1. Preach the Gospel: It seems like in almost every single section of the D&C that we read this semester it was mentioned somewhere in the section how important spreading the gospel is and how missionaries are so important to the work. This early emphasis on sharing the gospel is surely important and the Lord made it clear that it was something that the Lord thought to be very important. I have learned from the prophets and apostles, as well as multiple member of the faculty during religion classes that any time something is repeated in the scriptures, it is something that should be paid attention to, and the Lord repeated more than once to more than one person how important the spreading of the gospel is to Him. (42:48)
2. The other thing is the early teachings of how the Lord is constantly warning the saints of Pride. Let me be clear, I am not suggesting right now that we as members of the Church are pride-less, but because of the constant admonition from the Lord, I think in general we can be relatively humble. I think it may have something to do with the fact that the early members of the church were literally beaten into humility, but it was nonetheless something that was very important to the Lord that we be humble. (23:1)
3. I noticed in the sections studied that the Lord mentions how important the family is. We have been taught that no matter what the success we have outside our home, it will never make up for the failure we may have inside the home. We know that Satan is attacking our families on every angle and that if he can successfully destroy a temple marriage or a family then he has pretty well won. The Lord even wanted the early saints to make sure that they tending to their families and making sure they were taken care of spiritually and temporally. Families also are an enormous part of the success of the church today. Our emphasis on the family sets us apart from many other religions is how important the family is in the gospel. As an eternal unit it leads us to do good and as we do good, we set a good example for those around us which inevitably proliferates our message of happiness and love. (20:47)
4. One thing that has absolutely made clear is that we need to pray. I don’t know that any other single aspect of the gospel has contributed more to the growth of the church. We are commanded to pray always, to carry a prayer in our heart and to communicate constantly with the Lord. At the end of the Book of Mormon there is the challenge that has come to be known as ‘Moroni’s Challenge’ where he asks those who read the Book of Mormon to ask in the name of the Lord if it isn’t true and if they as with sincere intent they will receive an answer. (10:5)
5. The last thing I would mention is faith. So much of what we preach and ask those who are new to the church to have is faith. We ask them to have faith in our words and then to pray about them so they can receive a witness of their own. Faith is also mentioned in the early church so many times as even after those saints had received a witness of the truthfulness of the gospel they still had to exercise faith that the Lord would guide them to Zion and that they would be safe, healthy, protected etc. The D&C proves how rough a time the early saints had in their quest for peace and safety and while members of the church don’t face such rough persecution anymore we still need to exercise faith in our leadership as they guide us with inspiration and have faith that we can endure to the end. (8:10)
No comments:
Post a Comment