A Faithful Follower

My Top 3 Principles

1. Overcoming doubt. (Matthew 28: 8, 17-18; Luke 24: 8, 31, 45; John 20: 27-29)
2. Christ’s infinite service. (Mark 16: 9, 17-18; Luke 24: 31, 45, 53; John 20: 22; John 21:25)
3. Blessed are the believers (Mark 16: 10-15, 17-18; John 20:1-18, 27-29)

This week I found the most powerful principle to be one of Christ’s infinite service. Not only was he serving the people around him at the time, but he went on to serve the people that weren’t around him too. He went and visited the people outside of where he lived his mortal life. He continued to heal by casting out devils and even leaving us with a few commandments that can help to serve our fellow man. He asks his disciples to “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” (John 20:22) and with that, to teach our fellow man. In the last verse of the four gospels, it says that Christ’s service was infinite, continuing past the grave. More specifically, that our world could not contain enough books to talk about the miracles that he performed. This is one of those instances where the New Testament is making a direct reference to the Book of Mormon. There could be more books out there, and the Book of Mormon is the one that tells us everything else that we need to know for ourselves.
Christ’s infinite service wasn’t just to the people in biblical times, but it was to us. We have an example to look up to, and more importantly, a Savior who died for each and every one of us. One of the ways that he can help us today is to open our understandings (Luke 24:45) He permits us to continue in our learning process as he gives us more light and truth to understand what we need to know. Perhaps the reason that there couldn’t be enough books on the Earth to tell us of all of Christ’s service to man is because his service is ongoing and forever growing. He continues to help the people who are on the Earth today, as he has helped to guide the people before us, and before Him.

As I learned more about the resurrection, I found myself wondering what I will do when I hear that he has come to Earth. Though many individuals had doubted, (but came to the eventual conclusion that Christ was resurrected) the humble and most faithful were able to fathom it. Mary Magdalene showed to be a powerfully faithful follower of Jesus Christ. She got up early, even while it was still dark to go and see Jesus (John 20: 1-18). She knew that he was dead, but continued to mourn his loss. It is reasonable to say that she must have gone to the tomb where he was buried several times. Though it is possible that this may have been one of the only times she had gone to see his grave, the fact that she had gone so early in the morning, when none of the others might have seen it, might prove that she was truly prepared in a spiritual sense. She continued to follow him after the grave, coming to him and seeking him out. Once she was given a call-to-action, she immediately obeyed. She ran to tell the disciples the news of Jesus Christ’s coming. They had doubted her. I have to wonder if it was significant that the disciples had to be told that Jesus is risen. Perhaps nobody would have believed them if the disciples were the ones to discover Christ’s empty tomb. When Christ returned, he opened everyone’s eyes and understandings (Luke 24:31, 45). He also gave them a resource to learn more in a holy place of learning, as the disciples spent their time “continually in the temple” (Luke 24:53). From this reading, I was reminded that there are so many things possible through Jesus Christ. He beat the grave and continues to give hope to many inhabitants of this Earth today. We learn that through being faithful to Christ’s teachings and striving to follow Him in every way, we will be blessed and show Him that we truly know Him. Our task on this Earth is to come to truly know Him through His words and His sacrifice. He did so much for us, and we have the opportunity to be quick to obey, as well as, faithful in this world full of doubt. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Betrayal

The following principle(s) will be more thoroughly gone through within this week's blog post.

1.Be prepared for Christ’s coming. (Matthew 25:1-13; Mark 14: 37-41)
2.Love one another (John 13: 13-17, 34)
3.Christ was alone in His trials so that we won’t have to be alone in our own. (Mark 14: 10-11, 17-18, 20-21, 67-72; Luke 22: 31-34, 57-62; John 13: 36-38)

