Monday, April 21, 2014

Lesson Summary: April 20, 2014 - Faith and Repentance

For Easter, Tori G. taught a thoughtful lesson from Chapter 5: Faith and Repentance from the Joseph Fielding Smith manual.

In a sacrament meeting one Sunday, President Smith told the congregation why he spoke with a warning voice. ‘Who is your friend, or who loves you the most?’ he asked the congregation. ‘The person who tells you all is well in Zion, that prosperity is around the corner or the person who warns you of the calamities and difficulties that are promised unless the principles of the gospel are lived? I want you to know that I love the members of the Church, and I do not want one of them to point an accusing finger at me when we pass beyond the veil of mortal existence and say, “If you had only warned me I would not be in this predicament.” And so I raise the warning voice in hopes that my brothers and sisters may be prepared for a kingdom of glory.’”4 (Chapter 5: Faith and Repentance)
Let it be uppermost in your minds, now and at all times, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to lay down his life that we might live. That is the truth, and is fundamental. Upon that our faith is built. It can not be destroyed. We must adhere to this teaching in spite of the teachings of the world, and the notions of men; for this is paramount, this is essential to our salvation. The Lord redeemed us with his blood, he gave us salvation, provided--and there is this condition which we must not forget--that we will keep his commandments, and always remember him. If we will do that then we shall be saved, (Chapter 5: Faith and Repentance)
  • What is faith? What is the relationship between faith and action?
The definition of faith in the Bible dictionary says:
"Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel and is more than belief, since true faith always moves its possessor to some kind of physical and mental action"
Faith is the moving cause of all action.
Faith cannot be obtained by inaction or through indifference or passive belief. The mere desire to obtain faith will not bring faith any more than the desire to be skilled in music or painting will bring proficiency in these things without intelligent action. There is where our trouble comes. We get a testimony of the Gospel, we believe in Joseph Smith, we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in the principles of the Gospel, but how hard are we working at them? … If we want to have a living, abiding faith, we must be active in the performance of every duty as members of this Church. (Chapter 5: Faith and Repentance)
  • How do you strengthen your faith in Christ on a daily level or what are demonstrations of your faith?
  • What is the relationship between faith and repentance?
  • How is repentance is the outgrowth of faith?
Six steps of repentance:
  1. Recognize our sins
  2. Feel Godly Sorrow
  3. Forsake our sins 
  4. Confess our sins 
  5. Make restitution 
  6. We must forgive others then keep commandments.
Repentance provides us with the opportunity to grow closer to the Savior and to better understand His love for us, to invite the Savior into your life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” - John 3:16–17
If the Father had not sent Jesus Christ into the world, then there could have been no remission of sins and there could have been no relief from sin through repentance.
If we really understood and could feel even to a small degree, the love and gracious willingness on the part of Jesus Christ to suffer for our sins we would be willing to repent of all our transgressions and serve him. (Chapter 5: Faith and Repentance)


When she was a teen at Girls Camp Tori was taught a vivid object lesson.  A bishop brought a fit young man to camp and a basket of full-sized candy bars for a group of about 20 girls. He invited each one to come and take a candy bar.  Before receiving the candy, the young man would do 15 push-ups.  After the first half of the girls had received their candy, it was apparent that the push-ups were becoming more and more difficult for the young man to perform and a young woman said she didn't need her candy bar to spare him from the effort.  The bishop said that was her choice but that the young man would still perform the push-ups for her.  Each subsequent girl took her candy bar and graciously thanked the young man as he strained to complete the remaining work.

Similarly, in the story of the woman who washed Christ's feet with her tears and hair and anointed them with ointment in Luke 7:37-50, Christ teaches that those who are forgiven the most, love the most and tells her "Thy faith have saved thee."

