The Blessing of Scripture

My thoughts on Elder Christofferson's talk "The Blessing of Scripture"

I love these history talks. It reminds me of how much the Lord is in charge of things. They don't give much to discuss, but it does give me lots of food for thought in looking back at my own life and pondering on how much the Lord has been in charge.

I am thankful to those who worked hard and even lost their life so that we could have the scriptures. I know my life would be very different if it wasn't for the scriptures.

"The scriptures enlarge our memory by helping us always to remember the Lord and our relationship to Him and the Father. They remind us of what we knew in our premortal life. And they expand our memory in another sense by teaching us about epochs, people, and events that we did not experience personally."

"The scriptures also enlarge our memory by helping us not forget what we and earlier generations have learned."

I think this life is all about remembering. Remembering what we once knew in heaven and remembering all that we learned in Sunday School and Primary. We also can learn from those who have gone before and recorded it.

It is truly sad that a world who once hungered for the truth is now illiterate.

"God uses scripture to unmask erroneous thinking, false traditions, and sin with its devastating effects. He is a tender parent who would spare us needless suffering and grief and at the same time help us realize our divine potential."

If only we read and heeded.

"They have imagined a Jesus who wants people to work for social justice but who makes no demands upon their personal life and behavior. But a God of love does not leave us to learn by sad experience that “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10; see also Helaman 13:38). His commandments are the voice of reality and our protection against self-inflicted pain. The scriptures are the touchstone for measuring correctness and truth, and they are clear that real happiness lies not in denying the justice of God or trying to circumvent the consequences of sin but in repentance and forgiveness through the atoning grace of the Son of God (see Alma 42)."

But we have to have read them to know this. We MUST read them and if we don't...

"Where scriptural truths are ignored or abandoned, the essential moral core of society disintegrates and decay is close behind. In time, nothing is left to sustain the institutions that sustain society."

We see this over and over. Are we seeing it in our families? Do we see this in individuals?

"In the end, the central purpose of all scripture is to fill our souls with faith in God the Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ—faith that They exist; faith in the Father’s plan for our immortality and eternal life; faith in the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which animates this plan of happiness; faith to make the gospel of Jesus Christ our way of life; and faith to come to know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent”."

I could just repost the rest of his talk. I love the introduction to the Book of Mormon, because it states clearly why Mormon did all that he did. Of course the Bible is also central to the purpose of bringing souls to Christ.

"Scriptural accounts of the faith of others serve to strengthen our own."

AMEN! and that is why so many have shed blood over them, so that we can shed tears of faith, joy and of the spirit as we read and study.

I just hope my children love the scriptures as much as I do.