The obvious choice of my favorite principle from this week's directed study had to be the message of being prepared. Time after time, the Lord has warned us about our need to prepare diligently for the time of judgment. In today's gospel, that seems to be the focus of our faith. What can we do to further prepare ourselves for when Christ comes? The 10 virgins were an interesting bunch. Half of them prepared properly by always keeping their vessels full of oil. The other half neglected it, thinking that they would have time to do it when they saw that it was time. In the end, the unprepared virgins didn't get to attend the wedding party because they didn't take the time to get to know Christ. The same message rings true when Christ goes up to pray right before Judas' betrayal. He told his disciples to watch out for Him, and they kept falling asleep. Each and every time Christ came back to meet with them, they were unprepared to greet him. Though unintentional, the most faithful of Christ's followers happened to be the ones who fell asleep. Just like if we are unprepared, and we don't keep polishing and refining our knowledge and testimony of Christ, we could fall asleep by the time Christ comes. (Matthew 25:1-13, Mark 14: 37-41)

Loving one another is such a wonderful thought. The world would be so much better if we all just loved everybody around us. There would be no more war, no more major conflict, no divorce, and ultimately, no sin. With an infinite amount of love, we would need to keep God's commandments fully, and love our neighbor fully, and need to keep spreading the love to everyone until everyone feels truly loved in their heart. This perfect love can't happen because this isn't a perfect world, but it still feels good to imagine it. However, we have a Savior with an infinite love for us and an infinite atonement. He loved us, he suffered for us, and he is willing to help us to love others the way that they want to be loved, and the way that God wants them to be loved. (John 13: 13-17, 34)

This week I found myself learning a lot about Christ’s emotional suffering. Even knowing the things he knew he would have to endure, Christ wasn’t finished with just that. After the emotional pain, the suffering of total betrayal, he needed to go and endure through the Atonement. Christ was alone in his trials so that we wouldn’t need to be alone in ours. He suffered through Judas’ betrayal (Mark 14: 10-11, 17-18, 20-21) and he suffered through Peter’s (Mark 14: 67-72; Luke 22: 31-34, 67-62; John 13:36-38). His disciples even fell asleep during it all, almost as if they didn’t really care enough to stay awake for him (Mark 14:37-41). Though Christ knew that this wasn’t the case and that his disciples still loved him enough to let him suffer through the Atonement, I'm sure that it still hurt him infinitely

Having found myself alone in many trials throughout life, I found this to be an intriguing account. Christ was completely alone so that we would never need to be alone. He loved us so much that he suffered complete betrayal preceding the utmost physical pain. God loved us so much that he sent his son to do all of this for us. If God and Christ did both of these things to show us their love for mankind, then it should be undeniable that they love us infinitely and want us back home with them.

All That You Have

The main thing that I learned after reading this week’s directed study, and my own personal study, is that God just wants us to give our all; regardless of what we actually have available to us. He doesn’t care about what effort we put in, he cares about how much we gave up to put the effort in. The story about the widow casting in her life to donate into the treasury struck me really hard this week because it talks about casting in everything you have and everything that’s important to you in order to come closer to the Creator.  Casting in all of our living gets us more than we could ever wish for.

Mark 12:41-44

I loved this passage of scripture. To sum it up, it's basically about the people who cast their money into the treasury. Basically how it worked back then is that if you put money in, you helped pay for the sacrifice at the temple. It was significant when people donated towards the sacrificial ceremony because it was a sacrifice for them to donate their money in the first place. How the story goes is that Jesus sees a bunch of people donating money in, usually just something that isn't worth much to them. Then, he sees a poor widow donate some money and she threw in all that she had. She cast in her living, and for that, she basically gave herself to Christ the way that he did for her.

This story teaches us that we must cast in our own livings, the things that are important to us, as a sacrifice to come closer to Christ. This is very similar to what we learn from the certain man and the requirements of eternal life back in last week's readings in Matthew 19: 16-21. However, in this story, the person is poor and obeys by casting in all that she had.

In general, I think that this week changed my perspective on what putting effort in actually looks like. Heavenly Father knows that we live busy lives and that we can’t just give everything up to go and help everybody we see. He knows that we have certain responsibilities, and instead just asks us to do one simple thing. He asks us to turn to Him. He asks us to be Christ-like in those responsibilities and help others to turn to Him. He may ask us to do these things in different ways. It might not always be to lead by example, it could be to let someone else help us, or to delegate or challenge someone to learn more about Christ. Either way, God has a plan for each and every one of us. It’s up to us to have the faith to be willing to become a tool in his hands, and cast in all of our living so that we can be so.

