Paul told the people that if we have the gift of prophecy, or have great faith or even give to the poor or even give your body to be burned, if you don’t have charity, it does you no good (1 Corinthians 13:3). How can that be? How can you do the actions and not have charity? Well…it’s all about where our heart is. If we give a lot of money to the poor, but just do it so we’ll be recognized by others, and not out of love of the poor, we don’t have charity and it does not benefit us. If we have a love for others, even including our enemies (which can be very challenging), we do have charity. If we think of others before ourselves because we love them, we have charity. If we go help our neighbor not expecting anything in return, we have charity. If we are willing to sacrifice our selfish desires to help our children, we have charity.

In the Book of Mormon (written by ancient prophets in the Americas), we learn that we can develop charity if we pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart (Moroni 7:48). In other words, we should pray to God that we can be born again and receive a new heart – that we can have charity, the pure love of Christ. If we develop that kind of love, we will become a new person – born again. If the whole world developed that type of love, wars would cease and peace would reign over the face of the earth. The earth would be a happy, peaceful place that would mirror the kingdom of God. If we don’t have that type of love, let us pray for charity with all the energy of heart.