What causes us to become an unwise servant?
I believe being an unwise servant comes from man allowing the world to occupy our time talents and means with shallow pursuits.
If we are not wise with our time we will allow the world to give us hollow pursuits to chase. And in this we will only find disappointment and discouragement.
If we put our life on a graph to illustrate our emotions many times it would look like a wild ride. Especially when we are young trying to figure out just where we fit in the world.
When I was younger my graph was up and down now that I am older it is mainly on the incline with few real deep dips.
I believe One of the biggest tools of the adversary is Discouragement.
I hope I can share with you some ways we can choose not be discouraged.
Do you ever have days where you feel like you can take on the whole world then the next day you may feel really discouraged. Have you been discouraged in the last month? How about last week? How about yesterday? How about this morning?
As you can see discouragement is a common ailment.I believe In life if we want to fix a problem we need to always find the root cause of that problem. If we look in the book of Mormon,in Moroni 10:22
22 And if ye have no hope ye must needs be in despair; and despair (or discouragement) cometh because of iniquity. I believe this is the root cause of despair or discouragement and it comes because of iniquity. Now you may say that’s a pretty strong statement. And some might say well I am not iniquitous, I keep all of the commandments, how come I am so discouraged? I think what the Lord is telling us is we have not gained total control over our Body or over our appetites or our passions or over our mind, or the way we think about things, and thus if we are not doing it in full faith in love of God in truth there is some iniquity in that. I would like to submit to you that there has never been a person come into a bishops office and said, I have been reading my scriptures Praying 10 times a day Paying my tithes and fast offerings Attending church and the temple Exercising my calling And my life is falling apart. Despair and discouragement comes from not following the principals we know are true and correct. If we have not perfected ourselves in controlling this tremendous mechanism our body and our mind our feelings or our passions and desires, discouragement will come. The root cause in truth comes back to us neglecting to do some things we should to help us to be in good control. I would like to share A pattern to help keep us from being discouraged. If we are to avoid discouragement.
First you must strive to Have the spirit of the lord with you.
If you can have the spirit of the Lord with you in abundance my dear friends.
If you can learn how to invite the spirit of God to be close to you and you be close to him, You will be able to chase the sprit of discouragement away. If we can strive to have the spirit of the lord with you, You will find yourself enjoying the fruits the Lord has promised.
So what are these fruits and how will they manifest in our life.
The fruits of the spirit are Love, Joy, Gentleness, Kindness, Meekness, Patience,Peace.
In Alma 5: 14-19 We learn of the end product of having the fruits of the spirit bestowed upon us.
14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?
15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption braised in in corruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?
16 I say unto you, can you imagine to yourselves that ye hear the voice of the Lord, saying unto you, in that day: Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth?
17 Or do ye imagine to yourselves that ye can lie unto the Lord in that day, and say—Lord, our works have been righteous works upon the face of the earth—and that he will save you?
18 Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
19 I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the aimage of God engraven upon your countenances?
My dear brothers and sisters as we strive to have the spirit of the lord with us in abundance we will naturally have Gods image engraven upon our countenance.
The fruits of the spirit will manifest in the way we conduct our life.
As we get older we become more free We are Free to choose if we are going to follow all of our fathers commandments.We have the choice to ask our selves Do I go to church every Sunday Do I read my scriptures Do I skip over my prayers if I am too tired.
In these are found the seeds of great hope or discouragement.
If the audience reading this is a typical group of latter-day saints About half of you did not kneel beside your bed and pray this morning.
If you did not make your first good morning to the Lord I would hope you will make a commitment now to make that change in your life.
You should always make your first good morning be to the lord.
The scriptures are full of the admonition to pray.
In 3 Nephi ch 18 vs 15- 21 The lord says 6 times in a row you must pray or Satan will get you.
In what way can Satan get you.
One of the darts Satan uses is Discouragement
Things that cause you to not believe in yourself
Or things that cause us not to pray.