Christ gave up his life so that we could come back to Heavenly Father. He gave up his blood, his flesh, and everything that he was just so that we could be happy. The least that we can do for Him is sacrifice our agency, the thing that only Heavenly Father's plan could have, in order to serve Him and His children.

X Marks My Heart

There were many stories about Christ's love this week, and the Martha and Mary story stuck out to me the most. For those who need a reference to follow along, it's found in Luke 10:38-42 and John 11: 1-6, 14, 19-44. When Lazarus died, Martha and Mary needed different ways to be comforted. Mary needed someone to give her advice and tell her it was going to be okay. However, Martha needed to vent and have someone to cry with, and Jesus had the strength to weep with her. When he wept, Martha and Mary could both see how much Christ cares about His children. There were also the stories about the lost sheep and the prodigal son. However, I saw this one as more significant. It shows how much Christ really knows how to help us individually. Even if one of us somehow strays, or one of us is having trouble coping with things, He is the perfect mediator to help us to get through hard things.

This week, there also seemed to be a lot about the individual treasures that we hold in our hearts. I was able to ponder a lot about what I might put before my own birthright. In my Old Testament class, we talked a lot about Jacob and Esau and how Esau sold his birthright for bean soup, and Jacob spent 14 years of his life trying to work towards an eternal marriage with Rachel; after getting tricked by Laban, her father, after 7 years! This story really connected with the story that we hear about the rich man who asks what he should do to earn eternal life. Christ tells him to keep the commandments and give to the poor, and he will have his reward in heaven. Loving his fortune, however, kept him from fulfilling those requirements. He must have known that money will not stay with him for eternity, but he still willingly chose Satan over Jesus Christ.

These passages made me think. Even though I’m asking Christ what I must do to receive eternal life, am I actually following through with what he commands of me. Do I work hard to achieve my goal, or do I sell it for something that lasts as long as a fleeting moment? Is my treasure with God or with man? Since Christ's treasure is us, we should treasure him at least as much as he does. It may take a lifetime to pursue, but Christ teaches us that it’s important to put your treasure in God. When we do so, we will be blessed and more able to commit to doing the things that are needful for our personal conversion to Him.

Knowing Christ as My King

This week I learned a lot about what kind of person Christ really is. In the readings, there was a lot about who Christ is and what he does for us. He can help us to conquer our fears like we learned in Matthew 14. His purpose is to heal (Mark 6:5). He is the bread of life (John 6:32-35, 47). Overall, Christ is here to redeem and “save that which was lost” (Matthew 18:11). I love the kind of person that Christ is. He is truly here for us. He is here for no other reason.

My life has already started changing with this knowledge of who Christ is and what his purpose is here on Earth. I started out this week worrying about everything that I would need to do. I have several exams to study for, and an extra heavy workload in all of my studies and at the work place. Once I learned what Christ was here to do, I was able to gather all the zeal necessary to push forward and try my best. I’ve almost completely finished everything that’s due for this week, and I’m only halfway through it. I’m grateful that I can be prepared to listen to general conference rather than worrying about all of my studies.

The biggest principle that stood out to me this week was the importance of believing in Christ. He can help us as long as we believe. One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is when Christ is walking on the water and he invites Peter to come unto Him. Peter was doing great, but the moment he took his eyes off of Christ, he starts to sink. The same happens for us. When we take our focus off of Christ, we start to sink and everything in our lives start to fall apart. At first, it may seem easy to keep our focus on other things because we think we could get so much more done. However, when we do that we sink and lose our focus on the rest of the areas of our lives. I have a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and the kinds of things that he can help us do just while we're keeping our focus on Him.

