A Father's Love

This week I studied more about the Atonement of the Savior and everything that occurred on that very important night. I specifically studied Mark chapter four and was struck by the many things that were taught by the Savior in that chapter, even as He was being faced with an unimaginable task. One teaching that particularly stood out to me was what He taught His apostles after He had asked them to wait and watch out for Him as He went into the Garden of Gethsemane, only to find them fast asleep when He returned to where they were waiting. After the first time of finding them asleep, the Savior said to them, “The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” That statement made by Christ stood out to me because it seems to me that the Savior is taking great compassion on His disciples for giving into even the smallest of temptations. Because the Savior knows us so well and He knows our struggles, He knows that sometimes we have the strongest desire to do such wonderful things to serve Him and God’s children, but we are unable to fulfill that desire as completely as we would like due to physical or circumstantial restrictions. He understands and He loves us for even just the desire that we have to do good. As I read about that specific story from the New Testament this week, I was truly comforted in remembering that all our Heavenly Father asks of us is our absolute best. He never expects us to be perfect; He only wants us to do everything that we can in order to follow the footsteps of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!

This week I wanted to talk about a powerful lesson that I learned from the Savior as I studied Matthew 24. This lesson I should always be striving to live my life in a way that I would be prepared if the Savior came tomorrow. This particular lesson is taught countless times in the scriptures, but it really stood out to me as I read this specific chapter in the New Testament this week. I was stuck by the directness of the Savior as He explained that no one, not even He Himself, would know the day of His coming before it happened. Heavenly Father is the only person who knows that information, and there is divine purpose in that. We are directed and guided my the prophets and apostles every general conference (and any other time in the year when we are taught by them) that the coming of the Savior is quickly approaching. We are constantly seeing the increasing amount of signs the He will come soon as well. Why is it, then, that some of us (myself included) don not always head the prophetic counsel to prepare, prepare, prepare for His coming in absolutely every aspect of our lives. We are obviously human, we are not perfect. We make mistakes. That's why we have the tremendous blessing of the atonement in our lives. With that being said, however, I know that I for one could definitely be doing more in the way of preparing for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We read in the scriptures of the great calamities and destruction that will warn us that the time is near, and those things can be very scary. I read a verse in Matthew 24 this week that brought me a lot of comfort, though. "...but for the elect’s sake those days [of great tribulation] shall be shortened"(Matthew 24:22). I know that if we are constantly doing our best to prepare ourselves for His coming, we will be a part of the "elect" and we will not have to suffer those great calamities for very long before we will be welcomed into our Savior's loving arms.

Matthew 19

When I studied Matthew 19 this week, there were many things that caught my attention. I was especially struck by the directness of the teachings of the Savior from this particular chapter. The chapter begins with Christ teaching the people about marriage. In a world where the main principles of marriage as created by God are constantly being challenged, I found it very comforting to read the words of the Savior and how He chose to teach about marriage. There were many people in those times who wanted to know the Savior's teachings on marriage and He taught them, "have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?" (Matthew 19:4-9). There were also many questions brought up by the people concerning divorce and what the Savior taught about it. He taught, "whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery" (Matthew 19:9). Each of these teachings are extremely clear and very powerful.
Another point from this chapter that I felt the Savior made very clearly and directly was the importance of not holding worldly possessions in a higher position in our lives than God. When the man asked Jesus what more he needed to do than all that he had done already to show his love for God and the gospel, Jesus told him that he needed to leave all of his possessions behind and follow Him. The man was unable to do so and left the presence of the Savior. I felt that this was an extremely direct and clear teaching of the Savior as well.
I feel that when the Lord is as straight forward about a specific teaching as He was about His teachings of marriage, divorce, and not worshipping worldly possessions, it is very important that we heed those teachings in our lives.

"Come unto me...and I will give you rest"

As I read from the New Testament this week, I thought about the clarity of the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We learn about how He healed the sick and how He raised the dead. We learn about how He taught his disciples of the importance of loving and serving all, not just a few. We learn about how He sacrificed his life so that we could one day return to live with our Father in Heaven. Everything that Jesus Christ did during His ministry on this earth was meant to teach each and every one of us a very clear lesson, and why? To allow us the opportunity to find true and everlasting peace and joy, not only in this life, but also in the life to come.
Reading and studying the scriptures allows me to come to know and understand my Savior more and more. As I read recently in Matthew 11:28, He taught all of us that as long as we come unto Him and follow His example, He will give us rest. When I think about that, I think about what it might mean to be given rest from the Lord. I am sure that it has many different aspects and meanings, but one that comes to mind for me is that we can rest in Him as we are forgiven of our sins. We are imperfect people living in a very dark world, but we can find light and rest as we follow the example of Jesus Christ.
In Mark 4:21, Jesus asks the question, "Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel?" He taught us that it is not. A candle is meant to be out in the open, for all to see. It is our responsibility to light our own candle with the love and light of Christ and to show it for all the world to see. We have the responsibility to stand out in the crowd with the full love and light of him so that little by little and one by one, we can begin to light up the dark world around us once again.