Thoughts like You were never very smart, Or you are not very pretty or handsome, You will never meet that goal, You will never get your whole class to come out to church, Or I don’t have time to have family home evening.
So How do we over come this??
We do it through prayer.
Prayer has great power if you do it humbly it will cause you to be repentant.
It will cause you to draw close to the lord.
Have your life centered on prayer.
There is great power in one who will humble himself before the lord and pray to God every day many times a day.
There has been many times in my life where the Lord has answered my prayers it would seem, almost instantly. One particular time comes to my mind when we were relocating to Idaho Falls Idaho.
We rented the largest Rhyder Truck we could and we pull a 16 Ft enclosed trailer.
We had a true road train.
When you have something that big it is not wise to let your tank get below half a tank.
This story is a prime example of that.
We had reached Louisiana and I had procrastinated putting fuel in the truck.
We were on a long stretch of highway and had not seen a gas station for miles.
We were really low on fuel and began to get worried.
Finally out in the middle of no where a small town was advertised on the interstate sign.
We pulled off on a blind off ramp.
At the end of the ramp I turned right when I should have went left to get to the gas station.
We realized very quickly we were heading in the wrong direction.
We were heading out of town into what seemed like the wilderness.
Immediately we started looking for a place to turn around.
I had forgot we had alot of rain that week when I chose to cut through a large field next to a church.
As I began to cross this field I could feel the truck was slipping so I dropped it into low gear and proceeded toward the parking lot through the field.
The truck stopped about 15 ft shy of the parking lot.
We had buried this truck up to the axles in Louisiana clay.
When I hoped out of the truck to get a shovel
Immediately I had about 10 pounds of clay stuck to my shoes.
My wife in horror said What are we going to do.
I looked at her and said
Get up in the truck and Pray that we can get out of this.
She climbed up into the truck and offered up a fervent prayer.
No sooner had she 0pened her eyes from her prayer
A young man pulled up in a brand new Dodge Diesel 4wd Dually with a chain.
The Lord had answered my wifes humble prayer.
There is great power in one who will humble themselves in humble prayer.
The Lord has promised he will bear our burdens and he kept his promise that day.
2nd thing to avoid discouragement is to read your scriptures.
You should read at least 5 or ten minutes a day alone one on one with you and the Lord.
If you will do this the spirit will be with you in abundance.
Commit to read every day.
If you will take a few minutes to be alone prayerfully reading the passages. The lord will begin to speak to you through those passages and greatly bless you for having still given him some time.
There is great strength that will come to you if you do that.
You will find that as you come upon trials in your life the words of the lord will come to your mind.
In that moment when you do that you will chase away any other spirit and you will find peace.
Another way to obtain the spirit of the lord is by attending church We should always come armed with our scripture and a Pen and paper.
When you feel the spirit of the lord witness the truthfulness of something in a meeting write it down.
We are taught this principal in D&C Section 76
If Joseph smith did not do this All of the things he received would have been lost.
( Throughout my life I have written down whole talks as I have been inspired )
If you will take those things you wrote while in the spirit and Memorize it you will be able to take the things that move you inside and use them when you are feeling discouraged to chase that spirit away.
When you start to feel discouraged say it out loud if possible.
This will chase away discouragement.
3rd thing Use good music and Good magazines, Books ect. The Lords music is the hymns of the church.
There Are good romantic songs but there is also Music of the devil himself.
Do not misunderstand that Or try to discount it or call it something else.
There is music of the Devil himself.
In the 1980s Elder Gene R. Cook spent 21/2 hours on a plane McJaggar When He sat down beside him he did not recognize him right off, he introduced him self as an elder in The Church and Mc Jaggier introduced himself And Elder Cook said I am glad to meet you Mic.
Mc Jagger a little annoyed that he did not know who he was pointed to a big rolling stone magazine that he was reading. The page had wild eyed women in scantly clad dress. McJagger tapped on the magazine and said "that's me"
They began talking Elder Cook said I have a question for you.
Mcjagger said well what is it.
