Jesus Christ

Church leaders shared gospel messages this week in devotionals and on social media that might be just the thing to help members get in the right mindset for conference.

Editor's note: This adaptation from Matthew O. Richardson's The Christus Legacy originally ran on LDS Living in 2015. During April 2020 general conference, President Nelson introduced the Church's new symbol, which includes a representation of Thorvaldsen’s marble statue, the Christus. This iconic representation of the Savior is well-known to Latter-day Saints, but it wasn’t always that way. Check out how this statue came about and how it eventually earned its fame in the Latter-day Saint world.

The following excerpt originally ran on LDS Living in April 2017. Changed through His Grace is now available as a Pocket Gospel Classic.

One hot afternoon, I was on a hill overlooking the border between Syria and Israel. As we walked down the hill, we talked about how some Latter-day Saints de-emphasize the importance of Christ’s Crucifixion.

Sister Tracy Browning, a member of the Relief Society General Board, recently spoke on the Latter-day Saint Women podcast about inclusion, unity, and loving one another better.

Filmed at the Church’s Motion Picture set in Goshen, Utah, “The Christ Child: A Nativity Story,” brings to life the familiar scriptures in the Bible like never before. By showing Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wisemen, and the Christ child as real individuals, the nearly 18-minute film has captured the hearts of many as it tells the sacred events of that first Christmas.

In a few short weeks, you'll be sipping sparkling cider and counting down to midnight and a new year will be here! These calendars will help you plan out your 2021—plus the images inside are stunning!

This story originally ran on LDS Living in June 2016.

As we head into the end of the year, we focus our thoughts on the Savior and celebrate the birth of the Savior. It is a great time to remember Christ in our lives. Here are 8 of our very favorite depictions of Christ. These art pieces will become a special reminder of His love and spirit within the walls of your home.

Over 28 years ago, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson spoke in a devotional at Brigham Young University, and though that address was given decades ago, his words are just as relevant today.

There’s a certain power in names. I’ve discovered this especially in nature as I’ve learned from my brother how to recognize the call of a chickadee or as my sister has taught me the names of wildflowers. For me, there is a sense of satisfaction in knowing something’s name—as though by remembering it, perhaps it knows me somehow—and so occasionally, I will put forth the effort to learn about the names of plants and animals that I didn’t know before.

Each of us have little quirks that others likely notice about us and are perhaps even annoyed by. Laura “Laurie” Wilcox loved jewelry, especially bracelets, and frequently could only find one of two earrings in a pair. But do those little annoyances matter when the people we love are gone? Or would we give anything to search for a missing earring one last time?

This article originally ran on LDS Living in August 2019.

During the past months being separated from so many, I felt like the world placed me in an unwanted solitude with feelings of stress, anxiety, and above all loneliness. Taking into account the additional challenge of managing children, working from home has felt more like living at work rather than convenience. Being away from my friends, colleagues, and fellow church members has brought up feelings of loneliness and isolation that I simply wasn’t prepared to handle.

The following excerpt from The Infinite Atonement originally ran on LDS Living in March 2018.

This excerpt originally ran on LDS Living in December 2019.

This excerpt originally ran on LDS Living in November 2017.

Now more than ever, in this fast-paced digital world, we might feel isolated or alone, or maybe we feel that no one can understand what we are going through. These feelings are valid and can be relieved in part with the knowledge that the Savior experienced everything we might be going through.

Editor's note: This week's Come, Follow Me study includes 2 Nephi 9 which teaches about the Atonement. We wanted to reshare this article from our 2015 archives that gives more insights on this important topic.

This story originally ran on LDS Living in July 2017.

Sunny Mahe has a pink Christmas tree in her home.

I remember a program on PBS a few years ago in which Carl Sagan was explaining how the universe came into being. The idea that impressed me the most was his description of how the Big Bang blew billions of tons of particulate matter to all corners of the universe—dust, if you want to call it that.

When my oldest boys were little, I took them to an amusement park because I’m such a rocking dad. During lunch, while we were all standing in line for a million-dollar hamburger, I looked down to where my son Jack had been standing right next to me. He wasn’t there.

There are many reasons why Jesus came to earth, and our word Atonement has come to embody them all, but I think, if I had to be specific, I would say that the essence of His life centered on forgiveness. In the great hymn of the Restoration, Joseph Smith caught that spirit when he wrote, “Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven” (D&C 128:19). The Savior is the incarnation, the personification, the grand architect of forgiveness and mercy. It is inherent in almost every act of His life. It is the one single most significant quality of the Father that Jesus came to teach us with His words and show us by His example. Indeed, the most beautiful words He spoke during those last agonizing hours of His life are, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Whenever I feel the difficulty of forgiving in my own life, I read those words and the feeling of forgiveness moves into my soul.

This year, as part of the Light the World campaign, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in partnership with Boncom, released a new video highlighting the story of the Nativity. “The Christ Child” tells the familiar story of Christ’s birth—but in a surprisingly new and meaningful way, explained Jeff Taylor, who worked as co-creative director of the film.

The following has been republished with permission from taylorhalverson.comand complements this week's Come, Follow Me study.

Polycystic kidney disease.

The following has been republished with permission from taylorhalverson.com and complements this week's Come, Follow Me study.

The Day of the Atonement was extremely significant to the people of the Old Testament, but how do they relate to Christ in the New Testament?

The following article originally ran on LDS Living in 2016.

The Savior has many titles, one of which is the Great High Priest. But what does this title mean and what is its significance when referring to Jesus Christ?

Several years ago, one of Elder Gay’s business partners suffered from a challenging illness. Elder Gay shared how one afternoon, he received a call from this friend who said that President Boyd K. Packer had been to his home and given him a blessing.

