Week 7: The Saviors Love

This is the last week, and honestly I'm sad to see it come. The natural man (and busy woman) is glad to see the filfillment of an obligation, but I've really enjoyed learning from these assignments and from the other students in my class.

This week, is based on our view of ourselves, Jesus Christ, and our fellow man. Christ said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:34-35

I remember a few years ago, when I was still a young seminary student listening to a song that explained that the artist wanted to dissapear behind the reflection of the Savior. To this, the Holy Ghost bore witness that I should live this way; and so I committed myself to finding how I could do that. The answer came in a discussion in some place and some time that I don't remember and probably doesn't matter. What does matter is the answer, which was that others will be able to see the Savior in your actions, words and example if all things are done with love.

I learned that though verbally bearing one's testimony is faith building, and brings the Spirit; the true testimony comes from the actions one uses to back up the word with. People will see if you are truly a deciple of Christ if your actions bear the fruit of love.

True love is Charity, or how I see it, when we love without a desire to gain something in return. There are many ways that we can show this love, and it's only up to the person to determine the motive behind the action. Some examples may be if there is gossip about someone because of their style (or lack of), don't stand for it. We'v heard it a thousand times , and that many different ways. We don't know the whole story, and even if they do, even if they might in our eyes or the accuser's eyes seem justly fit for riducule, ask one question; "how is this fullfulling my covanant with the Lord?"

When someone new comes to church, or to work, or to school- chances are they feel aprehensive, lonely and perhaps a little scared. There are probably so many people, they don't know where to start or who they should talk to first. It's scary being new, so releve some suffering and go talk to them, and introduce them to your friends and people that make you feel happy!

I hope that people see Christ wen they look at me. I try very hard (not to pat myself on the back, I've got a long way to go) to live the way that Christ wants me to live. Commitments are a good thing, so because I have a long way to go I want to make a short list of things I'm going to work on starting this week. I've more or less specifically applied this to my mother. She's a great woman who sees the worst and best of me. I hope that she can see more of the best and less of the beast.

• I will be nicer about my suggestions to improve a situation. I have a hard time with this one, mostly because I want people to understand what I'm trying to say. I know that sometimes I come across as brash (and on days that I've already worked for ten hours and I have eight more hours of homework staring me in the face sometimes I'm a little grumpy too). I will think first about how I would respond to the statments that I'm about to make.
• I will listen to suggestions, and follow them, even if I don't exactly favor the desired method of getting from point A to point B
• I will show my love and go out of my way to help with something that is important to someone else (such as waking up early to weed the garden). It's easy to go out of my way for something that is important to me, and it's an added bonus if it's important to them too, but it's a little more difficult when it's not your favorite.

I'm going to have to find some way to follow up, so I guess I'll be posting next week too.

Week 6: The Comforter

My journey through the New Testament brings me this week to the Holy Ghost (the fact that it was an assignment option may or may not have helped sway my intrest peak this week.

The longer I live, the more I discover that I can't to do this whole life thing on my own. There are so many pressures from the world. Family, work, school, and activity in the gospel. All of these things have a tendency to scrape our metephorical butter thinly over the top of some whole wheat metephorical toast (because it's hard to butter real toast with metephorical butter)

Sometimes this world can be a cold lonely place...or it can seem like it anyway. Christ tells us that if we love Him and keep the commandments, then the Holy Ghost will ever be with us. Why is this important, why would something that we can not use our natural senses to percieve bring someone comfort? Christ answers this question too. In John 14 he tells us this: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." (emphis added)

I know that I forget things all the time, so just having someone (whether I can see them or not) is really actually very comforting that as long as I'm doing my best, that I will not forget anything very important. We will be reminded of Christ, help us repent of our sins, and he will guide us where we need to go.

These are all really wonderful tools that we have been given, but they don't come without doing somethings that God has required of us. Christ told the deciples that they must testify of Christ, be physically seperated from Him, keep the commandments, love the Savior, pray in faith, then live with that faith instead of fear.

