Week 51 is scheduled for study Dec. 16-22, 2024. There is nothing accidental about being perfected in Christ. It happens automatically as we choose to repent of our sins and seek his help in becoming better.
Day 1
Moroni 10:3-7 – I can know the truth of all things by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Verse 3
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way by quoting a bit from the Websters 1828 Dictionary for the word “exhort.” I’ve always wondered what it meant, but was too lazy to go look it up. Now I know.
EXHORT‘, verb transitive egzhort’. [Latin exhortor; ex and hortor, to encourage, to embolden, to cheer, to advise. The primary sense seems to be to excite or to give strength, spirit or courage.]
1. To incite by words or advice; to animate or urge by arguments to a good deed or to any laudable conduct or course of action.
The second thing that has always puzzled me until now is a statement made by Mormon in Moroni 10:3.
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, …
Mormon knew we were going to receive the plates he and his father had compiled and written. So why the second comment about “if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them”? I have been stewing over this statement for a long time, and it only occurred to me today what his context was.
Mormon knew that our generation would receive the plates, but he also knew that not everyone would be blessed by the testimonies of Christ contained within those plates during their time in mortality. His comment is to tell us that if we are reading what they have written for our benefit then it is because God has deemed it wise that we (meaning I and you) should have God’s word at this time. To the investigator Mormon is saying that if God has deemed it wise for you to have this book at this time, it is important that you consider why God feels it is so important that you have this book in your hands at this time. Mormon is exhorting us, encouraging us to do all the things written in verse 3 for our own benefit. I exhort you to go back and reread the verse in full and see if you don’t read it with fresh eyes.
Verse 4
Here is the whole verse.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ; and if ye shall ask with a , with , having in Christ, he will the of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
Let’s focus for a moment on just what I have underlined. Why is Mormon using the negative to say a positive thing? He isn’t saying to pray for verification that these things are false. I have been bothered by that use of the negative for a long time. Again, just today it came to me that we use the negative to say positive things all the time, don’t we? Did you see what I did there? Take out the apostrophe and we have the words “do not we.” It can be used as a question or as a statement, but it means a positive thing in either instance. Mormon is saying, in affect, ‘Ask God if these things are true, with the assumption or hope that they are.’ This is what it means to read and pray with “real intent, having faith in Christ.” We are asking God if what He has placed in our hands is as true and right as the missionaries or friends who gave us the book say it is. There needs to be hope and faith of its truthfulness behind our asking heart, not doubt and desire to prove it wrong.
Funny thing about prayer. If I ask with the desire to be told no when something is actually right, I won’t get the answer I seek, for I am asking “amiss.” I must open my heart up to the possibility that what I am asking about is actually true, and if it is true then the assumption behind my asking is that I will conform my life to the truth I receive. If I am not willing to change my life for the better when the Lord reveals something to me then why should He make the effort to tell me the truth at all?
Verses 5-7
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may the of all things.
6 And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is.
7 And ye may that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever.
I have included all three of these verses so you can reference them here instead of having to switch back and forth to the scriptures. These are three sentences, but the three of them together teach a basic principle of the gospel. God reveals truth to His children through the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit’s position in the Godhead to be our teacher, to bring us to Christ. He does this by being the great revelator of all truth. If we learn any eternal truth it is through the power and influence of the Holy Ghost, for the mortal mind cannot comprehend eternal truth, it is not in our nature to be able to do so. We need the Spirit’s guidance and explanations to help us understand how the mind of God works.
How does the Power of the Spirit work? It works by our faith. As I mentioned above, if we are not willing to change our lives to live in accordance with the truths the Holy ghost gives us then those truths are either never given or are taken from us. Faith is the act of putting our belief into action – we are living what we believe. We are living without perfect knowledge, but we hope that what we live and believe in will be verified to us in time and in God’s own way. Mormon is telling us that when we read this book and choose to put our faith in God to tell us if it is true, and we are willing to live by that truth when it comes to us then the Spirit will be able to teach us what we want to know.
This is the principle by which all truth is given in God’s plan for our happiness and our exaltation. We must be willing to change and do what we are taught. When we are then there is nothing the Holy Spirit cannot teach us as we become ready for that knowledge. All our prayers will be answered in fruitful and profitable ways, because we are willing to conform to anything the Spirit tells us. This is the promise Mormon makes to us. It is true because it is an eternal principle and is based on the plan for our happiness as given to us by our Father in Heaven. This promise is true for any and all parts of the gospel of Christ.
Day 2
Moroni 10:8-25 – God has given me spiritual gifts.
Spiritual gifts falls under the category of purposeful discipleship. I mean by this that I look for my own spiritual gifts and spend time and effort trying to improve upon them. When the need arises I even ask for a specific gift then do what I can to develop it. There is nothing haphazard about a spiritual gift. We don’t just wake up one morning and have an ability. Abilities may be more innate in one person than in another person, but all gifts still need to be improved upon. We are here to become gods, right?
