Are you thinking of making some resolutions for the new year, and looking for some reasons to give you an incentive to get going? Here are a few good ones.
First, perfection is a commandment. The Lord in Matthew 5:48 tells us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Not to scare anyone, but if the Lord Himself has told us that we need to strive for perfection, that’s something we need to do.
Second, we all have things we’d like to accomplish in our lives. Our goals may range from developing qualities in ourselves to visiting an exotic location. Whatever we hope to achieve, we usually do better at that when we have a conscious goal to do so.
Third, our Heavenly Father has given us each gifts and talents to use throughout our lives. We each have a divine and infinite potential. Elder M. Russell Ballard, a modern-day apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as the “Mormons”), has said:
I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. (M. Russell Ballard, “Do Things That Make a Difference,” Ensign, Jun 1983, 68)
Fourth, our Heavenly Father has given us each our free agency, or our ability to choose for ourselves and to act on those choices. We have great power within us to do much good in the world. The Lord through the prophet Joseph Smith tells us in the Doctrine and Covenants:
Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;
For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.
But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned.” (D&C 58:27–29.)
To “damn” something can mean to stop its progress. And when we refuse to use our agency to do things of our own free will, we literally stop our own progress.
If all of us do what we can to improve our own characters this year, as well as improve the world around us, together we can make a great difference.
