This lesson is going to talk
a little more about the importance of being spiritually self reliant.
What is self reliance?
Strength of the Youth:
When you are self-reliant, you use
the blessings and abilities God has given you to care for yourself and your
family and to find solutions for your own problems. Self-reliance does not mean
that you must be able to do all things on your own. To be truly self-reliant,
you must learn how to work with others and turn to the Lord for His help and
strength.
You have been blessed with
the gift of agency, and are learning how to set your own course and find
answers to your own problems in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Part of using our agency
wisely and being spiritually self reliant, involves being able to follow the
Spirit in making good decisions.
I want to share a powerful
tool to develop a greater understanding of revelation and how to receive
it. First, we need to consider how to
distinguish revelation from other noise in our heads.
The Voice of Our Mind – The
first voice we hear is the loudest, the voice of our own mind. We hear ourselves think. We ask questions, debate, doubt. We analyze the events of our lives and make
decisions. This voice is almost always
unsure. It wonders about everything and
questions, “Why did that happen?”, “What should I do now?” “What does that mean?” “How could I be so dumb?”. This is all our own thinking and
reasoning. The easiest way to identify
this voice is that often it references, “Me” and “I”.
Examples: “I think I’m in trouble,” is from your own
mind. “I’m hungry” or “Why is this
happening to me?”.
The Holy Spirit – The easiest
way to identify this voice is that it always leads us to do something good and
to believe in Christ. It rarely asks
questions. It clearly distills a thought
or pure concept into our minds and heart:
“Don’t do that” “Put it
back” “Pick it up” “Go to church”. “Help that person”. “Be loving to your sibling.” These are all examples of the voice of the
Spirit.
Moroni 7 tells us that by
learning to hear the voice of the Spirit, we can tell good from evil as clearly
as the daylight from the dark night:
"15 For behold, my brethren, it
is given unto you to judge, that ye may know good from evil; and the way to
judge is as plain, that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight
is from the dark night.
16 For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man,
that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge;
for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in
Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know
with a perfect knowledge it is of God.
17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and
believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a
perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil
work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels;
neither do they who subject themselves unto him.
18 And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by
which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not
judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be
judged.
19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should
search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and
if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly
will be a child of Christ."
This concept is so
important.
EVERYTHING that invites you
to do good – including ideas for good that pop into your head – is inspired of
God and Is revelation. Choosing to be
obedient to such promptings will dramatically increase your spiritual strength
and self reliance.
Promptings are most often
just thoughts or impressions that come into the heart and mind, usually when
you least expect it. To some they come
as visual images or flashes of pictures or sudden insight. But we can tell without a doubt that they
come from Christ when they lead us to do something good. Even if that good thing is mundane and
annoying as a thought to drive the speed limit. As the scripture says, ALL good
things are inspired of God.
The Voice of Evil – The final
voice we hear is the voice of evil. We
are all quite familiar with temptations, they most often appeal to our flesh,
pride, or vanity. They try to get us to
go contrary to righteous
promptings. When there is a prompting to
do good, the adversary will immediately rant against it, railing with many
reasons why we should do otherwise.
An example of these three
voices operating in our lives probably just happened to a lot of us during Fast
and testimony meeting. The voice of the
Holy Spirit might have prompted you to bear your testimony. The opposition, keenly aware of what is going
on, and knowing you and your weaknesses, would immediately counter with a
barrage of clever arguments, tailor made for you. “You won’t know what to say. It will be
embarrassing. You will just start crying. Leave the time for other people. Nobody really cares about what you think
anyway,” and similar lies. Your mind
then says,
“Oh my goodness, what should
I do?” When we are able to identify
these three voices correctly, then we don’t need to ask ourselves what we
should do because we should bear our testimony.
The real question is, “Will I be obedient and share my testimony?” Or will I be obedient to follow that prompting
to say hi to that person?
In your journal, write down
when you receive a prompting and every time you hear a temptation. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Record at the end of the day whether you
hearkened to that which was good, or if you succumbed to that which was
evil. Record the results of your
decision – how did it work out for you when you were faithful, what
happened? Whose lives were changed? Were you happier because of your
obedience? When you failed to obey, what
were the consequences?
What you will find is that
you receive dozens of revelations every day.
You will see that your life is literally submerged in promptings. You will see that with every decision whether
right or wrong, you knew what you “should” have done. You will also find that the voice of
opposition is very informed. It is
specific and intelligent. It is your
enemy and giving you hundreds of reasons to disobey. Every person who tries this is flabbergasted
by the volume of information received each day.
You will be delighted at how clearly Christ is leading you and amazed
and dismayed at how thoroughly evil opposes any truth and all light.
Does anyone have an example
of a time when they were able to understand that something was a
prompting? Did they notice opposition to
that prompting? Did they follow it and
what happened?
Close with the parable of the
ten virgins
Matthew 25:1-13
Some people say that the
virgins should have shared with the unwise virgins. But spirituality cannot be shared, it has to
come within one ‘s self. Spiritual
self-reliance takes work and discipline.
No comments:
Post a Comment