We are not left alone on this earth. Jesus Christ was sent to this earth to give us the strength to overcome challenges, problems, and sin. To overcome sin. He asks us to look to Him with faith that He knows what is best for us. There is a pathway that the Lord Jesus Christ has provided for us so that we might be able to find peace in this life and eternal life in the next life. He has given us the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Lord prospers all those who follow the gospel of Jesus Christ. In The Book of Mormon, a record of the teachings of Jesus Christ that God gave to the ancient inhabitants of the American continent, it says:

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.

In the Holy Bible Jesus Christ said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another (John 13:34).” I have found that some of my greatest joys in life come from serving other people. As I try to show the love for others as the Savior did for me, He blesses me with peace, and He helps me love others even more. I know that true happiness only comes to those who seek to love and serve God and all His children. Listen to these words of a modern day apostle of Jesus Christ.

Additional Resources:

Get a free copy of the Holy Bible.

Read a modern apostles words on becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ at the official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths, the “Mormon Church”).

Learn about how a belief in Jesus Christ can help you.

Tinsel, garland, gifts under the tree, smells and scents that connote a beautiful time of year–these all are reminiscent of Christmas, a time for the joyous celebration of Christ’s birth.

The first real gift of Christmas is the Baby Himself, Jesus Christ.  He is ours to receive, to know, to love, to worship as Savior of the World, the Only Begotten in the flesh, the Son of God.  The second real Christmas gift, intimately connected with Himself, is the key to the knowledge of  Him which has been restored to the earth through the re-establishment of His own Church on the earth–The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths, the “Mormon Church”). These are two gifts in one: the Savior, and His Church in our day! These are the real gifts of Christmas!

Christmas Message: Jesus Christ Established His Church & Restored It In Our Day

From the creation of the world, the prophets foretold and the children of God anticipated the coming of the Redeemer, the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ.  As He had promised, our Heavenly Father, the Father of our spirits, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth over 2,000 years ago.

Jesus Christ, now diluted, de-throned, sidelined by many pundits and blanched naysayers, lives! He is resurrected! He is real. He is the perfect, sympathetic, just, merciful, omniscient Savior who stooped in agony and hung in great condescension, to be able to lift us back into His presence. This is not a fable, as Paul said, who was one of many eyewitnesses, both of His suffering and of His glory. For those in doubt, we witness to you that He lives! Please read on, to learn more about the second gift of Christmas.

Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. He established His Church, taught His gospel, and performed many miracles. He chose twelve men to carry His authority, to be His Apostles, including Peter, James and John. He taught them and enabled them by the laying on of hands to perform certain ordinances or rites of salvation, such as baptism.

When Jesus Christ established His Church, He received instructions and revelation from the Father for the benefit of all. He then taught His followers and they, in turn, received a witness of the truths He taught, by revelation as well. Revelation–or things shared by the Spirit from God to man–was the rock on which the Savior built His Church.

At the end of His life, Jesus Christ suffered and died for each of our sins and infirmities–those of everyone who has lived or who will yet live on this earth. This sacrifice is called the Atonement. Through His suffering, death, and Resurrection, the Savior made it possible for us to be forgiven and to regain His presence–a presence which brings light, power, glory, joy into our lives, a presence which transforms us.  Those who exercise faith in Jesus Christ, repent, and keep His commandments with His help, receive forgiveness of sins, greater light and truth, increased peace and joy in this life, and eternal life in the world to come.

The Great Apostasy: God and Jesus Christ Knew There Would Be A Falling Away From Truth

Following the death of Jesus Christ, evil schemers persecuted and killed many Church members. Others drifted from the truth by degree. The Apostles themselves were killed or martyred and priesthood authority–the ability to act in the Savior’s name to perpetuate His kingdom on earth–was taken from the earth. Because the Church was no longer led by those the Savior designated as authorities, error crept into Church teachings. The pure gospel truths that Jesus taught were mixed and diluted and changed. This period of religious history is called the Great Apostasy.

The Savior, knowing all things, anticipated this apostasy–or falling away from the truth. Through an Old Testament prophet, He said:

Behold, the days come…that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And people shall wander form sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it (Amos 8:11-12).

This apostasy resulted in the formation of many churches with conflicting and confusing creeds. During this time, many men and women sought the truth but were unable to find it in its fullness. Many good people believed in God and Jesus Christ and tried to understand and teach truth but they had neither the authority nor the complete gospel. As a result, each generation inherited partial and distorted beliefs from the preceding one, and were in a state of apostasy still.

Inspired reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, recognized that practices and doctrines had been changed or lost. They tried to reform the churches to which they belonged and to reconstruct the truth. Without priesthood authority, however, Christ’s gospel could not be returned to its original form. A restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ–not a reformation of the gospel of Jesus Christ–was needed.

The Second Christmas Gift!

Our Christmas message to you is that there are two gifts for you this Christmas, should you choose to accept them–one, the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ, as Savior of the World–the One who provides all we need for a full life and for godliness; and two, the additional news that His Church–even the Church of Jesus Christ–has been restored to the earth!  It’s here, with all of the pure doctrines and priesthood authority needed for you and I to be freed from sin and sanctified to become more and more like Him, filling our eternal potential!  We invite you as friends of other faiths, to pray about this message for yourselves and to investigate its truthfulness further.