Let’s say I have the gift of empathy. I am able to listen to others and observe them and have a better than average ability to feel what they are feeling. I understand them better than most others around them. This will improve through conscious effort. This means I need to be aware that I have an ability and that I want to improve upon it. I’ll never be perfect at it, but it is my starting point. Even knowing what a person is feeling doesn’t mean I know how best to help them. That part takes a lot of practice.
All of us have some kind of gift. Jackie may be really good at repairing things of various types. She just has a knack for understanding ways to fix things. Paul may be a great cook and can tell what kind of dish will bring someone comfort or pleasure. Manu may have the ability to manage things so that things don’t get forgotten. The list is endless. We sometimes have the tendency to say “I don’t have a gift.” But this is not true. Even the least among us have abilities, even if they are currently faint. I have a sister whose daughter is severely handicapped, yet she has the ability to bring joy to those around her. I can’t explain how she does it, it is her gift. You just feel blessed by having been in her presence.
Many of our gifts seem purely physical, but to God all things are spiritual, for all things that happen to us affect us spiritually. He desires us to seek to learn to be better at many things in this life. This is just the start of our training to become perfect in all things. Isn’t it wonderful that we can pick and choose to work with what we feel able to handle at the moment? New Bishops have to learn how to handle the gift of discernment, and parents all have to learn how to read their spouse and their children to help them when they have a need.
Gifts are plentiful and precious. None of us have all of them, and as a result we must rely on each other because your gift may serve my needs today while my gift may serve your needs tomorrow. This is part of how God unites us as a family. This is what draws us closer to being a Zion or a celestial people. We are each seeking to serve others with our gifts while finding new gifts to develop along the way. Making the matter of our gifts a subject of prayer helps us select and develop new gifts and strengthen our current gifts.
Day 3
Moroni 10:30-33 – I can be perfected through the grace of Jesus Christ.
We all need to understand that grace is not free. Grace comes at a cost. True, it is freely given and God hopes we will take and use His grace as much as possible, but grace cannot be given without us doing something to receive it. This is why we are encouraged constantly by the prophet to repent daily. Grace is what makes repentance work. Christ paid for our sins freely, but now we owe him the debt he paid to God for our sins. He cannot forgive our sins unless we keep his commandments and seek to become like him. When we do that he freely forgives our mistakes and sins and changes our dispositions to bring us greater joy and to increase our capacities for learning and growing spiritually. All of it is freely dispensed on Christ’s end, but we must repent in order to receive it.
The subject of grace is bound up in the laws of God that require balance in all things. Just as there must be opposites in all things, so too must there be a reckoning for all laws kept and all laws broken. Christ has paid for all our sins, past, present, and future, but we must go to him and obey his laws if we want that payment to be cleaned off the books of debts owing.
Christ’s grace is what takes our weak efforts and enlarges our abilities to repent better and more often. What we start out with shouldn’t be what we finish with. The act of repentance should be changing our desires and the way in which we govern our thoughts and actions each day. Repentance teaches us how to be more like Christ in all things. This also falls under the category of intentional discipleship. Again, there is nothing accidental about being forgiven and having our ability to be more pure and holy increased. These things happen only as we choose to come to Christ and seek his help and forgiveness, a help and forgiveness he is always so willing to give.
Personal Study
Record impressions
This is one of the single hardest things asked of us by God. God records everything that happens, for out of the book He has written are His creations judged. As the great lawgiver, a position we are seeking to become ourselves, recording what happens to us is part and parcel of the process. Yet writing things down is something most of us fight tooth and nail. It is difficult to find the words to describe how we feel, what actually happened to us, or even how we perceived what happened to us. It is the act of finding the words to say that causes us to think and search our soul more deeply than we normally do.
I have been writing gospel-related articles and commentary on Church lessons since 2013. I have more than 1,200 articles so far, and that is just for this one area of my life. I haven’t written a journal of my personal daily events since my mission 50 plus years ago. You would think that with all the writing I have been doing a journal would be cake, but it isn’t. I still resist it, even though I know I need to do it. So I can’t get after you for not doing something I am not doing myself, even though I know we both ought to be making the record.
There is power in recording impressions from the Spirit. They are even more important than recording what happened to you yesterday. The impressions from the Spirit are testimonies being given to us of truth, of the way things really are or will be. Spiritual impressions help us understand the past and each other. They teach us how to react today and how to behave tomorrow. It is important that we learn to write them down, for they fade quickly. That is their nature. If we don’t record what the Spirit imparts to us those impressions quickly dissipate and we forget them.
Recording spiritual impressions doesn’t need to be a novel in length. We can jot down notes that we will understand later. Just make sure there is enough detail in the notes to remind you of what you were told and hopefully how you felt. These records will act as our personal Google when we can’t remember what we once knew about something and we need to look it up and remind our self about what the Spirit told us once.
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