I was reading the First Presidency Message for September preparing for my Home teaching lesson this month. Something about it made me read it several times before I could put my finger on what befogged me about it…
Uchtdorf’s message implies that feeling compassion and love for others and declaring our love for God is what entails charity, the pure love of Christ (referencing Moroni 7:46-47), and then asks what do we do after that?
I believe that the charity Moroni is speaking of is more than a declaration of our love for God. It’s more than our feelings of compassion and love for others. When Moroni implores for us to “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that we may be filled with this love” (v 48), he is telling us that this is a love that is bestowed upon true followers of Christ that they may become “sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him.” In other words, this is a gift bestowed by God, not a simple declaration from our mouth that we posses it.
Moroni teaches us that our obligation to God is to exercise faith (v 37-39), that we may obtain a hope in Christ (v 40-43), so that we may become possessors of charity, a pure love of Christ (v 44-48), a fruit sweet and who’s beauty and whiteness exceeds the whiteness of the driven snow (1 Ne 8:11; 11:8) which is the greatest of the gifts of God (1 Ne 15:36). Moroni’s emphasis is on meekness (v 39, 43-44) which does not assume we are already in possession of something we should be prayerfully seeking with all the energy of our hearts.