Scripture Election and Pray for Zion

The Book of Mormon has been the Sunday School course of study this year. At the beginning of the year, the Stake Presidency asked stake members to focus on those verse that teach us how to receive God’s love and have it dwell in our hearts (4 Nephi 1:15-16).  We invited stake members to send me an email about their insights or experiences with these verses, and I have received some beautiful emails. I may be receiving more as such emails we complete our study of the Book of Mormon this year.

Around August we asked the High Council and Stake Bishoprics to come prepared to discuss the love of God scripture verses that have touched them.  Then I invited them to nominate for our consideration and voting the best Love of God Formula Scriptures, the verses that set out the best concise-yet-comprehensive formula for receiving God’s love and having it dwell in our hearts.  16 scripture selections were nominated.  We told them that we would be holding an election in a few weeks, and to take this time to prepare to vote by studying those verses and deciding which ones are most helpful or meaningful to them.  Then we voted with each person selecting their top three scriptures in order of preference. We elected Mosiah 4:11-12 as the best love of God formula scripture, but there were some really good runner up scriptures as well.  I was joking with Lisa and said that Mosiah 4 won the election, but it might ask Alma 13 or 2 Nephi 31 to serve as a Mormon secretary of state. 

But, of course, the election was just for fun, the real purpose and benefit of the exercise was to deepen our understanding of gospel principles. I had the most wonderful experience in comparing the various verses and trying to assimilate them.  It was a profoundly beautiful experience for me that deepened my understanding of the beauty and power of the Gospel and of how it works.  

My Christmas gift to you will be to send out the list of nominated scriptures so that you can have the opportunity to explore and study and ponder them.  It is an exhilarating experience!

I learned many things but I want to share just a couple of thoughts.  My top three love of God formula scriptures and several others talked about faith, hope and charity.  I realized that I do not understand hope.  I have always wondered: “Why is hope there between faith and charity? What is hope?  Is it weak faith, wishful thinking?”

Hope is an assurance that comes from faith.  It comes from really trusting Heavenly Father and the atonement of Christ.  It is taking your faith in the promises of the gospel and applying those promises to you personally and knowing that all will be well with you in the future.  

Ether 12:4 is my current ponderize scripture.  We are supposed to change our ponderize scripture every week, but this has been my for over 2 months. Oh well!  Anyway, this verse helps me to understand hope. 

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

With surety Assurance of a place on the right hand of God, that we will end up in heaven

●     a perfect brightness of hope

●     Live life encircled about by the arms of safety and love

Connection between faith, hope and charity.  Charity is the core of Zion. 

Faith in perfect beings.

Messy faith.

Timing of charity. Equating charity with perfection. Not in this life. 

Faith hope and charity qualify us for the work

Without faith hope and charity no one can do this work. 

Born again is a process.  Conversion is a process.  But, we can have faith, hope and charity in our hearts as we go through that process. We do not have to be perfect to have charity.  That is why imperfect people like the people of Enoch and the Nephites were able to become Zion.  Zion does not require perfection, it only requires faith and humility.   

We are striving to become a Zion people.  Somehow as a result of that scripture study it all seems more attainable now, for which I am deeply grateful. When I covenant in the temple to consecration everything I own and everything I am to the building up of Zion, I want to jump up and shout “yes!” There is nothing I would rather do.  There is nothing more joyful than building Zion. 

Chantelle and Steve--still born child.  Concern and love.

Pray and ask for God’s help in building Zion in our hearts and homes and in this stake of Zion.     

In Matt. 6, he was teaching people how to pray:

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” 

Jesus taught us to pray and plead for Zion.  Thy kingdom come to earth.  Thy will be done on earth. That is Zion. The great Christian carpe diem, the “seize the day” of the Saints, is that that through the grace of Christ, Zion can be here, now, today, on earth.  But we need to pray for it. We cannot do it on our own.  Only God can build Zion, but we can ask him to do it in our stake.  Please will each one of you begin today to pray to ask our Father in Heaven to establish Zion here amongst us.  There is great power in such prayers.  Upcoming ward conferences we will be moving toward the next step in becoming Zion. It is so very exciting to be involved in this great work.  Closing hymn, I looked out across the congregation and felt the Savior’s love for this people.

Christmas thoughts.