We can have that relationship with the Savior.  No matter how discouraged we feel or how bogged down by sin, we can have a fresh start.  Christ has already made this possible through the Atonement.  It is up to us to call out to Him, to take action in exercising our faith unto repentance.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrate the hope we feel at Christ's resurrection and triumph over death.  Let it also be a day when we rejoice in His triumph over sin and our own opportunity to do the same through faith and repentance in His name.  If we do so, we will have joy as exceeding as our pain and peace in the promise of our salvation.  Jesus Christ is the savior of the World.  He loves us, sisters.  May we strive to love him more steadfastly.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Lesson Summary: April 13, 2014

Kim H. presented thoughts on developing our identities and serving one another with notes from Daughters in My Kingdom.
"As [women] come to understand who they really are—God’s daughters, with an innate capacity to love and nurture—they reach their potential as holy women. With charity in their hearts, they fulfill the purposes of Relief Society: to increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes, and seek out and help those in need." (Daughters in My Kingdom)

We have a privilege to "develop our identities" and serve and bless others.
  • How has Relief Society helped you develop your identity?
“We are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have meaning, purpose, and direction. As a worldwide sisterhood, we are united in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Savior and Exemplar. We are women of faith, virtue, vision, and charity who:
“Increase our testimonies of Jesus Christ through prayer and scripture study.
“Seek spiritual strength by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
“Dedicate ourselves to strengthening marriages, families, and homes.
“Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood.
“Delight in service and good works.
“Love life and learning.
“Stand for truth and righteousness.
“Sustain the priesthood as the authority of God on earth.
“Rejoice in the blessings of the temple, understand our divine destiny, and strive for exaltation.” (Daughters in My Kingdom)
"Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “We believe in and are counting on your goodness and your strength, your propensity for virtue and valor, your kindness and courage, your strength and resilience. We believe in your mission as women of God. … We believe that the Church simply will not accomplish what it must without your faith and faithfulness, your innate tendency to put the well-being of others ahead of your own, and your spiritual strength and tenacity. And we believe that God’s plan is for you to become queens and to receive the highest blessings any woman can receive in time or eternity.” (Daughters in My Kingdom)
  • How did Relief Society help you improve a talent or skill that you needed?

"When the Prophet Joseph Smith told Relief Society sisters to “live up to [their] privilege,” he combined that exhortation with a promise: “The angels cannot be restrained from being your associates. … If you will be pure, nothing can hinder.” (Daughters in My Kingdom)
"For true charity to blossom in their hearts, women must combine their innate compassion with faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement.
... This society is composed of women whose feelings of charity spring from hearts changed by qualifying for and by keeping covenants offered only in the Lord’s true Church. Their feelings of charity come from Him through His Atonement. Their acts of charity are guided by His example—and come out of gratitude for His infinite gift of mercy—and by the Holy Spirit, which He sends to accompany His servants on their missions of mercy.
...The Lord has endowed women with an innate desire to serve and bless others, and He has entrusted them with a sacred responsibility to use their gifts to help save His children.
... Every Latter-day Saint woman becomes a part of this legacy of love and has the responsibility and privilege to share this heritage with others.
... Charitable service is the spiritual legacy of every member of Relief Society. As President Eyring explained: “You pass the heritage along as you help others receive the gift of charity in their hearts." (Daughters in My Kingdom)

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Notes from an Evening with Terryl and Fiona Givens, authors of "A God who Weeps" March 27, 2014


From Fiona – A word on Paradigms

We are swimming in paradigmatic pathogens that can weaken our spiritual immune systems without us being aware that they are.  It's a good thing to bump up against walls.

God chose to love us and so made himself vulnerable.  A read of Moses 6-7 shows us a God of love and vulnerability.  Old Testament God of wrath and anger was difficult for Fiona to grasp.

Julian of Norwich - 14th century Christian mystic - influential for Fiona.
- show me hell, help me understand sin, show me purgatory
Suggests that we need to wrap our minds around paradigms.

Righteous vs. Unrighteous
So what is sin?   Typically we are told/taught/sin is defined as “Bad choices.”   Except probably there is something important about sin.  What?  Sin is NOT punitive; it is educative.  Necessity of Sin.  Eve’s heroic sacrifice.  [Where was Adam? Found himself a nice place in the garden, set up his computer and really was trying to get to the next level…wink, wink]

Eve’s choice was not an emotional moment.  She was noting three things --- that the fruit:
  1. was good/nutritional
  2. was beautiful – deep aesthetic sense which says something beautiful about her
  3. would give her wisdom
Having to decide btw. 2 goods – which is better and you’re left on your own to choose – must have been a brutal, honorific experience.

