April 23, 2017: Lesson Recap

"Sharing the Restored Gospel" 

By Dallin H. Oaks

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/sharing-the-restored-gospel?lang=eng

What we call “member missionary work” is not a program but an attitude of love and outreach to help those around us.

Nearing the end of His earthly ministry, our Savior, Jesus Christ, commanded His disciples: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). All Christians are under these commands to share the gospel with everyone. Many call this the “great commission.”

We all know that member participation in missionary work is vital to achieving both conversion and retention. President Thomas S. Monson has said: “Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together … [and] labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto Him. He has prepared the means for us to share the gospel in a multitude of ways, and He will assist us in our labors if we will act in faith to fulfill His work.”1

Things we should all be doing as "member missionaries":

1. Pray for the desire to help with missionary work. All efforts begin w/ desire
2. Keep the commandments
3. Pray for the inspiration on what we can to in our individual circumstances to share the gospel with others

The principles are pretty simple—pray, personally and in your family, for missionary opportunities.”3 As we demonstrate our faith, these opportunities will come without any “forced or … contrived response. They will flow as a natural result of our love for our brothers and sisters.”4

April 16, 2017: Lesson Recap

Chapter 8: The Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Gordon B. Hinckley

We Look To Christ

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-gordon-b-hinckley/chapter-8-we-look-to-christ?lang=eng

“We believe in Christ. We teach of Christ. We look to Christ. He is our Redeemer, our Lord, and our Savior.”

President Hinckley spoke of an experience he had at the open house of the Mesa Arizona Temple, where clergymen from various religious groups were invited to attend. Once such clergyman asked President Hinckley why there were no representations of the cross which is a predominate symbol in most Christian faiths. President Hinckley replied that the cross to members of our faith represents "the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ."

When asked what was the symbol of our religion, President Hinckley replied, "the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship… No sign, no work of art, no representation of form is adequate to express the glory and the wonder of the Living Christ. He told us what that symbol should be when he said, ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments.’ (John 14:15.)

“As his followers, we cannot do a mean or shoddy or ungracious thing without tarnishing his image. Nor can we do a good and gracious and generous act without burnishing more brightly the symbol of him whose name we have taken upon ourselves.“

And so our lives must become a meaningful expression, the symbol of our declaration of our testimony of the Living Christ, the Eternal Son of the Living God.

Absolutely basic to our faith is our testimony of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. … He is the chief cornerstone of the church which bears His name.² We believe in Christ. We teach of Christ. We look to Christ. He is our Redeemer, our Lord, and our Savior.³

We believe in Christ's earthly ministry, in his arrest and crucifixion and death, and in his resurrection. 

To all who may have doubts, I repeat the words given Thomas as he felt the wounded hands of the Lord: “Be not faithless, but believing” [John 20:27]. Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the greatest figure of time and eternity. Believe that his matchless life reached back before the world was formed. Believe that he was the Creator of the earth on which we live. Believe that he was Jehovah of the Old Testament, that he was the Messiah of the New Testament, that he died and was resurrected, that he visited the western continents and taught the people here, that he ushered in this final gospel dispensation, and that he lives, the living Son of the living God, our Savior and our Redeemer.⁷

Each of us can know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Redeemer of the world, resurrected from the grave.

In order to obtain knowledge and gain a testimony of Christ's resurrection and of the truth that He is our redeemer we can:

1. Read the Word of the Lord

2. Serve in the Work of the Lord

3. Pray- Speak with your Eternal Father in the name of his Beloved Son. “Behold,” he says, “I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” (Rev. 3:20.)

This is his invitation, and the promise is sure. It is unlikely that you will hear voices from heaven, but there will come a heaven-sent assurance, peaceful and certain.