Love Changes Everything

Christlike love helps us overcome our natural fear of others. We may fear difference; we may worry about being hurt or slighted. But Christlike love is a love beyond fear. It reaches across the divide of difference. It is in our nature to serve our own interests or the interests of those closest to us. But charity [Christlike Love] takes us beyond our comfort zone. Suddenly, we are less worried about whether others will approve of us. Our concern flows toward them regardless of their feelings for us.

Through the power of Christ's atonement we can come to recognize the powerful spiritual kinship we share with all the people of the earth. As we grow in this understanding, we can't help but be filled with a sincere love and concern for those we are asked to serve. But, we need Christ to help us realize this love and perspective. We can't achieve it on our own.

If we continue earnestly with faith and hope in Christ to seek the gift of charity, it will be granted to us. We will be filled with a love of God and of all people. Paul promised that as we attain this gift, so would we receive of a fullness of God's love:

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. [Ephesians 3:17–19]

Part of talk given by Marilyn S. Bateman, wife of BYU president Merrill J. Bateman,
BYU Devotional Address, January 11, 2000.