich and poor people can be prideful with hardened hearts.

And rich and poor people can be humbled, with soft hearts.

The status of our bank account doesn’t matter nearly as much as the status of our heart.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Rich and poor, pure in heart first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.