Unit 2 Choice 2

City	What They Did That Pleased the Lord	How They Needed to Repent	Promised Blessings
Ephesus (2:1-7)	Work,patience,can’t bear those that are evil.	Left their first love – the Lord	Eat fruit of tree of life which dwells in God’s paradise.
Smyrna (2:8-11)	Work, tribulation, suffering poverty		Crown of life
​Pergamos (2:12-17)	Have not denied their faith	Following some false doctrine	Give white stone with a new name.
Thyatira (2:18-29)	Works, charity, service, faith, patience	Allowing Jezebel to preach false doctrine. Adultery	No additional burdens, power over nations and morning star.
Sardis (3:1-6)	Not defiled garments	Works are not perfect Hold fast and repent	Not blot out name in book of life. Confess his name before Heavenly Father.
Philadelphia (3:7-13)	Kept His word and did not deny Christ.	Repent of being liars	Keep from hour of temptation.  Pillar in the temple He will write His new name upon them.
Laodicea (3:14-22)		Not hot nor cold. Bragging of their riches.	Sit with Him on His throne. He will come to them and sup with them.

All of the counsel give to these saints can be applied to me today.  I really like that John tells them that the Lord knows their works and their struggles.  He knows the good that they are doing as well.  He tells them the specific things that need to be repented of as well.  The one that I could stand to work on is to hold fast.  The world can have such a pull on me but not in big things.  It is those little things that I need to hold fast on.  Being diligent in studying the scriptures and in FHE that I need to work on.

The two blessings that I really liked was where he talked about walking with you dressed in white because of your worthiness.  Imagine walking in the temple of the Lord with the Lord!  What a wonderful blessing for following His counsel.

D&C 14: 7 And, if you ^akeep my commandments and ^bendure to the end you shall have ^ceternal life, which gift is the greatest of all the gifts of God.

D$C 63: 20  ^aendureth in faith and doeth my ^bwill ^cinheritance upon the earth when the day of transfiguration shall come;

These two scriptures tell us that if we overcome the challenges of this life we can have the best of the best gifts of God.  We can receive an inheritance that is worth more than any amount of money.

1 John

Unit 1 Choice 4

1 John 1:1-4

From these verses we learn that John has a desire for everyone to know what he knows.  He wants to share the gospel with others so that their joy may be full.  We should all have this same motivation to share the gospel with everyone that we know.

The following are additional scriptures that help us understand:

1 John 1:8-10 - in order to have fellowship with the Lord, we have to be clean.  These verses tell us that if we say we have not sinned, that we are lying and cannot be clean.  If we confess our sins and repent, He will forgive us and completely cleanse us.

1 John 2:3-6 - There are people in the world who say they are followers of Jesus Christ, yet they don't keep his commandments.  John teaches us that if we are truly His followers, we will keep the commandments and follow His ways.  When we do this we are also showing our love for Him.

1 John 2:9-11 - John teaches us about loving other people and uses light to teach that message.  If we do not care for others, it is as if we are in the darkness and can't find our way.  If we do help others we will be walking in the light and can see where we are going.  The true source of all light is Jesus Christ and so when we walk in the light we are walking in His ways.

1 John 3:11-19 - John compares lack of compassion for others to murder in these verses.  Most of us probably would not murder someone but if we do not have charity and help others it is as if we are murdering.  The Savior was willing to die for us and we need to be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers.  We won't actually have to die for them but we could offer them things much easier to give.

1 John 1:15-17 - We need to be sure that we do not love the things of the world more than the Lord.  The things of the world will be gone but the Lord is everlasting and so are His ways.  We need to remember that and not lust after the things of the world.

1 John 2: 20-21, 27 - They use the word "unction" in this verse and that means an anointing.   John is teaching that the people have repented, been baptized and given the gift of the Holy Ghost.  He teaches that they can be taught by the Holy Ghost and that the Holy Ghost teaches them truth.

1 John 3: 4-6 - These verses teach us about sin and that the Savior suffered for our sins.  He went through so much so that we could repent.  So when we sin, we need to use the Atonement and repent of those sins.

