Come Follow Me (3 Nephi 11-17)
You learn a lot about someone by watching them. Listening to what they say is instructive, but what they do helps you the most - to know what matters most to them.
For instance, take Jesus.
You learn a lot about Jesus from the Old Testament watching His interactions with the children of Israel as they stumble through more than one wilderness over the millennia. There's one overarching message to His covenant family - and thanks to the law of adoption, the whole human family: come home.
"For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 9:21)
You learn more still from the New Testament as He assumes His undercover role as a mortal and walks with His brothers and sisters - hopefully, to Him, to become His daughters and sons. His days are filled with interruptions and ministering to people who never even showed up on His 'To Do' list until they showed up right in His path. The way Jesus navigated the day-to-day of mortal living, you have to suspect perhaps He didn't even have a 'To Do' list. Oh wait. Except one overarching thing He repeated often: I'm here to show you what it looks like to put Father's will first.
"For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." (John 6:38)
Add that to the parables and the miracles and it would seem the Father gave Jesus one job: bring the children home. Lost sheep. Lost coins. Lost kids. Find what was lost, heal and restore them, and bring them home.
Now. Take the myriad millennia of messages from these historical records and condense them into the few short days Jesus spent with the family of Lehi in the Book of Mormon. There you'll have a dense, compact collection of what matters most to Jesus Christ, whose one job was to make possible the rescue and restoration of God's family.
You can see what matters to Jesus by what He does, how He does it, the priority He places upon it by putting it first, or by the repetition of certain actions or principles.
Jesus wanted every single survivor to have a personal experience with Him - touch His wounds. If this record is to be a witness of His divinity, He was going to have legitimate witnesses. Just like every single human gets his or her own personal witness of the reality and divinity of the Savior through the Holy Ghost - personally and individually - each and every one of those people came forward one by one to see for himself. Given the number of people mentioned in the record, this had to have taken all day (3 Nephi 11:14-16).
Jesus also called individuals forward to be healed one by one (3 Nephi 11:14-16). He also
called the children forward one by one to bless them (3 Nephi 17:21).
Apparently, individuals matter to Jesus - a lot. It mattered enough to take the time, while thousands waited their turn, for every single individual to have the same opportunity at the experience of witnessing eternal scars or being healed or blessed individually by Him.
Jesus ministers to everyone who will have Him as if that individual is the one and only lost child who needs finding and bringing home. He's here for all of us - but he came for you. Even if you were the only one that needed finding and saving.
The fact that the bulk of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew also appears in 3 Nephi teaches me that these are principles which matter to Jesus.
The state of our hearts as we come to Him to repent and try to do better.
Treating each other how we need to be treated.
Giving atypical responses to soften hearts - second miles and second cheeks.
Growing pure motives that don't involve anybody knowing the good you're up to.
Learning you shouldn't criticize how someone is weeding his garden because you don't know the first thing that's growing there.
But even before the repetition of this important sermon, Jesus revealed two very important priorities to Him in His kingdom: you have to be baptized by someone in authority to do it. The very first thing He did after everyone had witnessed His wounds was instruct and give authority to baptize.
The very next thing Jesus did was teach that contention is not a part of His program.
"...he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another.
"Behold, this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, one against another; but this is my doctrine, that such things should be done away." (3 Nephi 11:29-30)
It matters to Jesus that you know He wants you with Him, because Father wants you with Him.
It matters to Jesus that you know that about every other human being so you treat them nice.
It matters to Jesus that you know there is order in His kingdom, so you need to come in the way He came in - by being baptized with authority (see 2 Nephi 31). Fun not-so-parenthetical fact: the word ordinance comes from the Latin: to put in order.
It matters to Jesus that you don't identify with the stirrer uppers. Once you're in the kingdom there's simply no time or room for that. Contention is counter to the mission; there are sheep to find and love and heal.
All of this is to say...
You matter to Jesus. He will eternally bear His scars as proof of that. He drank the bitter cup for you because He craves you the way any Parent craves the beautiful creation of His child.
You. Matter. To Jesus.
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