My favorite instances of believing in Christ within the reading include: Matthew 14:26-31, 17:18-20; Mark 9:23

I decided to practice skills on another piece of symbolism.A passage that I found confusing and arbitrary was about a woman, her daughter, and the dogs. This passage is found in Mark 7:25-30. According to the story, the woman came to Jesus looking to “cast forth the devil out of her daughter” (verse 26). It almost seems as if Jesus doesn’t even give a call to action. He tells her to “Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs” (verse 27). The woman seems to understand what Christ is saying here. According to the footnotes, he means to say that the children of God’s kingdom must be “filled” first. She replies, “Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs” (verse 28). These crumbs might represent the gospel. It went through the children of God’s kingdom before it went through anyone else. Overall, I guess that Christ is teaching that in order to help others, we ourselves, need to have our own testimonies. The crumbs, which may or may not be intentional, could be the learning of others based on our example as we learn the gospel.

This passage was an interesting thing to study. On one hand, we’re taught that we must teach the gospel. This almost makes the gospel seem more selfish, but it’s important that we have a solid testimony of our own. Christ uses a lot of symbolism in his teaching. It is an important skill to learn to decipher the different symbols to understand his teachings.

Our Worth in His Eyes.

Worth means a lot to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. After Christ suffered through Satan’s temptations, he went to preach to the multitude about how wonderful they all are in Matthew 5. God sent his first born to die for us and to teach us the way. Christ teaches us that our worth is infinite.

Shortly before Matthew 5, it's important to understand that Christ had just fasted for forty days and nights. While he was fasting, (Matthew 4,) the devil came and tried to make him question his worth. Satan tried to make him give up who he was for temporal glory. No matter what Satan did, Christ kept basically telling him that he knew his worth. I think this shows a lot when we consider that the next thing that Christ did was teach the multitude about their own worth. He says that they who persevere can get through anything. The Sermon on the Mount is powerful, and it's important to understand who we are and how much God loves us.

My favorite scripture in the Sermon on the Mount is "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." (Matthew 5:11) Christ foreshadows the suffering he will go through and says that we will be blessed if we go through it with the best of our abilities. Christ knew that we would be tortured for following Him because of how much he was tortured. The pioneers of Joseph Smith's time were constantly going through persecution. Joseph Smith even got thrown in jail because he followed Christ and was speaking on behalf of God. Because I know we are to be blessed if we follow no matter what, it gives me more courage to stand up for what I believe in.

I'm grateful for this church because it gives credit to all those who are trying their hardest to be the best that they can. This is truly a gospel of sinners who keep on trying. I'm thankful for the opportunity that I have each week to study these standard works and our modern-day revelation. If we didn't have these things to freely study, we couldn't learn or progress in spiritual matters.

This week I was at home sick with the stomach flu. My husband was sick too, and he was really depressed as well. We both felt like failures because we had gotten sick and still had so much left to accomplish this week, but we tried our hardest to make the best of it. Every time one of us threw up, the other person would go dump their throw up in the toilet; if they made it into the toilet, we would go into the bathroom with them to rub their back and tell them it was going to be okay. One night, my husband was feeling really bad and so after we finished our family scripture study, I got out his patriarchal blessing and read it to him. I was reminded of how special my husband really is. Both of us were reminded as to how much we love each other, and more importantly, how much God loves us. 

To sum up, our worth is great. We may feel like failures sometimes and like we're not good enough to meet or deserve Christ's Atonement, but that's okay. When we know what we are worth to our Father in Heaven, it's a lot easier to avoid temptation. Of all his creations upon the Earth, he decided to create us last. Life was incomplete and meaningless without us, just like life is meaningless and incomplete without a Father in Heaven to guide us.

Immediate Obedience and Discipleship

Throughout this week in our studies of the New Testament, I found myself coming across a theme. The theme that I found most prominent was Immediate Obedience, and there was a lot to say about it across the board.

