Introduction

After obeying the principles and ordinances of the gospel, the will of God is to serve your fellowmen, benefiting them, making this world better for your having lived in it. - David O. McKay¹

The crux of consecrated living is service: living to serve God. When you are consecrated, you live wholly for the Lord, and “when you are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”² If we desire to serve God, then we must serve our fellowman, projecting upon him our love for God and our appreciation for everything he has done for us, for “it is folly in the extreme for persons to say that they love God; when they do not love their brethren.”³ How is it possible for us to take upon ourselves the name of Christ without living for our fellowman? After all, that is what Jesus did. The Savior said, “remember in all the and the the sick and things poor needy, aI icted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not my disciple.”⁴

The world considers heaven to be an ephemeral place with clouds, pearly gates, gold streets, etc. Architecture aside, what the world doesn’t realize is that heaven is a concentrated continuation of the consecrated service we do here. We strive to obtain the chance to become like God is. What will we be doing in heaven? The same things God does now. What do you know about God that is independent of his service to us, his children? Has anything ever been revealed about God which is independent of his service to his children? To think of heaven as anything but a constant service experience would be to overlook the facts. If God, the most happy being, occupies his time in our service, then can there be any greater source of happiness for us? If such is the destination we seek in eternity, why not start the pattern now?

“The key to happiness is to serve others.”⁵ Most people learn this lesson well, albeit later in life. I cannot escape a visit to my grandmother’s without an invitation for food. I hardly get both feet into the door before she is cooking up something for me, even if I have just eaten somewhere else! My grandmother has lived far longer than I have, and probably has a much shorter span left here on earth than I do. Though her visits are so rare, and her time so precious, she chooses to spend it serving me in any way she can. She cooks, she offers advice, she finds things that are just what I need buried in her basement with 20 years of dust on them. She knows something you and I don’t know about being happy. The experienced have learned that joy comes from serving others. Elder John Groberg has said, “When life is through, I am sure those who have worn out their lives in the service of others, which is serving God, will have a feeling that is impossible to describe but will include a feeling of total love.”⁶

Those who would live to themselves do not realize that “he who lives only unto himself withers and dies, while he who forgets himself in the service of others grows and blossoms in this life and in eternity.”⁷ They do not realize that whatever their goal may be, as long as it is righteous, serving others will get them nearer to it then not serving others. “Remember that when you help another up a mountain, you are a little nearer the top yourself...you can never love the Lord until you serve Him by serving His people.”⁸

Making others happy makes you happy. Helping others achieve their goals will help you achieve your righteous goals.⁹ When you lose your life in serving others, you gain a life of much more substance, quality, and joy.¹⁰ In reality, selfishness does not exist, only short-sightedness. Jesus said “that which ye send out shall return unto you again.”¹¹ “Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.”¹² “Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.”¹³ A selfish being would indeed serve selflessly, realizing that the greatest reward goes to the selfless.

For every good deed there is a reward. But is it equal to the cost? Helping others brightens their day, but it also brightens yours. “When we reach out to bless the lives of others, our lives are blessed as well.”¹⁴ Service not a dividend to the pays only person who receives it, but increases the principle of the person who gives it. “The more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls.”¹⁵

We should not cringe at the cost of service. King David understood that it is the very cost of sacrifice which makes it more acceptable to God. When he desired to prepare a sacrifice for God to stop the plague killing his people, he wanted to purchase a threshing floor on which he could build an altar. The owner would not accept payment. He said to the king, “Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt overings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat overing; I give it all.” David’s reply is telling. “Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor over burnt overings without cost.”¹⁶ In effect, David said, “If it doesn’t cost me anything, it isn’t worship.”