One of these principles that I want to be better at is the one in 1 John 2:3-6.  I want to be better at aligning my actions with the Lord's example. There is nothing really big that I need to change but there are a lot of small things that I need to improve on.

Unit 1 Choice 3

This week I studied the words of Hebrews 13.  There are some great lessons there for me.

How we should treat strangers and those in bonds-
We should be kind to strangers but we might be entertaining angels.  We should treat those we don't know and those in bonds with more than just politeness.  We should try to put ourselves in their shoes and empathize with them.

How is marriage looked on-
Marriage is an honorable thing.  Even thought in the world marriage is considered disposable and unnecessary, the Lord does not see it this way.

What warnings are given about covetousness
We should not covet.  This is interesting because it refers to being covetous in conversation.  We should not wish we have what someone else has.  We should be grateful for all that we already have.  Such a great lesson to replace covet with gratitude!

What is the same yesterday, today and forever
The Lord is the same from the beginning and never ending.  We can count on Him to be steadfast and never waver.  His ways are sure and we can always count on them.  This puts me on solid footing if I follow Him.

How are we sanctified
We are sanctified through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Each Sunday as we worthily partake of the sacrament we can be cleansed again and be pure.

How do we respond to those who rule over us
Obey them for they watch for your souls. I think of this with our prophet and the words that he has for us.  He loves us and is watching over our souls.   I love this scripture and will use it in relation to visiting teaching as well.  

Who did Paul ask the people to pray for
He asks the people to pray for the prophet and apostles.  What a humble man to ask for this.


Anyone who would argue any of these points should refer to verse 8.  The Lord is the same always!  His ways to not get out-dated or old fashioned.  They are solid and enduring.

Turn Your Hearts

This week we studied 1 Peter 3:18-19, 1 Peter 4:6, D&C 138:18-20, 27, 57-59

I don't know how other religions interpret it when Peter tells us that Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison but it seems pretty clear to me.  We learn from other scriptures that Christ taught those that were righteous while on earth and that he did not go in to prison.  D&C 138 says:

 18 While this vast multitude waited and conversed, rejoicing in the hour of their ^adeliverance from the chains of death, the Son of God appeared, declaring ^bliberty to the ^ccaptives who had been faithful;

 19 And there he ^apreached to them the everlasting ^bgospel, the doctrine of the ^cresurrection and the redemption of mankind from the ^dfall, and from individual sins on conditions of ^erepentance.

These people were waiting and talking about the day that the chains would be released from them and they could hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and that day finally came.  This happened between the time of Christ's crucifixion and his resurrection.   The next verses tell us that Christ organized his forces to teach in spirit prison.

 30 But behold, from among the righteous, he ^aorganized his forces and appointed ^bmessengers, ^cclothed with power and authority, and ^dcommissioned them to go forth and carry the light of the gospel to them that were in ^edarkness, even to ^fall the spirits of men; and thus was the gospel preached to the dead.

This makes me think that he set up missions just we have on earth.  I have no doubt that everything is being done in an organized fashion and people are being called to serve missions in spirit prison and receive their commission from Jesus Christ.

Then I read a talk by Henry B Eyring that was given in 2005 called "Hearts Bound Together".  He talks about how as a missionary you are so excited when someone accepts the truth and wants to be baptized.  When they accept that truth some of the waiting is over but then they have to wait for someone on earth to do the work.  I have always thought of the person who has converted and how their life changes but I hadn't really considered the missionary.  It must be so hard waiting for those you have worked so hard to help understand the gospel to have to wait to receive the full blessings of the gospel.  

They are both waiting for us to stop making excuses and get the work done and then get to the temple!!

James 1

Unit 2 Choice 1

James 1:5 is such a MAJOR scripture for everyone to know and understand.  I can ask the Lord any question and He can teach me.  It doesn't matter how small or large the question is, He is there for me.  James tells us that we need to ask in faith and adds "nothing wavering".  To me this needs that we need to go to the Lord knowing that He will answer us and also that we will listen to His answer.  We can't go their asking and already have the answer we want in our minds.

