B). This TFOT outline has been sitting in my drafts for a couple months. Perfect! Way to go, Past Me.
March's Teaching for Our Times topic was from last October's conference, Elder Richard G. Scott's “Personal Strength through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”
My outline for this one may seem a bit smaller than others, but that's because I felt it relied heavily on comments from the sisters. They were more than happy to oblige and once again I felt less like I was teaching, and more that I was being taught.
The main take-away from this talk is that yes, Atonement = Repentance, but it's also service. Elder Scott says:
- Make covenants and receive ordinances for yourself. Then steadily and consistently work to provide ordinances in the temple for your own ancestors.
- Share the gospel with nonmember or less-active family members or friends. Sharing these truths can bring a renewed enthusiasm into your life.
- Serve faithfully in all Church callings, especially home teaching and visiting teaching assignments. Don’t be just a 15-minutes-a-month home or visiting teacher. Rather, reach out to each individual member of the family. Get to know them personally. Be a real friend. Through acts of kindness, show them how very much you care for each of them.
- Most important, serve the members of your own family. Make the spiritual development of your spouse and children a very high priority. Be attentive to the things you can do to help each one. Give freely of your time and attention.
Elder Scott says: “Recently I was blessed to meet with a most impressive group of youth from the state of Idaho. One virtuous young woman asked me that I feel is the most important thing they should be doing in their lives right now. I suggested they learn to recognize the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives. Today I expound on one aspect of that power, which is the personal strength we can receive through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”
Basic understanding of the Atonement often focuses on repentance. How does the Atonement works in our lives each day in less grandiose, but still important ways? That’s kind of the point of Elder Scott’s talk. He focuses on the Book of Mormon story about the Ammonites who repented and buried their weapons deep in the ground.
Quote #1: “In the Book of Mormon we read of Ammon and his brethren teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to a people who were “a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people.” Many of the people were converted and chose to leave behind their sinful behavior. So complete was their conversion that they buried their weapons and covenanted with the Lord that they would never use them again.”
Quote #2: “Later, many of their unconverted brethren came upon them and began to slay them. The now-faithful people chose to succumb to the sword rather than risk their spiritual lives by taking up arms. Their righteous example helped even more people to be converted and to lay down their weapons of rebellion.”
Quote #3: “Through Ammon, the Lord guided them to refuge among the Nephites, and they became known as the people of Ammon. The Nephites protected them for many years, but eventually the Nephite army began to wear down, and reinforcements were gravely needed. The people of Ammon were at a critical moment of their spiritual lives. They had been true to their covenant never to take up arms. But they understood that fathers are responsible to provide protection to their families. That need seemed great enough to merit consideration of breaking their covenant”
Why do you think it is so important for them to keep this covenant? Their priesthood leader cautioned them against retrieving their weapons “lest they should lose their souls.” Elder Scott asks “These faithful fathers had long since repented of their sins and become clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so why were they counseled not to defend their families?” What do you think?
Quote #4: “It is a fundamental truth that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be cleansed. We can become virtuous and pure. However, sometimes our poor choices leave us with long-term consequences. One of the vital steps to complete repentance is to bear the short- and long-term consequences of our past sins. Their past choices had exposed these Ammonite fathers to a carnal appetite that could again become a point of vulnerability that Satan would attempt to exploit.”
He goes on to say “Satan will try to use our memory of any previous guilt to lure us back into his influence.” He doesn’t explicitly say so, but I think there’s a bit of a pride issue here. Sometimes when we repent and get on the straight and narrow and live virtuous lives, we can be overconfident about how well we’re doing. This first example that came to my mind is how recovering alcoholics must forgo alcohol entirely. They can’t have an occasional drink. They have to just stop. Some don’t even go in bars. They could be 20 years sober but there is no guarantee that just one drink wouldn’t send them back in. I think that’s what Elder Scott is talking about here. These Ammonite fathers were addicted to war, in a way. And to plunge back in, however noble the cause, was to risk returning to their old ways.
So what was the solution to this problem? How did the story end? The Ammonite sons fought for their fathers. They did not have the same history of weakness that their fathers did. It wasn’t the fighting that was objectionable, it was that it was the weakness of the fathers.
That’s the question that I pose to all of you today: What are our weaknesses? And How does the Atonement daily help strengthen and protect us against them?
Quote #5: “The joyful news for anyone who desires to be rid of the consequences of past poor choices is that the Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy.”
He talks about how between battles, Captain Moroni focused on fortifying the weaker cities. “He caused that they should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers until they had encircled the city with a strong wall of timbers and earth to exceeding height.”
Using that as a metaphor for ourselves, how can we build up great height around our weak areas?
Make covenants and receive ordinances for yourself. Then steadily and consistently work to provide ordinances in the temple for your own ancestors.
Share the gospel with nonmember or less-active family members or friends. Sharing these truths can bring a renewed enthusiasm into your life.
Serve faithfully in all Church callings, especially home teaching and visiting teaching assignments. Don’t be just a 15-minutes-a-month home or visiting teacher. Rather, reach out to each individual member of the family. Get to know them personally. Be a real friend. Through acts of kindness, show them how very much you care for each of them.
