As we look heavenward, we inevitably learn of our responsibility to reach outward.
To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty—the fulfillment of which brings true joy.
We do not live alone—in our city, our nation, or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor’s wretchedness. “Love thy neighbor” is more than a divine truth. It is a pattern for perfection. This truth inspires the familiar charge “Go forth to serve.” Try as some of us may, we cannot escape the influence our lives have upon the lives of others. Ours is the opportunity to build, to lift, to inspire, and indeed to lead.
The New Testament teaches that it is impossible to take a right attitude toward Christ without taking an unselfish attitude toward men. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”6 We may think as we please, but there is no question about what the
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Bible teaches. In the New Testament there is no road to the heart of God that does not lead through the heart of man.
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that a true Latter-day Saint
is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all, wherever he finds them.
