Elder & Sister James R. Rasband of the Seventy
Tuesday devotional, December 24, 2019
Tuesday devotional, Elder and Sister James R. Rasband of the Seventy, December 24, 2019.
Sister Rasband:
- Consider more carefully Luke chapter 2.
- We, like the shepherds worship Jesus Christ. And like them we share the message of him abroad.
- Christ gives us peace, as He did the Wise Men and the shepherds.
- Christ sustains us in difficult times.
- Christ gives us rest.
- Christ gives us the hope of eternal life.
- These gifts are the reason why we are willing to give our gift to Him, our lives and service.
- The message of Christ is the gift we can always give to others.
Elder Rasband
- Don’t give up, missionaries. Stay at it and peace will come.
- There is no shame in things being hard the first time, including missionary work.
- we need to experience challenges to learn.
- As a young missionary, I gave myself to the work, and my anxiety went away. The anxiety was replaced with peace.
- Everyday of my mission wasn’t blissful. In fact every day had ups and downs.
- All will be well; you can pull through this with the Lord’s help.
- …”the hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight” (O little town of Bethlehem)
- The Savior’s life did not begin in Bethlehem, nor did it end on Calvary. (See ‘The Living Christ’)
- What must we have thought when presented with the Plan? Could Christ really do it? Would He really do it?
- We must have had great hope that Christ would be able to live a perfect life and work the Atonement. Our hope must have been intense.
- We had faith in the promise that Christ would atone for us because of the love He has for us.
- We must have had real faith in Christ to choose his plan not knowing if He would accomplish His task. This was a true test of faith.
- We staked our eternal progression on our faith in Christ.
- Prior to His birth and sacrifice, we could only have faith and hope in Him.
- Our faith required a long wait to see if Christ would accomplish His task.
- Our faith was rewarded as Christ fulfilled His purpose.
- The most important week in our eternal quest, the week that would answer our questions, was the final week of Christ’s life.
- As He fulfilled His promises to the Father and to us, our hopes and fears were truly ‘met in Him’.
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