James 1:8 tells us that a double minded man is unstable and in the footnotes we are directed to 2 Kings 18:21.  This helps us to understand the scripture by using an analogy of a damaged reed used as a staff.  If we don't use something solid to lean on, it will not stand and will end up hurting us.   Mathew 6:24 ties in to this as well when it tells us that we cannot serve two masters.  We can only serve either God or Satan.

James 1:13-15 and 19-27 give us some direction on how we can live the gospel.  It starts off and tells us that the Lord is not the one that tempts us.  We are tempted by our lack of control of our own lusts.  And if we do not control those it will lead to sin and then spiritual death.  James also teaches us that we should be slow to anger and that an angry man is not a righteous man.  He also tells us that we need to remove our haughtiness and replace it with meekness.  We also need to do more than hear the words of Christ.  We need to be doers of His word.  In verse 26 we learn that our religion needs to not just be in our words but that we need to have a testimony in our hearts.  James calls this pure religion and when we have that we will have the desire to take care of those in need.

James 1:22 is the scripture where it talks of being doers of the word, not just hearers of the word.  This past few months as we have been working on our Women's Conference for 2015 we were talking about all the things we learned while listening to the Women's Broadcast in September.  It was all about temples and we thought we would make that our focus.  As we continued to talk we felt the Spirit guide us and that we didn't need to talk about temples but we needed to attend the temple.  For this conference we will be taking all the women of our stake to the temple.  It is a huge undertaking but we want to be doers of the word.

Bruce R McConkie talked about James and how the verse 1:5 led to the restoration of the gospel.  Also, anyone who has investigated the church has been in the same shoes as Joseph Smith and has asked as he did when inspired by the words of James.  This simple verse led to the heavens opening in modern times.

Philemon

This week my group had to study and discuss Philemon.  I love this book!!!  It is really the gospel in action.  Paul writes this letter on behalf of Onesimus, who is a servant.  This man has run away from his owner, Philemon and ends up being converted while he is gone.  Paul really loves Onesimus but recognizes that he needs to return to his owner and make things right.  So he sends this letter with Onesimus in hopes that Philemon will forgive him.

Paul tells Philemon (vs 15) that perhaps Onesimus left so that he could become converted.  Paul was trying to give Philemon a different perspective.  My favorite scripture is verse 18 where Paul says that "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account;"   Isn't this what Christ has done for us?  He has suffered so that we can put our sins on his account and he will pay for them.

One of the ways that I can apply this letter is in my role as Stake Relief President.  One of the underlying things you learn from this letter is how much love Paul has for the saints.  And then how much he wants them to forgive each other.  It made me think about the emails that I write.  What do they say about me?  This is something I want to work on.

Unit 2 Choice 5

Epistle to the Hebrews:

This is found in the Bible Dictionary on page 746.  I record this because I had no idea this was in the back of my 1981 bible!!  What a great learning tool.  This really helps to explain Hebrews and what Paul is trying to accomplish in his letters to the Jews.

There we find several things that he taught that Jesus is superior to.  First, the Law of Moses.  he had to keep teaching that the law of Moses was a forerunner to Christ, and had been fulfilled. The laws were so rigid and they had become used to strictly following the law of Moses but Paul needed them to let it go and learn the higher law.  In the Analysis of Hebrews we learn that Jesus is greater than the angles.  Jesus is greater that  Moses.  Jesus' word is superior and that Jesus is superior to the high priests of the law of Moses.

In Hebrews 1 Paul taught these three truths about the Savior.
1.  Jesus Christ "made the worlds" (vs 2)
2.  Jesus Christ as the "first-begotten into the world" (vs 6)
3.  Jesus Christ is the same and will not change.  (vs 12)


It is interesting that in the first part of this assignment, I wrote about the things that Jesus Christ is superior to.  Yet, he descended heaven to come down to earth.  Here are some of the reasons that He did that:
He needed to fulfill prophecy
He came to suffer and feel all our pains so he will know how to succor his people
He had to lose the bands of death and give us the priceless gift of resurrection.
He came to save each of us from our sins
He came to set many examples for us including the example of baptism
He came to experience life on earth so that when he judges us, he understands

How grateful I am that He did come to earth and do all that He did for me.  Without these things, earth would be a miserable experience.  With all these things there is hope and joy.