Most important, serve the members of your own family. Make the spiritual development of your spouse and children a very high priority. Be attentive to the things you can do to help each one. Give freely of your time and attention.
Elder Scott concludes: “In each of these suggestions, there is a common theme: fill your life with service to others. As you lose your life in the service of Father in Heaven’s children,23 Satan’s temptations lose power in your life.”
To our initial definition of Atonement = Repentance, we can add Atonement = Service. By serving others, we allow the Atonement to fortify our weaknesses and help us to become stronger.
Basic understanding of the Atonement often focuses on repentance. How does the Atonement works in our lives each day in less grandiose, but still important ways? That’s kind of the point of Elder Scott’s talk. He focuses on the Book of Mormon story about the Ammonites who repented and buried their weapons deep in the ground.
Quote #1: “In the Book of Mormon we read of Ammon and his brethren teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to a people who were “a wild and a hardened and a ferocious people.” Many of the people were converted and chose to leave behind their sinful behavior. So complete was their conversion that they buried their weapons and covenanted with the Lord that they would never use them again.”
Quote #2: “Later, many of their unconverted brethren came upon them and began to slay them. The now-faithful people chose to succumb to the sword rather than risk their spiritual lives by taking up arms. Their righteous example helped even more people to be converted and to lay down their weapons of rebellion.”
Quote #3: “Through Ammon, the Lord guided them to refuge among the Nephites, and they became known as the people of Ammon. The Nephites protected them for many years, but eventually the Nephite army began to wear down, and reinforcements were gravely needed. The people of Ammon were at a critical moment of their spiritual lives. They had been true to their covenant never to take up arms. But they understood that fathers are responsible to provide protection to their families. That need seemed great enough to merit consideration of breaking their covenant”
Why do you think it is so important for them to keep this covenant? Their priesthood leader cautioned them against retrieving their weapons “lest they should lose their souls.” Elder Scott asks “These faithful fathers had long since repented of their sins and become clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, so why were they counseled not to defend their families?” What do you think?
Quote #4: “It is a fundamental truth that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can be cleansed. We can become virtuous and pure. However, sometimes our poor choices leave us with long-term consequences. One of the vital steps to complete repentance is to bear the short- and long-term consequences of our past sins. Their past choices had exposed these Ammonite fathers to a carnal appetite that could again become a point of vulnerability that Satan would attempt to exploit.”
He goes on to say “Satan will try to use our memory of any previous guilt to lure us back into his influence.” He doesn’t explicitly say so, but I think there’s a bit of a pride issue here. Sometimes when we repent and get on the straight and narrow and live virtuous lives, we can be overconfident about how well we’re doing. This first example that came to my mind is how recovering alcoholics must forgo alcohol entirely. They can’t have an occasional drink. They have to just stop. Some don’t even go in bars. They could be 20 years sober but there is no guarantee that just one drink wouldn’t send them back in. I think that’s what Elder Scott is talking about here. These Ammonite fathers were addicted to war, in a way. And to plunge back in, however noble the cause, was to risk returning to their old ways.
So what was the solution to this problem? How did the story end? The Ammonite sons fought for their fathers. They did not have the same history of weakness that their fathers did. It wasn’t the fighting that was objectionable, it was that it was the weakness of the fathers.
That’s the question that I pose to all of you today: What are our weaknesses? And How does the Atonement daily help strengthen and protect us against them?
Quote #5: “The joyful news for anyone who desires to be rid of the consequences of past poor choices is that the Lord sees weaknesses differently than He does rebellion. Whereas the Lord warns that unrepented rebellion will bring punishment, when the Lord speaks of weaknesses, it is always with mercy.”
He talks about how between battles, Captain Moroni focused on fortifying the weaker cities. “He caused that they should build a breastwork of timbers upon the inner bank of the ditch; and they cast up dirt out of the ditch against the breastwork of timbers until they had encircled the city with a strong wall of timbers and earth to exceeding height.”
Using that as a metaphor for ourselves, how can we build up great height around our weak areas?
Make covenants and receive ordinances for yourself. Then steadily and consistently work to provide ordinances in the temple for your own ancestors.
Share the gospel with nonmember or less-active family members or friends. Sharing these truths can bring a renewed enthusiasm into your life.
Serve faithfully in all Church callings, especially home teaching and visiting teaching assignments. Don’t be just a 15-minutes-a-month home or visiting teacher. Rather, reach out to each individual member of the family. Get to know them personally. Be a real friend. Through acts of kindness, show them how very much you care for each of them.
Most important, serve the members of your own family. Make the spiritual development of your spouse and children a very high priority. Be attentive to the things you can do to help each one. Give freely of your time and attention.
Elder Scott concludes: “In each of these suggestions, there is a common theme: fill your life with service to others. As you lose your life in the service of Father in Heaven’s children,23 Satan’s temptations lose power in your life.”
To our initial definition of Atonement = Repentance, we can add Atonement = Service. By serving others, we allow the Atonement to fortify our weaknesses and help us to become stronger.
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