Digital Only: Young Adults
3 Study Topics to Connect You to Christ This Christmas
Do you want a more personal connection to Christ this Christmas season? Here are some topics to study.
I could feel the spirit of Christmas in the air as December came closer. With all the presents, commercials, music, and celebrations, I didn’t want to be distracted. I hoped to find peace in focusing on the reason for the season.
Don’t we all want that?
Here are three topics I studied that helped me feel closer to the Savior at Christmastime. Maybe they can help you too.
1. The Atonement of Jesus Christ
It is easy for me to celebrate the birth of Christ. But as I studied “The Living Christ,” it expanded my focus from His birth to His whole life and ministry. Shifting my focus helped me find the peace I was looking for.
President Russell M. Nelson has said, “We revere the Babe of Bethlehem precisely because He later offered the incomprehensible, infinite sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary.”
The Christmas story of baby Jesus being born in Bethlehem is only the beginning of the greatest story ever told and the greatest act of love ever given.
In the Book of Mormon, Alma said that Christ “will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:12).
Because Jesus Christ “descended below all things,” He knows exactly what we are going through and how to help us (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6). Studying His Atonement and what that means for you personally can help you deepen your relationship with Him during this sacred season.
2. Temple Work
President Nelson has also invited us to “talk about the temple with your family and friends. Because Jesus Christ is at the center of everything we do in the temple, as you think more about the temple you will be thinking more about Him.”
What better way to learn more about Jesus Christ and remember Him during the holiday season than pondering our temple covenants and worshipping inside His house? Even if you don’t live near a temple, you can still study and talk about the significance of the temple with your family and friends. As you do, you can reflect on how your covenants—and everything in the temple—connect us to Jesus Christ.
Earlier this year President Nelson encouraged us to study Doctrine and Covenants 109, which is “Joseph Smith’s dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple.” He taught that this prayer is “a tutorial about how the temple spiritually empowers you and me to meet the challenges of life in these last days.” Studying and pondering this section can help you gain a greater understanding of how the temple connects us to the Savior.
3. Hope
The new star was a symbol of hope—hope in the Savior and what He would do for all mankind.
The prophet Mormon asked, “What is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal” (Moroni 7:41).
Because Jesus Christ suffered for each of us personally, He is the greatest source of hope for each of us individually. We learn that it is through and because of Him that we can “hope for a better world” (Ether 12:4).
Because of Jesus Christ, we can make and keep sacred covenants and help others do the same. Through our study of Christ’s Atonement, the temple, and hope, we will come to know and see Christ in a deeper and more personal way this Christmas season.