Even when the cost is small, it may seem like service is yet another onto the of demands of expense heaped pile gospel living. While one could legally reference the contract of baptism, where all resources were already signed over to God,¹⁷ the more pragmatic truth is that there are no clear lines between what you do for yourself and what you do for others, if you understand the plan of salvation. What is best for yourself is for you to do what is best for others. It is impossible to do what is truly best for yourself without living the gospel completely. Brigham Young said:

Man may think, and some of them do, that we have a right to work for ourselves; but I say we have no time to do that in the narrow, selfish sense generally entertained when speaking about working for self. We have no time allotted to us here on the earth to work for ourselves in that sense; and yet when laboring in the most disinterested and fervent manner for the cause and Kingdom of God, it is all for ourselves. Though our time be entirely occupied in laboring for the advancement of the Kingdom of God on the earth we are in reality laboring most effectually for self, for all our interest and welfare, both in time and eternity, are circumscribed and bound up in that Kingdom. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 14:101)

I have found that the more I have to give in order to serve, the happier I am and the closer to God I feel.

One example of how we can give of ourselves for the benefit of others is the law of the fast. When we fast, we go without food or water for a twenty-four hour period, that the poor might receive what we would have spent on food, plus whatever else we can give. I have had many fasts where, when the twenty-four hours were up, though I was hungry and very tired, I did not want to eat or drink. I felt so close to the Lord that I did not want the fast to end. In those moments I have realized that I would rather feel the love of God than any carnal comfort. There is something about selfless actions that make us more aware of God’s love for us. That is why it is impossible to do something for someone else without being a better person for doing it.

The Savior gave us the perfect example of selfless service (and everything else that is worthy of emulation) in his mortal ministry. He lived for everyone else.¹⁸ He died for everyone else.¹⁹ The only things he did for himself were those which were necessary to enable Him to continue to give his all for everyone else. Good missionaries learn how to do this in their field of service, which is like a lab for life. Assigned a specific flock to shepard, they may develop a fullness of purpose whereby describe their thus: I live to serve. I eat so they days enough as to have energy to serve, and nothing more. I sleep enough to have the health to serve, and nothing more. I study in order to have the word of God, that I might have power to serve. This is consecration. How diweren't this Church would be if all missionaries reached this level of dedication.

When missionaries return, some mistakenly think that their tour of duty as a shepard has ended. It hasn’t. Their flock has just been added to. The whole world is a Latter-day Saint’s flock.

Charity is the pure love of Christ. If we interpret that to mean that charity is the love which Jesus shows for us, than to have charity is to love others as he loves them. Jesus is willing to do everything he can for others’ benefit, giving his life in two ways. First, he gave his life by living it perfectly so that he would have the power to help us. Second, he gave his life in pure love by allowing Himself to die for us. If we use an alternate definition and interpret the pure love of Christ to mean our pure love for Christ, then this, too, should impel us to love our fellow man with all our hearts, since no man can love God without loving his fellowman.

Love is a verb; it is an action. “Love is shown by how much we are willing to deny ourselves for the good of others, how much we are willing to go through that others might benefit.”²⁰ If God is love, Jesus’ life was the perfect demonstration of the true definition of love, to do for others, even at our own expense.

If there are strings attached, it is not love. Love doesn’t count the cost. Love doesn’t do things for reward. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, “charity means subordinating personal interests willingly and gladly for others.”²¹ By living for the benefit of others, we follow Christ. “Each of us should follow Him by denying ourselves of selfish interests in order to serve others.”²²

But what about those who don’t really need help, but ask for it anyway? We must remember the reason we serve others is to assist in God’s work to improve them. If our service does not assist them to be more self-sufficient or them learn help something, then we should consider ways to help which would. We must remember that King Benjamin’s injunction was to deny not the beggar who begs that he “perish not”,²³ not so that he could avoid work without suvering the consequences. Many times our intended charity can hurt those we intend to help, denying them a powerful learning experience about selfsuH ciency and consequences by assisting them at a time or in a way which is not the best to help them grow and improve.

Thomas Carlyle said of great men,

Each one has given something of his life to make the world better. They did not spend all their time seeking only pleasure and ease, and a “good time” for themselves alone, but found their greatest joy in making others happy and more comfortable. All such good deeds live forever, even though the world may never hear of them. (Quoted in “Ancient Apostles”, David O. McKay, 1921, p2)

Their greatest joy and ours comes from making others happy by helping them improve. Some might mistakenly associate happiness with carnal comfort or vain recreational pursuits. We can graduate our palates to enjoy real joy and not simple pleasure. Pleasures are for the moment, and not for the long-term, and can rob us of those things which are more lasting and important.

