God is Love

"All you need is Love."

"Love One Another"

This is the perfect lesson that I could teach during this Christmas season.

If you were to use one word to describe Heavenly Father, what would it be?

The dest word is found in 1 John 4:8 & 16 in the King James Bible. It is indeed love; God is love.

You picture your family. What do parents do to show their love to their children? The children to their parents and siblings? You might have listed off parents chastising and disciplining because they know what is best from their experiences in life; putting them into school, just putting up with our stupidity-cranky- silly-nonsense, feeding and clothing their children, etc. Children show their love through service, obedience, getting along, etc. This comes full circle with the love our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us and how we in turn show our love to them.

All throughout 1,2, and 3 John, John talks about this amazing circle of love we can form.

Some of the manifestations of Heavenly Father's love for us is that we are His children and we have the ability to be like Him as well as live with Him again; God sent His son- how hard that must have been for Him, knowing all the pain and suffering Christ would go through for us, having to watch His child go through a trial without help, being alone. I can't imagine having to do this as a parent.; Heavenly Father gives us His Spirit to lead, guide, and comfort us; He answers our prayers. He is a listening Father, willing and wanting to help and bless us. 1 John 4:19 says that "we love [God], because he first loved us". He is our example of how to love. Without Him, we wouldn't be able to love.

Some of the manifestations of Jesus Christ's love for us is that He made the ultimate sacrifice for us. He atoned for our sins that we can repent, be forgiven, come unto Him and be as He is. No matter how bad we have messed up, He will still love us. Just as our parents, their love is unconditional. This often reminds me of the story of the Prodigal son [http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=768bf48fa2d20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=e1fa5f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD].

The ultimate way for us to show our love for Heavenly Father, Jesus, and others is by keeping the commandments. Now, this is a broad answer; it includes being charitable, paying tithing, praying, being obedient, serving, and much, MUCH more. Lastly, we need to give our love to others and God.

What does love mean to you?

I know for a fact that God loves you. If you don't know that, ask me how you can come to know.