4/30/2017 - Section 20:60

April 30, 2017

Section 20: 60

Revelation Line Upon Line, Progress Personal, Growth, Godhead, Draw Near Unto Me, Atonement, Heavenly Father, Holy Ghost,

P 42 of the study manual asks a question of this section: “Why didn’t the Lord Make Known All Priesthood Offices When the Church Was First Organized? And the answer was simply a quote from President Joseph Fielding Smith: “The Lord could not reveal to the Church in the Beginning all the knowledge and organization which would be essential to the full and complete organization of the Church. Had this been done, it would have been like an overwhelming flood that would have brought destruction. The truth had to come piecemeal—line upon line, precept upon precept, just like knowledge comes to all of us. However, all that was revealed in this section was expedient for the government of the Church at the time of its organization.” (Church History and Modern Revelation 1:95)   As I have said many times before in my study journals: I feel so secure in Heavenly Father’s hands. He gives us what we can handle, and when we have grown—then he gives us more…more that will bring the potential for more growth for us. While this church is built on the foundation of truth, that does not mean that we have ALL truth. I don’t think we can have ALL truth until at least the time Christ comes again, and possible not until we literally stand before the judgment bar of Christ, and possibly not until we grow to be gods ourselves. For I feel that knowing eternal truth requires an eternal perspective. Just as the scriptures say: one of the purposes of this life is to grow our faith…and we do that through LIVING by faith. That is not a blind way of living. For when I do live by faith, I am spiritually rewarded with either knowledge or understanding or strength or peace, and always a closer relationship with Heavenly Father. We are taught that we will grow to be kings and queens, priests and priestesses. I am quite content to wait for the time that my strengths and abilities will have grown & developed to the point that I can handle the complexities of a calling such as those.

The other thing I like about v 60—which speaks of the ordaining or men to different priesthood offices—is the last phrase: that these men are to be “ordained according to the gifts and callings of God unto him; and he is to be ordained by the power of the Holy Ghost which is in the one who ordains him.” The Holy Ghost—that humble man whose name we do not know-- is the 3^rd member of the Godhead. I should work to be just as close to Him as I am to my Heavenly Father through prayer, and to Christ through gratitude for what He has enabled for all of us: resurrection and access to the atonement, and my efforts in seeking the gifts of the atonement and following more closely His teachings and example. I frequently pray to be aware of, AND thankful for, the Holy Ghost and His efforts in my growth and development and guidance. For all three can be intimately involved in my growth and protection IF I have the desire AND put forth the efforts to access each one of them and express & show my gratitude for each of them.

3/3/2021 – D&C 20:68-84

 

V 69 is a wonderful way of saying we should walk our talk! “And the members shall manifest before the church, and also before the elders, by a godly walk and conversation, that they are worthy of it, that there may be works and faith agreeable to the holy scriptures==walking in holiness before the Lord.” What I do and what I say and what I think shows my faithfulness and devotion to the Lord and His instructions.

 

V 71: “No one can be received into the church of Christ unless he has arrived unto the years of accountability before God, and is capable of repentance.” The Lord gives us a generous time to learn of Him before we are held accountable.  Those years of young children in our house were years of very busy days. That may be the only time I would like to go back and live over, for I would concentrate not only on my being close to the Lord, but my children being –and feeling—close to the Lord.

 

The church is so new. This is a section of explaining the basic and important covenants that we make when we join the church through baptism and every week thereafter.  When the sacrament prayers are said, we are promising to take Christ’s name upon us—meaning we will try to act as He would have acted; we promise to work to ‘always remember Him’ and to ‘keep his commandments”, and IF we do that then we are promised that His spirit will always be with us. We are also told to drink the water in remembrance of the blood Christ shed—and it was in Gethsemane that he bled as he felt the tremendous weight of the errors and wicked deeds of all of mankind. And as He did this, He was fulfilling the law that all sins must be paid for. He has paid for EVERYONE’s sins---that service is in the bank---when we sin (large or small) we must realize & recognize what we have done, and we must want to do better, and we must go humbly to the Lord and ask for a portion of His suffering for ourselves. The only things we have to have are a desire to wipe out our mistakes, a determination to not repeat that mistake, a plan of how we will accomplish NOT making that mistake again, and how—if we can—apologize to those we might have hurt and help them to recover from the harm we did to them. And if it’s only ourselves that we have hurt, then we have to have the same loving care for ourselves. Christ wants us to learn from our mistakes to never do them again. He knows…and we should know…that this is an ongoing, daily process. If we keep attuned to our life and our actions daily, then we can correct our course daily, and hopefully never be far from Him. He has us remember His promise each week, telling us that if we do these things then we “may have his spirit to be with” us.

That’s one thing I have so appreciated about this Covid 19 Pandemic: Having the sacrament in our own home each week was so simple, so spiritual, and so powerful. We were essentially isolated from the world, but we were not isolated from the Lord. And we truly felt HIs strong and comforting spirit, and realized it was His gift to us.