For this week’s devotional, BYU-Idaho students heard from Elder Evan A. Schmutz, a General Authority Seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his wife Cindy L. Schmutz.
Sister Schmutz’s talk, “Remembering our Baptismal Covenants,” expressed the importance of always striving to be worthy of our baptism and how we can keep the promises made during that day.
Like many of this semester’s devotional speakers, Sister Schmutz echoed the importance of service, and how helping others can help us receive the blessings of the Lord.
“When we do take time to look outside of ourselves and extend Christlike service to others, both we, as the giver, and those who receive, are blessed. Serving others refines us by helping us put off characteristics of the natural man like selfishness and sin and turns our focus to Christ and becoming more like Him,” she said in her talk.
In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Sister Schmutz said service helps make your burden’s lighter.
“It takes the focus off of you and it really shifts it out to someone else, and somehow the burdens or problems you have seem lighter when you’re focused on someone else and their needs,” she said.
Elder Schmutz’s talk, “Great Shall Be Their Reward,” discussed how being obedient to the commandments of God can help us return to the Celestial Kingdom.
In his talk, he shared that his study of the Celestial Kingdom pushes him to be a better man.
“It is the incomprehensible beauty of the Celestial Kingdom that I desire. Therefore, it is necessary that I study to learn what manner of man I need to be if I am to enter, one day, into that glorious kingdom where God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ dwell, and what I must do in my mortal life if I desire to hear these words spoken to me by my Redeemer: ‘Come unto me, ye blessed, there is a place prepared for you in the mansions of my Father,’” Elder Schmutz said.
In his interview, Elder Schmutz emphasized that he only worries about what he needs to do to return to Heavenly Father and doesn’t focus his ambitions or goals on reaching the bare minimum.
“I think it’s important that we have an intentional focus on the object of our faith, the object of our faith is of course God the Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ, but the objective of what we are called to do is to return to Him,” he said.