To me the Holy Ghost has been a never failing guide and friend. I have seen in my life where He lifts my capacities mentally, physically, and spiritually to do things that I alone could not accomplish if I had been left to my own devices. Also in addition to that and perhaps partially because of that, there has been more light and fullness to my life. In essance, because I have the Holy Ghost with me, I am able to be more and more like my Savior Jesus Christ, and am able to more fully walk in His footprints.

So, to return to the question that peaked my intrest as I read this week (especially in John), "how does the Holy Ghost help us with our mission here?" I don't just mean when I say "mission" when one leaves one's home for a period of time to preach and share the gospel that Christ has shared with us, I mean the mission that each of us as come to this earth to fulfill.

Let's take a look at the Apostles. How were they helped in the remainder of their lives? They had lived with the Savior, and not only grown to love Christ as their Savior, but as a dear friend, and their strength. The Holy Ghost was able to remind them of that strength as they suffered persecution, and the taxing task to keep the purity of the gospel across the map, fighting tradition and misunderstanding and inturpritation of the ideas of man. They were taught how to run the church, given inspirition as they wrote epistles to individuals and groups of members of Christ's followers. Ultimatley, they were given the strength to look pain, fear, temptation and even death in the face, and still choose the Savior and His teachings.

I can not recall a major moment in my life where the Holy Ghost has touched me in such a powerful way as to forever sear the memory into my mind, however, the warmth of the constant nudgings, adjustings, and loving reminders help me to know that He is there. He gives me, and others "hunches", just plain intuition that turns to be a blessing. I will think of a friend and want to call them, so I do and they just needed someone to say hello, or something small like that. Those small things end up meaning the world to me though, and they help me to know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is real, and that they have done and are doing everything to help me  return to them.

You know, when we look at it all. We aren't required to do a lot.

Week 5: When He comes.

Take Heed and Watch:

Mark tells us about some instruction in chapter 13 concerning the second coming of Jesus Christ. Our Savior tells us to heed His words at least four times in this chapter, and we know that in the scriptures, that if something is mentioned more than once you'f better sit up and listen (we probably should have been listening anyway).

So what's up? What does Christ want us to "take heed and watch" for? I noticed that Christ talks about deceit a lot, but he also mentions other things. Signs that will come to pass such as wars and rumors of wars, false Christs and prophets, and persecution of the saints.

This reminds me a little about an experience I had this week. I'm training for a relay race in August, and honestly I've had so much going on that I haven't been preparing for it (and feeling guilty), so naturally when the team captain invites me to a run, I accept the invitation. I've never run where we were running before, I knew it was longer than I'd ever run before, and the route was unfamiliar.
One of my team mates explains that the run was rough and explains a little about what we were going to experience, then we are off!
The first mile was 500 feet up. To make a long story short, they got ahead of me. I had been told signs to watch for so I could get back to the car, but I hadn't listened as well as I should have, and by the time I got to where I needed to remember, I was tired. I had no means of communication, so I just had to remember what I was supposed to watch for and take the actions accordingly. Eventually, I was able to remember, and made it, but I got to run around an unknown town a little more.

That's how life is! We're running, and sometimes the hill is steep. There are forks in the road, things we need to avoid, sometimes a road can be a little misleading but we have to keep going. We will be confronted with people that want to deceive us, even the best of us will be fooled. We will need to know when to stand our ground, such as with issues such as euthanasia, or the family (D&C 87:8).  Unlike my run, we do have a means to communicate, because the road is constantly changing, we need to listen (take heed), and keep running. Christ tells us all that we have to watch continually.

Life is like preparing for the relay, except we don't know when we will actually have to run the race, but you can't just pick up and run six or seven miles, we have to have been doing that already, we have to stay in spiritual shape. We might recognize patterns in the trails that we run, so we won't get confused.
Christ has invited us to run. Let's go for it!