Christmas Message: The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

In 1820, our Father in Heaven chose a prophet to restore the gospel and priesthood to the earth! That prophet’s name was Joseph Smith. As a young man, Joseph Smith wrestled with questions about the teachings of many churches around his home, each seeking their own followers in a competitive way. Each preacher, moreover, taught something different about the Savior and the path to salvation. Joseph Smith wanted to know which church was right. Knowing he lacked wisdom, he followed James’ counsel in the Holy Bible: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).

Joseph took that promise to heart. He found a spot in a nearby grove of trees, knelt and prayed in faith, submitting his question to God. Unexpectedly, Joseph found himself visited by glorious personages–even the Father Himself, who introduced His Son, Jesus Christ.  They instructed Joseph not to join any of the churches, suggesting that they held not the ‘power’ of godliness.

Joseph Smith was called by Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father to be a prophet of this last dispensation or gospel era, through whom the complete gospel of Jesus Christ would be restored.

In his words,

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me… When the light rested upon me, I saw two Personages whose brightness and glory defy all description standing above me in the air. one of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other, This is My Beloved Son, hear Him!” (Joseph Smith: History 1:16-17).

We invite you to learn more about these two incomparable Christmas gifts this year. Don’t miss Christmas. The real gift is Jesus Christ. He is the Gift–the Author and Finisher of our faith.  He has restored His Church to the earth–that we may have all we need to know Him and to grow in glory to become more and more like Him, until the perfect day, when His glory shall be revealed in full and our joy perfected in Him.

Merry Christmas!

Additional Resources:

Learn more about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ at mormon.org, an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Find a local church meetinghouse

Learn about the restoration from Joseph Smith’s personal account.

Believe in Jesus Christ

To believe in Jesus Christ is to trust Him, rely on Him, depend on Him and His grace. The Savior’s grace is His enabling power that flows to us unmerited, and it  comes by virtue of the Savior’s solitary, singular, magnificent atonement.

What is His atonement?  How does He give His grace? Let’s talk about that for a minute, not comprehensively for that’s impossible in this or any space, but sufficiently to understand the simplicity and profundity of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, death, Resurrection for us.

Jesus died to pay the price of our sins, weaknesses, poor judgments, and to suffer for our pains, sicknesses, injustices, and confusions.  He has already finished that atoning sacrifice!  He agonized in Gethsemane and on the cross for your sins and mine, to pay the debt that justice asks to erase the full penalty of sin. Through that payment, requiring His life, He met justice fairly and satisfied it, opening the door to mercy for each of us! Jesus Christ went willingly. His atonement was not an accident nor a diversion, nor an unintended event in God’s or His plan. It was foreordained. Jesus could have prevented it at any point along the way as the Son of God, but He chose to suffer it out of profound and personal love for each of us. He finished His course–His infinite sacrifice–and He did it for you. He did it for me.

The atonement, then, is already wrapped up and handed to you.  It’s just for you and I and each of us to accept it and to apply it by repenting or turning away from sin. We know what sin is. We have a sense of right and wrong with which we enter the world, as God’s children. Turning from it and toward the light, toward the Light of the World, brings us to a place of joy and resolution, a life that begins to expand in Jesus Christ.

To be baptized by immersion in Christ’s Church–The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (inadvertently called by friends of other faiths, The Mormon Church)–is to submit to the ordinance which our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience the very night of his conversion, and which John the Baptist called the repentant to undergo. While the outward sign or ordinance is required by the Savior Jesus Christ by one who hold His authority and power alone does not save, it sets forth and symbolizes to us and witnesses our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus. Like the Sacrament, or the Lord’s Supper, where we renew those covenants with Jesus Christ each Sunday in return for forgiveness and grace to serve, it is not to be neglected.

From baptism by one holding the authority of Christ (found only in The Church of Jesus Christ), you may begin your journey closer to Him, and find your real mission in life. Then, you will be able to dismiss your fears, find answers, feel hope, and see direction unfold out of the chaos you may be in, or the order of your present circumstances. And in the strength you will gain and that each of us gains from Him–His grace–we are fed, refreshed, filled and renewed to labour for Him and to His glory, which brings us great joy and allows us to reach our own potential.

Remember the promise, the invitation, the call to you and to each of us from Jesus Christ Our Lord:

A man walking along the road happens to fall into a pit so deep and dark that he cannot climb to the surface and regain his freedom. How can he save himself from his own folly? Not by an exertions on his own part, for there is no means of escape in the pit.  He calls for help and some kindly disposed soul, hearing his cries for relief, hastens to his assistance and by lowering the ladder, gives to him the means by which he may climb again to the surface of the earth.

This was precisely the condition that Adam placed himself and his posterity in, when he partook of the forbidden fruit.  All being together in the pit, none could gain the surface and relieve the others. The pit was banishment from the presence of the Lord and temporal death, the dissolution of the body. And all being subject to death, none could provide the means of escape.

Therefore, in his infinite mercy, the Father heard the cries of his children and sent his Only Begotten Son, who was not subject to death or to sin, to provide the means of escape. This he did through his infinite atonement and the everlasting gospel. . . . The Savior said, “I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:15, 17-18).

Joseph Fielding Smith,  The Means of Escape, The Gift of the Atonement, Deseret Book, 2002, p.3.