Quotes from The Prophet Joseph Smith

This post contains a few quotes from the Prophet Joseph Smith. I invite you to read them with a honest and humble heart. Then afterwords ask yourself how did you feel when reading them? Pray about what is being said. These are words direct from the first modern day Prophet. I humbly ask that you treat them with respect.

“The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it. But in connection with these, we believe in the gift of the Holy Ghost, the power of faith, the enjoyment of the spiritual gifts according to the will of God, the restoration of the house of Israel, and the final triumph of truth” (Teachings: Joseph Smith, 2007, 45-50).

“We deem it a just principle, and it is one the force of which we believe ought to be duly considered by every individual, that all men are created equal, and that all have the privilege of thinking for themselves upon all matters relative to conscience. Consequently, then, we are not disposed, had we the power, to deprive any one of exercising that free independence of mind which heaven has so graciously bestowed upon the human family as one of its choicest gifts” (Teachings: Joseph Smith, 2007, 344-345).

“God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another” (Teachings: Joseph Smith, 2007, 40).

“We take the sacred writings into our hands, and admit that they were given by direct inspiration for the good of man. We believe that God condescended to speak from the heavens and declare His will concerning the human family, to give them just and holy laws, to regulate their conduct, and guide them in a direct way, that in due time He might take them to Himself, and make them joint heirs with His Son” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 2007, 66).

Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon see Christ and testify that He lives:

“And we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of his fulness;…

“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—

“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:20,22–24).

“I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (Book of Mormon, Introduction).

The Lord Is My Helper- I Will Never Forsake Thee Hebrews 13:5-6

Hebrews 13: 5-6
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. 6 So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.

Commentary:
This is one of those passages of scripture that contains what I like to call meat, lots of juicy doctrine. I wish to review three aspects of this passage:

1. “be content with such things as ye have”. We live in a world of greed and more greed. The worldly want more and want it now and pursue it with all their might. There are motivational books and speakers using the Bible to encourage this behavior. I am not saying that you cannot be a good Christian if you have a lot of wealth. I also believe that we need to work hard and achieve what we can through our hard work and prayer and Gods blessing.

But I want to reflect on what the scriptures say: Be content with what you have. If we were content with what we have think of all the extra time we might find? We could use that extra time to spend with our families, community service project and serving the Lord. The Bible not only teaches us the Word of God but the word of inspired wisdom. There is a movement in American society to simplfy and make do with less. to make life less stressful. The Bible taught us this years ago.

Have you ever felt forsaken and alone? That concept is a real human response or fear. Many have experienced it. However there is no reason to. The Lord tells us “”he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee”. If we feel alone or forsaken it’s becasue we forget to turn to the Lord. If we seek Him in our thoughts and desires and pray to Heavenly Father we can feel Him with us, we can feel His love and not feel alone and forsaken. The gospel of Jesus Christ is comforting.

Have you ever lived in fear? Fear is a scary and unsettling emotion. But like what was said in the last paragraph, the gospel is comforting. We are taught “we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” I like the use of the word “bodly”. While we don’t want to be forceful, rude or arrogant about the gospel we do not need to be timid.

“The Lord is my helper” If we let The Lord in our lives through prayer, pondering on the gospel messages and seek to do the will of The Lord we can have His help. What can’t we do if we have a divine helper who is ready, willing and able to pour down His grace  upon us.

What comfort is the message that we need not fear what man can do to us because we have the Lord on our side.

Avoid Philosophy & Traditions of Men Colossians 2:8

Colossians 2:8
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Commentary:
This important scripture warns us not to be decieved by the philosophies, vain deceits and the traditions of men based on worldly wisdom not inspired from Christ.

Why would someone who would even care about being decieved by the traditions and philosophies of men, allow themselve to be lead away from things inspired of the world and not of Christ? I would really like some feedback on this. It is important to cover all the bases of being misled so that we can avoid being misled.

The ideas that come to me are as follows:
1. Some just do not know the words of Christ like they should. Where do we find the words of the Lord? In the Holy Scriptures. Do we only rely on what we are taught? Do we rely only on what is preached to us? We shouldn’t! What we learn at sunday services should only be a minor portion of what we learn about the gospel.

We should read regularly from the Christian Scriptures. Daily would be best. Read through the Bible and when we’re done, read it again and again and again…. We shouldn’t just read it, but we should ponder verses that seem to jump out at us. Liken the scriptures to us. Inject ourselves into the acriptures and aply them to our daily living. We need to understand the scriptures for ourselves by the influence of the Holy Spirit. Our understanding should not be limited to by teachers and preachers.

2. When we come across philosophies and traditions we need to measure them against what the scriptures say. If it doesn’t fit within the sacred text of holy scriptures reject it. the vain deciets of men may sound nice and feel good but if it is contrary to the standard works of the scriptures then it must be rejected if we don’t want to be mislead.

