As you are looking for ways to invite the Spirit of Christ into your home this holiday season, reading quotes from the prophets and apostles is a good place to start. Here are five of our favorite quotes of Christmas from President Thomas S. Monson to get you started, found in A Future As Bright As Your Faith:
Making Christmas Real
There was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was mid-day. And . . . the sun did rise in the morning again, according to its proper order; and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born.
3 Nephi 1:19
We must make Christmas real. It isn’t just tinsel and ribbon, unless we have made it so in our lives. Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values. It is peace because we have found peace in the Savior’s teachings. It is the time we realize most deeply that the more love is expended, the more there is of it for others.
“The Great Refusal”
And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
Matthew 19:16
Our beloved Savior beacons us to follow Him. The choice is ours. You will recall the rich, young ruler who asked the Savior what he should do to have eternal life and, when told to sell his possessions and give to the poor, “went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions” (see Matthew 19:16-22). He preferred the comforts of earth to the treasures of heaven. He would not purchase the things of eternity by abandoning those of time. He made, as Dante calls it, “the great refusal.” And so he vanishes from the gospel history, nor do the evangelists know anything of him further. His riches and many possessions had become his God.
Our Christmas Gift List
The light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth who came into the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men.
Doctrine and Covenants 93:9
Christmas is the time when the bonds of family love transcend distance and inconvenience. It is a time when love of neighbor rises above petty day-to-day irritations, and doors swing open to give and receive expressions of appreciation and affection.
If to our Christmas gift list is added the gift of service—not only to friends and family, but also those who badly need help—then our giving can be complete.
Time to Rededicate
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16
There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus Christ.
Because He came to earth, we have a perfect example to follow. As we strive to become more like Him, we will have joy and happiness in our lives and peace each day of the year. It is His example which, if followed, stirs within us more kindness and love, more respect and concern for others.
A Wonderful Time of Year
And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Luke 2:12
Christmas is a wonderful time of year. It is a season when there are more smiles, more cheerful greetings, more acts of thoughtful kindness, more sweet remembrances of cherished friends and loved ones than are found through the rest of the entire year. In the troubled times in which we live, this is truly a miracle.
What is it that brings such love into our hearts, such joy into our lives? It is, of course, the spirit of Christmas. And one of the ways in which we obtain the Christmas spirit—the Christ spirit—is by willingly giving of ourselves to others.
Lead image via iStock
Get your own copy of A Future as Bright as Your Faith here.