Elder Cook said I spend a lot of time talking with youth all around the world some of the young people say that music does not have any impact on them for good or evil But others say it really has an impact on them.
You have been in this for over 20 years I would like to know what is your opinion? Mcjagger replied and This is an exact quote.
McJagger said "Our music is calculated to drive the kids to sex".
He could see Elder Cook was taken back so he rebounded with the statement,
"But it is up to them what they do"
"It is not my fault."
"I am just earning a lot of money"
He seemed to be delighted in the fact in his mind that he was destroying the family all over the world.
Elder Cook said that he had 8 children Mc Jagger said that he had a few too but no wife. He said that he had 3 women pregnant in various parts of the world.
He said that he had been given some of the missionary discussions in England
Elder Cook did not believe him at first until he questioned him further.
After a few drinks Mcjaggar sat up and said loudly in the cabin.
Any one who believes that the book of Mormon is the word of God is a liar.
Elder cook sat there stunned and offered a silent prayer to know what to do.
Elder Cook responded you are mighty fortunate today Mic.
Mic said what do you mean?????
You are sitting next to a servant of the lord who is going to correct what you just said.
Elder Cook said I have a book of Mormon in my brief case, He took it out and set it upon his lap And said I have read this book many times and I must have missed that chapter.
I have read this book many times And if there is a chapter like that I want to see it.
Would you show me one chapter that is not the word of God.
How about one page.
How about one line
How about one word
Mic I bear testimony that you are the liar.
The book of Mormon is the word of God.
Then Elder Cook bore testimony that he would be held accountable for what he was doing to the degree of his understanding if he did not turn his life around and change his ways.
Now it is evidence today that he did not listen.
But that does not change any thing.
Because on the plane that day he lied.
About this book the Book of Mormon.
If you have miss judged music and thought it is not that bad Believe the brethren.
I bear witness There is good music in the world
When You hear the tabernacle choir singing, How do you feel??
My dear friends that is the spirit of the lord.
Unlike many of the songs out today The hymns of the church carry the spirit of the lord.
Take an inventory of the use of your time where do you spend your time how much internetm how much tv, how much time reading other books.
Soon after I was married my wife and I decided to go through our music and earthly possessions And remove anything that we thought would drive away the spirit of the Lord.
I am glad that we have made that commitment to ourselves.
The other night I had a Dream of a song I don’t even like, I have only heard the beginning of it and always change the channel.
That gave me further evidence that good and bad music becomes ingrained in our subconscious.
When we expose ourselves to Music, Pornography or any other worldly thing it becomes part of us forever it is ingrained in your subconscious to be used for good or evil by which ever spirit you choose to listen to.
Some of the songs from primary come to my mind when I am being tempted.
When I get discouraged I sing I am a child of God.
As I do this without fail I have been able to chase away the evil one and avoided discouragement each time.
4 th
Serve other people
Forget self go out and try to help someone else
Discouragement will flee you
Christ did this
This is all he seemed to want to do
I would submit to you this, You will not ever give anything to the Lord that he will not multiply a hundred fold and more back to you.
Go out and love the people
If you see someone discouraged go and put your arm around them
a friendly Smile in hallway brightens everyone's day when they see you.
If you are feeling down
Do not be hesitant to go to a worthy priesthood holder and Seek a priesthood blessing
If you do this the spirit of the lord will abide with you and discouragement will flee.
Where did Jesus seem to like to spend his time???
Poor needy down cast down trodden even with an adulteress whom he sent on her way full of hope.
When did he do it????
About all the time.
The Greatest things happened while he was on the way to a miracle.
In your life you have to respond on the way.
What did the Savior give????
He gave of himself.
Loose yourself in my service and you will find yourself
The lord wants us to gain control over our body and our minds
I pray that you will be turned more unto God.
If you want to do that go out and serve others.
The Good Samaritan
Jesus gives the parable of the smaritan to a lawyer.
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
“And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
“And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
“And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
“And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?
No comments:
Post a Comment