Sunday Morning Session
“I Am He”
Excerpts
Down through history many have simplified, even trivialized our image of [Jesus Christ] and His witness of who He was. They have reduced His righteousness to mere prudishness, His justice to mere anger, His mercy to mere permissiveness. We must not be guilty of such simplistic versions of Him that conveniently ignore teachings we find uncomfortable. This “dumbing down” has been true even regarding His ultimate defining virtue, His love.
During His mortal mission, Jesus taught that there were two great commandments. … “Love the Lord thy God [and] love thy neighbour as thyself.” If we are to follow the Savior faithfully in these two crucial and inextricably linked rules, we ought to hold firmly to what He actually said. And what He actually said was, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” On that same evening, He said we were to “love one another; as I have loved you.” …
… How did Jesus love?
First, He loved with “all [of His] heart, might, mind and strength,” giving Him the ability to heal the deepest pain and declare the hardest reality. …
The second characteristic of Jesus’s divine charity was His obedience to every word that proceeded from God’s mouth, always aligning His will and behavior with that of His Heavenly Father. …
… When we stand before Him and see the wounds in His hands and feet, we will begin to comprehend what it meant for Him to be to bear our sins and be acquainted with grief, to be completely obedient to the Father—all out of pure love for us.