Extraordinarily telling: the line from Genesis, the Gods speaking of the new condition of Adam and Eve -- “they have become as one of us”  --- [Moses 5:28]

Fascinatingly revealing language in the Moses account:  Adam uses "I", "my"; Eve uses "we", "our" [Moses 5:10-11]

Moses 5:10 reference – Eve “for our transgression”
  1. w/out their eating the fruit, they would not have been able to have children
  2. w/out eating the fruit, they would not have “known” [in the biblical sense] sin --- [ie: experiential knowledge]
  3. wherefore should I not reward her b/c she fell in her haste….

The Restoration was not an event, it is a process that is still unfolding.

From Terryl:

Consider the first crisis that strikes the early church in Jerusalem – Do all the converts have to go through all the traditional rites of the Judaism?  Takeaway: the disciples realize that there is a problem w/ exporting the “GOSPEL” w/out all the junk/the culture/traditions, etc.

Opinion: we need to extract the pure essence of the gospel --- ie: what kind of a being do we worship?

Two pieces of particular focus
1.  Get the faith right.
Five Principles [fundamental elements] of the Mormon Faith System/Tradition
  1. We worship a God who’s heart beats in sympathy with our own
  2. We lived with him before
  3. Life is not a fall but an ascent
  4. His plan is to save us all
  5. Heaven consists of an extension of the relationships we treasure here

2.  Make sure we asking the right questions.  
This seems to be where we often go wrong --- looking through the wrong keyhole [what follows are some examples, which are also highlights from new book, “Crucible of Death” which will be released soon]

Paradigms | Questions
  1. Use and abuse of reason
  2. Life’s incompleteness
  3. Role and function of the church.  Is the church like a Swiss army knife?
  4. Use and abuse of scriptures
  5. The Perils of Hero worship
  6. Ring of Pharaoh – role/how/whys of delegation
  7. Mormons and Monopolies – what does it mean to say this is the only true church? Does Mother Theresa need to be baptized?  Reed --- scholar in Berkeley who is a good friend of HERS – who is getting his PhD and authorship of “Banishing the Cross – the emergence of the Mormon”…[D&C 10:45  and 52, 53, 54, 55  --- holy men and women who we know not of – given b/f the church was organized].  Another example: Revelation 12 –  gorgeous woman who has just given birth -- we understand her to represent the Church.  Flees into the wilderness [into the apostasy] so he could nourish his church – truths were sustained.  Assemble truth where it was to be found [could explain why so many Masonic “traditions” are incorporated into the temple]
  8. Find your own watering place.  Meaning of spiritual self-sufficiency
  9. There is no “they” there – you are the church
  10. The too tender heart.  Overcome by the world. We reinterpret what we thing what happened in the new testament?
  11. Silence and solitude.  What does it mean when God “doesn’t” answer prayers – this links, fundamentally, to how we are expecting the answers which is what affects how we recognize the answers.  He doesn’t want us to confine Him in ways that he answers our prayers.

There will be times when there will be utter darkness and the message is to keep walking.   Could God remove the cup from Jesus’?  Couldn’t.  Everything hung on him drinking it up. When he did that, He empowered God to answer his “where art thou” question in another way – how? God sent him an angel to help strengthen him to help him carry the burden.

If we get our paradigms right, we won’t spend all of our time asking the wrong questions.  Learn to ask questions in the right way.  

Be careful with the question and how we expect the answer.  Don't inadvertently confine His ability to work in our lives.

Christ has a choice to make and walks into the abyss (why hast thou forsaken me?)


Q&A

Re: More on the idea of monopoly.  
Language of certainty tends to creep into language ~ 1960’s.  We tend to forget that one of the gifts of the spirit is doubt – in D&C this gift of the spirit, “doubt” is just not specifically labeled as such; worded differently and not as doubt -- ie: be believing”.  
Monopoly paradigm
D&C 49:8  Holy men that ye know not of
D&C 10:52-55  written in 1829, talking to a church that existed at that time (those people that have me to be their God)
Be careful with "I know these things to be true"
Story:  Brigham Young to Bishop Wooley "Are you going to leave the church?" "I would leave if it were your church, Brother Brigham"
Authentic testimony - Spirit cannot bear witness of anything that is not authentic.  Story of Fionna’s friend who, with her encouragement, bore an authentic testimony in Fast and Testimony meeting, fled immediately afterward, and spent the week receiving a deluge of appreciation for her authenticity.   Instead of endorsing the language of certainty, saying, “I know….” consider instead, phrasing such as “I hope this.  I do not know this but I believe this.  I do not know this.  But when I do X, Y happens.”  Have to take back the culture.