3. If we are daily reading from the scriptures then we should feel good about ourselves and have confidence, after all we are created in the image of God. We are physically like our Heavenly Father. Our Redeemer sacrificed His life for us because of  His love for us. These types of teachings are true and should make us feel good about ourselves.

Why is this important? Often those most likely to be overcome by the traditions and teachings of men after the influence of the wisdom of the world is because they have low self esteem. If you read regularly from holy writ then you know you are a spirit child of our Heavenly Father and it is in the grand design of our Lord for us to be happy and not carry around the burden of sin. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

This is a good start in avoiding the worldly inspired philosophies, tradions and deceits of men. Am I missing something that can help others avoid being misled?

Faith, Hope and Charity (Love) Love Will Never Fail! 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Commentary:
The first first three verse convey the message that no matter what good we do, if we have not Charity we are nothing. The greek version of the word Charity is Love. No matter how good our works are, no matter what our sacrifices are, if we do not have Love all our good works profit us nothing.

Verses 4-7 discuss in deepth what Charity or Love is: It’s worth ready over and over again so we can understand the Lords version of love.

Love is a heavy word. You can love a spouse in a romantic and physical way, you can love a friend in a manner befitting friendship and so on. But the Love spoken by the Bible can be applied to all forms of love.

Verses 8-9 speak about different things failing but says Love will never fail! Love will never fail!

Verses 10 and 12 Speak about when that which is perfect shall come, which refers to the Saviors Second Coming and then verse 12 talks about now we see through the glass darkly but then face to face which means right now things may seem a little unclear but we will see Christ and be like Him if we have spent a life time going forward from now perfecting our ability to love others in the definition given in this bible passage.

Just today I lost my temper and yelled at a person at a bank. I was in the right clearly as others in the employ of that bank new but the person in charge was a real jerk. I was justified in the eyes of those around me to misbehave as I did but in the Lords eyes I was not. I was not long suffering and patient. I was easily provoked and I shouldn’t have been. This is a good example where Charity comes into play. I was not behaving as a loving disciple should behave. I must repent for the misdeed.

If we take on the challenge of patterning our life after this form of Love we will all need to repent and often at that. But the good news is that the great Mediator stands ready to facilitate our forgiveness.

The gospel is great. We are given challenging teachings and by the virtue of a loving Father in Heavenly we are also given the chance to repent. Prasie be to our Savior and our Heavenly Father.

Pray For Our Leaders & All Mankind 1 Timothy 2:1-3

1 Timothy 2:1-3
1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.

Commentary:
We are told in this scripture to supplicate, prayer, intercession and thanks be made by us for all mankind. There are as many things to pray for regarding mankind as there are people to pray. That is obvious. The question I have is do we take time to pray everday, let alone pray for all of mankind? I’m not suggesting just a simple prayer to “bless all mankind to be good” which would be wonderful if mankind would be good but different regions of the country have different needs. The AIDS epidemic and famine in Africa verses the worldiness of the western world to the wars in different countires etc. All mankind is our neighbor as well as the very least soul in Asia or anywhere in the world. Can we pray for mankind and then in a fit of road rage flip someone off and yell at them. If we are sincere in our prayers for mankind then we will learn to love them if we haven’t thought about it already. If we love our neighbors and mankind we should naturally want to build them up and smile not raise an angry fist and shout.

Moving on to verse two: the scriptures go on to say to pray for Kings and for all that are in authority “that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”. We need to pray not just for mankind but for world leaders to make decsions and lead in the direction of peace and to create an enviroment whereby we can live in peace, in godliness and where we can be honest and not lie out of fear for our lives or family etc.

Being Christian is not easy and it is time consuming. We need to be anxiously involved in good and prasieworthy activities as well as be upright in our lives and be prayerful, not just to deliver us from sin and temptation but pray for all mankind and world leaders. What do you think?

Then it goes

1 Samuel 17:7 The Lord Looketh on the Heart

1 Samuel 17:7 
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Commentary:
We should learn from this verse that the outward appearance of a personal isn’t what matters but as the Lord says that He looketh on the heart.  In this day and age where glamour and beauty is being promoting  as so important we should Recognize the spirtual or religious side of things and look on the heart of a personal as what gives value to that person not what is on the outside.

Another though occurs to me  and that is we are not all given the same gifts or abilities but we all have the ability to love the Lord. We may have limitations that preclude us from doing as much for the Kingdom of God outwardly but in our hearts we can love the Lord and serve in in whorshipful, quiet, personal and intimate ways that are not apparent outwardly but to the Lord who looks on the heart, He can see it and reward us accordingly.