We know that wickedness was never happiness.²⁴ Possessions and wealth are not happiness, either (though Laman and Lemuel would disagree).²⁵ Neither is lack of adversity or struggle. Recreation is not happiness. These all cause pleasure, but pleasure is neither nor sufficient for is had mis- necessary joy. Joy by sionaries serving unpleasant missions. Joy is had by mothers who go through the unpleasant ordeal of carrying and delivering children. Job had joy even though he was barraged by aIiction.

Joy is free of monetary cost. Joy is the direct result of creation,²⁶ which can take on one of many forms of building. On the macro-scale, creation refers to God’s creation of the universe, of the earth, and of Adam and Eve, and also parents’ creation of their children. But it also occurs on the micro-scale, and all the same rules and blessings apply. We can build things, start businesses, cook food, grow plants, increase our talents and skills, build other people, etc. In all cases we are organizing things that previously only existed as ideas.

True happiness, or joy, is found in building and serving others. Service to others, unlike its pleasurable counterfeits, can be undertaken at anytime and at anyplace.

If acts for service are more enjoyable and accessible than the alternative, why do we have a tendency to prefer pleasure over joy?

Our preference for pleasure over joy is analogous to our preference for refined instead of whole foods. The main purpose of eating is to obtain the necessary nutrients for survival, and we all know that whole foods contain many more nutrients than their refined counterparts. Still, most of what we consume is not only incapable of providing the very nutrition we eat to obtain, but fills us up so that there is no room for what we really need. Compare this to wholesome service to others and the recreative pursuits with which we can fill our lives. That life is best which centers on our two main tasks in life: love of the Lord and love of our neighbor. When we fill our lives with rubbish, we reap all the costs of life while robbing ourselves of the reward. We fill ourselves with twinkies leaving no room for bread. In other words, we spend so much time on the things which provide fleeting pleasure that we have no room, or not as much room as we should, for the things which provide lasting joy. Our treasures are on earth instead of in heaven.

If pure religion is “to visit the fatherless and widows in their aI iction, and to keep [ourselves] unspotted from the world,”²⁷ then we as Latter-day Saints should live by the principles of altruism and magnanimity. The dictionary should list as these words’ definitions not only the common meanings of “noble, generous, character, nobility of mind, unselfish concern for others, devotion to the welfare of others,” but, as a synonym, “Latter-day Saint.”

You cannot live the fullness of life without setting as your goal the happiness of your fellowmen. “We live our lives most completely when we strive to make the world better and happier.”²⁸ To live for is to rob of the more yourself yourself nourishing part of life. To live for the world is to encounter all the joy that were meant to have here. President Monson has said: you “To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowman. Service to others is akin to duty-the fulfillment of which brings true joy.”²⁹

When you live after this manner, seeking the interest of others before your own, you change your relationship with divine justice. To the man who lives only for himself, justice is something to be excused from through the atonement to escape the penalty for unjust actions. For one who lives for others, however, “seeking the interests of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God”¹¹⁷ will cause him to look forward with faith, seeing the positive consequences of his service. Inasmuch as you have drained all your heart, might, mind, and strength for the benefit of others you will see the fruits of your labors here and in the hereafter. The just consequences of our service will be all the more greater the more opposition and less thanks you receive for them. Though perhaps the best reward of service is feeling the love of God in your heart, you cannot get away from the blessings that will be poured out on you here or in the hereafter for service, especially when it is not appreciated or easy. As Emerson said,

There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Essays, Volumes 1-2“, 1903, p119)

Service is particularly difficult when it is unappreciated, comes at a time when you yourself stand in need of comfort, or when your evorts seem to have no effect for good. At these times you will really need to lean on the Lord to keep doing it. It is then that we can see divine justice as a weight in the other end of the scales, balancing our unbalanced act of placing others before ourselves. When you sacrifice to live the gospel, you hopefully attempt to give more than you receive.

