Do You Take Christ Seriously?

President Jeffrey R. Holland, in his message “As a Little Child,” quoted Elder Richard L. Evans:

“Many of us profess to be Christians, yet we … do not take Him seriously. … We respect Him, but we don’t follow Him. … We quote His sayings, but we don’t live by them.”

That statement identifies a serious problem. It is possible to believe in Jesus Christ, speak about Him, attend church, and still refuse to follow Him when His teachings require us to change.

Taking Christ seriously means more than respecting Him. It means accepting His words as the standard for how we live.

Jesus taught:

“Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

President Holland explained that the qualities Christ was pointing us toward include purity, humility, trust, faith, and love. A child does not know everything, but a child can be teachable. That is the principle we need to understand.

Pride makes us difficult to teach. It causes us to defend ourselves when the Lord corrects us, resist truths that interfere with what we want, and assume that our present understanding must be right. Humility does the opposite. It allows us to hear the Lord, accept correction, repent, and change.

This is one way to determine whether we are actually taking Christ seriously.

When His teaching conflicts with your desires, which one do you change?

When His word exposes pride, anger, selfishness, or contention in you, do you repent, or do you find a reason to defend it?

When following Him requires you to forgive someone you would rather resent, do you obey Him?

These questions matter because our response to Christ reveals whether we merely admire Him or actually follow Him.

Contention is one place where this becomes especially clear.

President Russell M. Nelson taught:

“Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.”

A person cannot take Christ seriously while deliberately feeding contention.

This does not mean that disciples must agree with everyone, refuse to correct error, or remain silent when truth needs to be spoken. Peacemaking is not surrendering truth. It is learning to handle disagreement in the manner Christ requires.

A peacemaker seeks reconciliation instead of revenge, speaks truth without trying to humiliate, and corrects without hatred. When relationships are damaged, a peacemaker tries to repair what can be repaired. When another person is struggling, a peacemaker seeks to help rather than use that weakness as an opportunity to judge or condemn.

This is difficult because contention often feels justified while we are participating in it. We tell ourselves that we are only defending truth, protecting ourselves, or responding to what another person did. Sometimes correction and firm boundaries are necessary, but anger, cruelty, pride, and hatred do not become righteous simply because we believe the other person is wrong.

President Nelson taught that charity is the antidote to contention and that charity is a defining characteristic of a peacemaker.

Scripture teaches:

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:45).

Charity changes how we deal with people, including people who are difficult to love. Virtue governs what we allow into our thoughts and what we permit ourselves to dwell upon. Together, they require us to deal with the condition of our own hearts instead of concentrating only on the faults of other people.

Ask yourself whether there is someone you have decided no longer deserves your patience, kindness, or forgiveness. Have you allowed an offense to become an excuse for hatred? Have you become so focused on proving another person wrong that you have stopped asking whether your own behavior is Christlike?

Those are not small matters. They show whether the teachings of Christ are actually governing us.

The Savior’s Atonement makes change possible. We are not required to overcome pride, anger, selfishness, or contention through our own strength. Christ calls us to repent, and through Him our hearts can be changed.

Repentance in this area requires more than apologizing after an argument. We must identify the pride, resentment, selfish ambition, desire for control, or other sin that produced the contention and bring it before the Lord. We then begin acting according to Christ’s teachings instead.

If we have wronged someone, we seek to make it right. If we have held resentment, we work toward forgiveness. If we have spoken harshly, we change the way we speak. If we have treated disagreement as permission to attack another person, we learn to speak truth with patience, meekness, and love.

This is how we become peacemakers.

It is also how we become more like little children in the way Christ commanded. We become teachable enough to admit when we are wrong, humble enough to repent, and willing enough to obey even when obedience requires us to surrender something we have been defending.

There is also a larger warning in this.

Scripture teaches that those who fight against Zion fight against the work of God (2 Nephi 10:13). We should therefore be careful that our pride, contention, personal ambition, or attachment to worldly ways does not place us in opposition to what the Lord is trying to build.

We should not assume that calling ourselves followers of Christ automatically means that everything we defend is pleasing to Him. His word must judge us. We do not judge His word according to what we prefer.

That is what it means to take Christ seriously.

It means that when He says to repent, we repent. When He commands us to forgive, we work toward forgiveness. When He tells us to become peacemakers, we stop treating contention as an acceptable way to deal with people. When He exposes pride within us, we humble ourselves and allow Him to correct us.

Christianity cannot remain a profession of belief without obedience.

The Savior said:

“If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Our lives should therefore show that we believe Him.

If there is pride, contention, bitterness, or selfishness in your heart, take it to the Lord and repent. Ask Him to make you teachable, charitable, and willing to obey. Then begin making the changes His teachings require.

Take Jesus Christ seriously enough to follow Him.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.