3 Words. 3 Images. 3 Thoughts.

Sorry this comes so quickly after the first spiritual post. The former post was long overdue, and this one is right on time!

This week in Gospel Doctrine I highlighted these 3 words from the lesson........just a few quick thoughts for your day....(don't be scared off by multiple lines of text! please read on!)

CHOSEN:

Christ: "...And he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers: for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them: thou wast chosen before thou wast born" (Abraham 3: 23)

This is a popular scripture. At first glance, it can easily sound as though Abraham was a "chosen one" and that for some reason he was special in the pre-existence. Since God is no respecter of persons (i.e. he doesn't play favorites) God choosing Abraham to be a prophet in the pre-existence really just meant that Abraham had chosen God more often than other spirits. The more we "choose God" in our lives NOW, the more "chosen" we become by God.....the CHOOSING is all our own.

PROVE:

Christ: "And we will prove them herewith, to see if the will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them" (Abraham 3:25)

I think Satan had a party when this scripture was taken out of the Bible because it answers the "What" in the question most thinking humans have, which is "What in the freak am I doing here on earth?"

Here Christ says this: The "object" of mortality will be to see who is obedient and who is not. It's that simple.

Prove in this scripture means to test or try--like you would "Prove" someone innocent or guilty. The thought behind this scripture is this: how do my thoughts/attitudes/ intentions/actions PROVE me a disciple of Christ?

Another scripture I love along this line comes from D&C 98:14 where God says that he will "prove" the saints to see if they will abide in the covenant,(temple covenants) because if they won't, then they are not worthy of Him.

The history in the Old Testament is, at it's heart, the history of God establishing a covenant people and the process by which these people lived under, then broke this covenant. Jews now journey to the western wall in Jerusalem--the closest they can get to the ancient temple. They pray and plead with God to one day be apart of the covenant again--the same covenant we now enjoy. I think by studying the Old Testament we see JUST HOW MUCH God is pulling for His covenant people and JUST HOW FAR He will travel with each of us as we struggle to live under the covenant in a modern age.

ANCIENT:

In talking with my dad about what he's learned in 8 years of being a Stake Patriarch, one of the thoughts he shared was regarding the nature of our spirits and how we have something precious and Ancient inside ourselves that longs to be felt and heard.... a spirit that has glimmers of knowledge about our mission on earth that we could tap into with desire and focus. This got me thinking......Really, the oldest thing on this planet are our spirits--they are older than the earth! Just something to ponder, appreciate, and perhaps pursue......more on this conversation and his other cool insights next week.

Thoughts? Love to hear 'um!