Re: tension btw. top down direction vs. autonomy
“Follow the prophet’ vs. “being anxiously engaged”  Most frustrating thing is the bogging down as caused by the culture.  Shake it out. Divest yourself from hubris.  Love reveals the truth.  Begat cultural change. We are the culture. We need to take responsibility.  Since we ARE the culture, let’s start taking initiative --- take some ownership of the culture and become evangelists of change.  Have to also become comfortable living IN the tension.

Re: we all want someone to be the keeper of our conscience
We sort of WANT someone to tell us what to do.   “ie: Don’t see R rated movies” – so we elevate the prophets to this level of infallibility so that we no longer have to take responsibility for our own choices.   This is fraught w/ pitfalls.  Story of her son got his hands on “Rough Stone Rolling” --- if God could work with someone as fallible as Joseph, then this could be really hopeful.

Re: principle of Pharaoh’s ring
Joseph w/ Pharaoh’s ring. Pharaoh's ring placed on Joseph's finger: authority
Story:  conversation between Elder Bruce R. McConkie, and his son, shortly after he arrived home after organizing a new Stake Presidency, reveals his understanding of  delegation.  His son, "Was the stake president you called God's choice?"
McConkie’s response reflects his understanding of delegation, "He is now."
God stands as surety when we act in His name in good faith. Sustaining means nothing if that is not true.  [Ref:  D&C 21:5  “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.”]

If delegation means anything at all, it means that God will stand behind me all the time.  Authority has been vested so it behooves us to sustain them in all patience and faith. [b/c the Lord knows that we need both.]  We don’t have to 2nd guess every decision made on High.  This is delegation.  

Much greater tension regarding the fallibility of the decisions these people make while serving in those decisions.  Lord to Joseph Smith “Your bounds are set”

Re: God’s modus operandi
1st six days – God makes order out of chaos.  He loves chaos.   Can turn something chaotic into something more beautiful and sublime.  Can move ugliness into gorgeousness….ie—the path of the planet….

Would be a violation of agency for him to interfere but can exchange oil of mourning for the oil of anointing.  Chaos/pain/fear that’s what he’s good with. God is a master of bringing beauty from chaos.  For example, from this pain/chaos/destruction, as is the pattern of God, [arguably] spreading throughout the church now is a deeper sensitivity and foundational discussion on gays.  


Re: how do we know what the prophet is speaking to us receiving revelation for the church? Or we don’t?
“I don’t think it is to be expected that we would all respond uniformly to a revelation.  Personal opinion --- in the case of the priesthood ban, people responded differently.”  For example – two different responses to same revelation ie: “I’ll swallow this but it doesn’t make sense to me”  AND “This is awful – I cannot accept this”  should be able to co-exist peacefully.  Story:  Elder Oaks “My job as a general authority is to deliver revelation and your job as a member of the church is to receive personal revelation regarding how it applies.” No escaping personal responsibility.



Closing

Fiona’s Backstory – her witness
  • Story of woman friend who had everything horrifying happen to her who was awoken by a night vision -- Christ's words to a woman in pain: "I am so sorry for your life"
  • Is certain that the sealing keys empowered Christ to go save her son
  • George McDonald quote

Terryl’s Backstory:  Why I’m in the church
  • Phenols Hodge – “she who no longer answers when I call her know”
  • God restored the keys for me to have a relationship with those whom I love

Terryl’s Backstory:  What I expect from the church
What I expect from the church is connected to the word worship used for the 1st time in Old and New Testament
  1. Wise men open their treasures and “worship” him
  2. Moses when he goes on to “worship” ["I and the lad will go yonder and worship"]
Worship then means to give of ourselves that which costs the most ----
I love the church because it provides the appropriate place where I can provide my offering.

Need to have a certain amount of empathy for those who cannot bear up of the suffering…. Remember – our theology has never come up w /a credible explanation of why 1/3 of the hosts of heaven left…specter of horror that we would be expected to confront – so we should stop trying to find comfort in glib clichés.  Need to learn the wisdom of the friends of Job who sat for 7 days w/ him and no one said a word.