The washing and anointing of priests as explained in Exodus was a sacred and symbolic ritual.

To anyone who thinks they’ve messed up God’s plan for them—you have not. More importantly, you cannot. God is the author of eternity. We have the ability to choose, so we are ultimately the commanders of our fate. But no matter what we do, no matter how much we may feel we've distanced ourselves from God or lived a life we believe He wouldn't be interested in helping, this is not true. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught, "There is nothing . . . that you have done that cannot be undone."

When Elder L. Todd Budge was serving as a mission president in Japan, a man called him to ask for permission to baptize his mother in his ward instead of her ward.

"The Tabernacle of Moses served as the sanctuary for Israel for over 400 years. It was the place where the Lord communed with His people and taught them about the coming Messiah, even Jesus Christ," a new video by Daniel Smith of Messages of Christ shares. How does the symbolism of the Tabernacle of Moses point toward the Savior? From the menorah to incense to its structure, everything in the tabernacle symbolized the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Everybody’s heard of Lazarus. You know the one—the brother of Mary and Martha who died and was left in his tomb for four days, even until he smelled bad, and was then miraculously raised from the dead by Jesus. He’s at the center of one of the most stunning and jaw-dropping of Jesus’s miracles.

Our prophets and apostles have been set apart as special witnesses of our Savior Jesus Christ. While we do not need to see our Redeemer face to face to testify of His divine life and mission, some Church leaders have shared remarkable accounts of when they saw the Lord, whether through dreams or visions. Their experiences testify of the love, grace, power, and glory of our Savior.

The following excerpt originally appeared on LDS Living in October 2015.

At one point in our study of the four Gospels, we had been thinking about Jesus’s 40-day trial in the Judean wilderness. In only two verses, Mark tells us about those days (Mark 1:12–13). Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, make use of a time-honored literary structure to tell us of the tests put to Jesus as He prepared to begin His messianic responsibilities. All three accounts express Jesus’s perfect discipline in response to evil enticements that offended the laws of God. Matthew and Luke may clothe the testing in the elegance of traditional poetic forms, but the themes in all three accounts of Jesus’s experiences in the wilderness remain the same. Whether the accounts are cryptic or complicated, it became clear to us that the devil perverted what Alma described as the relationship between the principle of justice, our ethical responsibility to love God and each other, and the merciful application of His laws in an individual’s life.

Aaron "Wheelz" Fotheringham has never seen a wheelchair as a limitation. Born with spina bifida, Fotheringham was using a wheelchair by the time he was 8 years old to perform wheelchair tricks at a local skate park.

In the scriptures, the Savior affirms that we “shall see my face and know that I am” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:1). It should come as no surprise, then, that the Savior would appear to men and women in dreams. The children of God in all nations have His promise that He can manifest Himself to them. The Book of Mormon teaches, “He manifesteth himself unto all those who believe in him, by the power of the Holy Ghost; yea, unto every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, working mighty miracles, signs and wonders, among the children of men according to their faith” (2 Nephi 26:13). Certainly, the Lord is no respecter of persons when it comes to whom He will manifest Himself unto. . . .

The following is an excerpt from Temples of the Most High

The following article originally ran on LDS Living in September 2015.

In 2004, workers were summoned to repair a damaged sewer pipe. The pipe lay under a small potato field in the Palestinian Arab neighborhood of Silwan, in southeastern Jerusalem just outside the Old City walls. Following standard local practice, a team of archaeological observers accompanied them, wrote Yaakov Katz in "New Discovery in Jerusalem's City of David: 2,000-year-old Pilgimage Road," published June 30 in The Jerusalem Post, online at jpost.com.

My 2-year-old had been battling a chest cold for a few days, and the back-to-back sleepless nights were really taking a toll on me. The brain fog was very real, my eyes burned, and my limbs throbbed with exhaustion. I yearned for rest, but sleep eluded me. I just had too much on my mind. I am a chronic worrier, you see, and I couldn’t kick the anxiety I was feeling. Then, for whatever reason, I thought about a nearly empty photo box on a shelf in my closet.

In 2018, President Russell M. Nelsonplaced increased emphasis on using the full and correct name of the Church:

Recently I was visiting another church for a meeting when I noticed tiny handprints on the glass doors. I had time to spare and my first thought was to grab a rag and some Windex and wipe them off.

A fascinating 2015 article by Scott Hoyt commences with a lengthy quotation from a Catholic chronicler of Peru named Pedro de Cieza de Leon. He was writing around the year 1550, fewer than 20 years after the destruction by Spanish conquistadors of the Inca empire. In the passage that I cite here, Cieza describes the appearance of Viracocha:

This article is republished with permission from Book of Mormon Central. For more inspiring and instructive content on the Book of Mormon visit Book of Mormon Central, subscribe to their mailing list, see their YouTube videos, and follow them on Facebook.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a series of powerful videos about overcoming pornography, supporting loved ones with a pornography problem, and finding healing from pornography or betrayal trauma. We will be highlighting these valuable resources over the ensuing weeks.

At the palace of Herod, Pontius Pilate brought the Savior before Jewish leaders to put Christ's fate in their hands.

One of the ongoing questions during Jesus’s ministry was this simple question: Who is Jesus?

We begin with the unnamed, unknown persons in this story—the crowd. If modern Middle Eastern towns are a gauge, the crowd that followed Jesus was likely made up of men and, perhaps, a few boys who had squeezed in among the adults. If women or girls were present, we expect that they did not join the throng. Instead, typically, they hung back. This observation alone underscores the bravery and determination of the woman, unnamed in the accounts, who pushed her way into the clump of male bodies and reached out for Jesus’s clothing to gain relief.