Besides being blessed with greater accomplishments and satisfaction in life, you will find that as you completely dedicate yourself to the cause, you will become less attached to material comforts. When things seem tough, you will become all the more obedient and dedicated to God. You’ll see afflictions as an opportunity to show your unconditional trust in and love for God. You really get to know Him personally. “For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?”³⁰ You will see the tough times as an opportunity to show your gratitude for blessings received during the good times.

You will also feel your capacity to love increase. I remember the first priesthood blessing I gave. I had felt love many times before, but never before had I felt the love that I felt for this person. I hardly knew her, but the Lord did. As I laid my hands on her head, I was filled with a portion of the love that God had for her. It was than I had ever deeper any feeling experienced. But that wasn’t the end of my experience. Then and since then I have noticed two things about pure service. First, I feel an everof the love God feels for the I serve. deeper expression people Second, feeling even a portion of the immense love that God feels for his children is greater than my current capacity to love. Through service, my capacity to love is increased. The increase of capacity to love remains even after the service is complete, and transfers to all of my personal relationships. For instance, if my service to a neighbor yields a special opportunity to feel a portion of the love God has for that neighbor, my capacity to love is increased. I can then leverage that expanded capacity to improve and deepen the love I have for my wife.

Consider a trickling brook. If the flood gates on an upstream dam are opened, much more water will run down the brook, swelling it to a river. Even after the flood gates are closed, the depth of the channel of the brook is forever increased. Now the brook can contain greater amounts of rain runov that may come. The more time and evort you spend in the service of God, the deeper your capacity and disposition to love will be. If you serve with your heart, don’t be surprised when you get pangs of desire to help others, even people you’ve never met before.

Orson Pratt described how the Lord returns the bread we cast upon the water when we love God:

The more righteous a people become the more they are qualified for loving others and rendering them happy...a righteous man, being filled with the love of God, is sure to manifest this heavenly attribute in every thought and feeling of his heart, and in every word and deed. Love, joy, and innocence will radiate from his very countenance, and be expressed in every look. This will beget confidence in the wife of his bosom, and she will love him in return; for love begets love; happiness imparts happiness; and these heaven born emotions will continue to increase more and more, until they are perfected and glorified in all the fullness of eternal love itself. (Orson Pratt, The Seer, Salt Lake City: Eugene Wagner, 1960, p156)

Service is an upward spiral of ever-increasing love and concern for others. Joseph Smith said, “A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.”³¹ A man who serves will be filled with the love of God. That love will not let a man be still. He will actively search for opportunities to bless not only those for whom he has explicit responsibility, but to bless anyone he has the capacity to bless.

Consider the scriptural example of Alma the younger. His entire life is a demonstration that the love of God draws us into ever more consecrated service. He as a began locally, serving political and spiritual leader in his homeland. Although these service opportunities were not trivial, they did allow him to support himself and live at home. He increased the latitude and cost of his service by resigning the former to devote himself to the latter, endeavoring to reclaim and strengthen those in lands. His missions focused on ever surrounding subsequent more estranged populations. Beginning in a periodic approach where he returned home to rest after each journey, he became more and more cognizant of the necessity of his service. He finally reached the point where he “could not rest,” so great was his sense of urgency.³² He continued preaching until the end of his days.

Love is about what you put into it, not what you get out of it. It is not a receiving situation, but a giving situation. It is an opportunity to serve. Alma knew that, and it shows by the places he chose to go and the people he chose to teach. His decisions were based on how much the people needed it, not how much they would receive it.

You serve as an agent of God in blessing your fellowmen.

God knows the needs of his children, and he often works through us, prompting us to help one another. When we act on such promptings, we tread on holy ground, for we are allowed the opportunity to serve as an agent of God in answering a prayer. (Kathleen Hughes, “What Greater Goodness Can We Know: Christlike Friends,” Ensign, May 2005)

It is only by living consecrated to the service to our fellow man that can and to be a you fill your responsibility privilege representative of the Savior at all times and in all places. This is a charge that can only be fulfilled as you strive to serve others in whatever way you can with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.