Matthew 1-2; Luke 1-2; John 1:1-18, 17:1-5
Matthew 3-4; Mark 1; Luke 3-4; John 1:1-19-4:54

Lately, in general conference talks, we've heard a lot about what it means to be an immediate disciple of Jesus Christ. I think that together, these scriptures from the directed study were a great example of that. Joseph, immediately obeyed when he found out that his fiance was carrying the Messiah. He didn't stutter within that obedience. (Matthew 1:18-20, 24-25) Another example of the immediate obedience from the people in Christ's life were the wise men that came to visit Him. They were "warned of God in a dream" that they shouldn't go back to Herod, so even though that was their home, they continued to flee because God asked them to. Also, within this same chapter, Joseph is asked to flee and he also faithfully obeyed. (Matthew 2: 11-14) I've never noticed the significance of John's name until reading through during this directed study. The name "John" wasn't in the family at that time, so Elisabeth and Zacharias were breaking tradition by naming their child what they did. They never stuttered in the naming process because they were told of God that his name will be John. Elisabeth and John bear their testimony immediately after their neighbors and cousins pestered them about the name. (Luke 1:57-66) Overall, there were so many references to being an immediate disciple. After all, it is what the Lord expects of us.

In Matthew 4:1, Christ went up to be with God. He was tempted by Satan, at least that was Satan’s objective. In verse 3, Satan wants Christ to question his identity. It won’t work though. Even though Christ could turn stones into bread, or really anything he needed, he won’t do it to prove his identity to Satan. We shouldn’t do anything to prove anything to Satan either. Even if it’s good or if it benefits us, if we feel tempted to do something that we know Satan would want us to do, we shouldn’t do it. Christ’s response in verse 4 is that there is more that makes him alive than just bread. He is alive not just because of the temporal things, but he’s alive because of the spiritual. If we were to deny that, personally, we would surely die in the sight of the Lord. Satan has an interesting response in verse 5 and 6. He puts him in a holy place, on top of a temple, and asks him to get down with the help of his angels. I had to sit back and ponder on this. What would I do if I was set on the pinnacle of the temple? By Satan? Christ stands his ground, and he won’t let Satan tell him what to do. He won’t even show the slightest obedience towards him because he knows who he serves. He doesn’t even entertain the thoughts of Satan. 

After basically threatening Christ’s life with high heights, he takes him up on a mountain in verses 8 and 9. He shows and tempts Christ with all the temporary things. He shows him all of the great things that he can have in this life if he goes against the Eternal plan. Still, Christ knows who he serves and pushes Satan away.These scriptures are powerful. Christ had just fasted for forty days and forty nights. He must have been starving. For Satan to come to Him when he was temporally weak shows how devious Satan really is. He tempts him with the things that he doesn’t already have. The things that he’s been starved of in order to seek the importance of His Father in Heaven. Still, after all of this is said and done, he presses forward and continues to deny the temporal wants. Christ knows that "with God, nothing shall be impossible."Visualizing this experience that Christ had was interesting for me. I could see myself in Christ as Satan would pound Him with things that I might potentially want. I found myself shrugging off the temporal things even more to push through to all of this. It was interesting to imagine what Satan might offer me to go against God’s plan for me. How low would I stoop to let go of the plan of happiness? Would I really give up eternal blessings to enjoy temporal fun? 

Going into this week I was having a hard time with all the commitment of time that a lot of my classes have. I was very prayerful when it came to setting pace goals to keep up with this week and not get too overwhelmed. I felt inspired on Saturday to implement a goal to work on homework every night until 8 o’clock, and stop there. I thought that this would prove difficult as I had a lot of things due on Wednesday, however I was able to get everything in and done on time. There’s a quote that really stuck out to me in the readings this week. It was Luke 1:37, “For with God, nothing shall be impossible.” With all the miracles that the people of the scriptures, (Mary and Joseph specifically) ran into with the preparation for Christ’s birth, it’s really no wonder that God is all-knowing and can ultimately show us the way when we ask. He loves us, he cares about us, and he wants us to succeed. When we obey Heavenly Father, we’re doing what will help us to succeed. He would never lead us astray. 

Being an immediate disciple means that we should follow the first promptings when they come to us. God doesn't have the time to wait for us to decide whether or not we will be obedient. He's looking for those who are ready now. He uses us as tools to further the work of the gospel. He's ready to use us, but are we ready to let Him? Through immediate obedience and immediate discipleship, we show Heavenly Father that we're committed and we've chosen who we will serve. We show those around us that it's important to follow promptings and personal revelation. We show ourselves that we are deeply committed and have a testimony of Jesus Christ.

Posted on September 15, 2017