To the shepherd abiding in the fields watching the flocks by night, the angel of the Lord appeared, and they were sore afraid.  The angel said:  “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. . . .  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:  ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”

I think it is extremely significant that the first words the angel spoke were “Fear not.” You could think that the angel was only telling the shepherds not to be afraid of him, but if that were the case wouldn’t the angel have said, “Fear me not.”  Instead a much broader command was given, Fear not.  Fear no more.  Not now, not ever.  Christ came to replace fear with hope.

Unto you is born a Savior.  The angel did not say, “Unto Joseph and Mary is born,” but “unto you is born this day . . . a Savior.”  This child is born unto you.  These “good tidings of great joy” are unto “all people.” The Messiah is for all mankind. If we listen quietly, we can hear the angel’s words resonating across the centuries and over the entire world to each one of us: “unto you” and  “unto you” and “unto you” a Savior is born.  The warmth of the spirit testifies of this great truth. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son. This is the wonderful gift we celebrate at this Season. Christ came to manifest God’s love for us His children, to rescue us, to encircle us in the arms of safety and love, to bring us home to our Father.

Why should I trust Christ to save me?  He is perfect, I am a sinner.  He has overcome the world; I have not. Given my faults and His perfection, why should I not fear being close to him?   Why should I not shrink from His glory?

The answer, the reason for us to trust, starts with a stable.  The scriptures never mention a stable, only a manger, but since a manger is a trough animals use for feeding, the stable is implied.  All over the world, the stable, manger and animals are included in nativities or crèches that depict the Holy birth.  The nativity scene speaks to us in important ways.  Why are the animals and the stable so prominent?  It must be that they represent something important to us.  We may not even recognize it, because it speaks to us on a deeper level.  The Son of God, born in a stable with animals and . . . perhaps more importantly, with filth and flies and stench. 
 Here is a free verse poem entitled  Let the Stable Still Astonish by Leslie Leyland Fields

 Let the stable still astonish:

Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,

Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;

Crumbling, crooked walls;

No bed to carry that pain,

And then, the child,

Rag-wrapped, laid to cry

In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said: "Yes,

Let the God of all the heavens and earth

be born here, in this place." ?

Who but the same God

Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts

and says, "Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born here -

in this place."

            The Savior, from the very instant of his arrival on earth, has never shied away from mortal filth.  He is meek and lowly in heart.  He does not condemn us.  In the atonement, he experienced all of the filth, and sin, and addiction, and anguish, and doubt, and pain, and sorrow, and grief, and fear of our lives, and He overcame it all.  He descended below all things that He might be in and through all things the light of truth.  He understands us completely.  He knows how to help us in our weakness.  This means that we can approach Him in safety and feel his love and understanding.  He is our loving, accepting, kind, older brother we can trust without question.

Peter saw his boat miraculously overflowing with fish and said, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Jesus did not depart.  Instead, perhaps because of Peter’s humility, the Lord said, “Come follow me and I will make you a fisher of men.”  To the woman taken in adultery, he first saved her from stoning and then said, “Neither do I condemn thee.  Go thy way and sin no more.”  His last act of service before going to the Garden of Gethsemane was to wash the apostles’ filthy feet.

He started his life in a place of filth and he ended his ministry by washing filthy feet . . . and then by washing us all.  This Christmas may we fall on our knees and hear the angel voices.  May we trust our Savior whose birth we celebrate.  May we stand before him openly, and know that he has never been put off by dirt, by imperfections, by weaknesses.  May we learn of Him, for he is meek and lowly in heart.  May we allow Him to wash us.  May we trust His loving kindness, his meekness and lowliness and know that we are loved and accepted by Him. And if we do come unto Him, if we really do come unto Him as a little child, what will happen?  We will repent and become Zion people.  We will have Zion hearts.  Zion marriages and families and relationships.  Zion presidencies and committees and wards.  Zion is what Christ does.  Jesus is the great creator of and the High Priest of Zion. 

 I testify to you that through the grace of Christ, we can become a Zion people. Any individual who becomes a Zion person is living in Zion, no matter what is happening around them.  Such a person’s life then spreads the spirit and love of Zion to others.  This life is the time to start living in Zion. Then when we arrive at the gates of heaven, we will want to be there.  What great joy we share together as we proclaim with angels, and all the Christian world —“A Savior is born; Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill to men.”