“Hark! The sound of battle sounding loudly and clear;
Come join the ranks! Come join the ranks!”
(We Are All Enlisted, LDS Hymn #250)
For this week’s entry, I thought I’d start off with referring to Elder Jeffery R. Holland’s moving General Conference Address from this last October entitled, “We Are All Enlisted.” This address was part of my inspiration for this blog. Let me tell you why!
First off, I just LOVE Elder Holland’s addresses because of his frankness. He has no issue in telling it like it is. In this particular address, Elder Holland talks of how hard Satan will ALWAYS try to fault the moving forth of God’s plan. He said the following:
“Number one, Satan, or Lucifer, or the father of lies—call him what you will—is real, the very personification of evil. His motives are in every case malicious, and he convulses at the appearance of redeeming light, at the very thought of truth. Number two, he is eternally opposed to the love of God, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the work of peace and salvation. He will fight against these whenever and wherever he can. He knows he will be defeated and cast out in the end, but he is determined to take down with him as many others as he possibly can... his effort to stop the work will be reasonably well served if he can just bind the tongue of the faithful. Brethren, if that is the case, I am looking tonight for men young and old who care enough about this battle between good and evil to sign on and speak up. We are at war, and for these next few minutes, I want to be a one-man recruiting station.”
(For the full talk, here is the link: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/we-are-all-enlisted?lang=eng ).
So, in my effort to “unbind my tongue,” I am writing this blog. I’m not a scholar, and I certainly don’t profess to be highly knowledgeable of any gospel topic, but I am a member of the “ranks,” so to speak, and I do have a testimony. This is part of my fight. So, here we go!
This week for my Doctrine and Covenants class, part of our assignment was to study out the meaning of “worship,” both the “how” and the “who.” I started the assignment thinking that I knew pretty well what worshiping entailed, but it turned out I was quite enlightened. Worship to many is a single thing done only on Sundays during sacrament or communion. However, worship is much more than that. Worship embodies our praises to God, how we live our lives, our willingness to give up our will to God in order to follow His, and how we represent Christ’s name (just to name a few). If we are not doing everything in our power to come to know Christ and His gospel, always moving closer to Him, always repenting and becoming that much better, “grace by grace” as it were, than we are not truly worshiping. It is not like I haven’t known this, but with most gospel studies, when I learn a principle it brings to my realization what I may have already known but needed to be reminded of. What I really love is this quote by Elder Bruce R. McConkie. It is pretty lengthy, so bear with me. But I assure you it’s worth reading:
“To worship the Lord is to follow after him, to seek his face, to believe his doctrine, and to think his thoughts. Its is to walk in his paths, to be baptized as Christ was, to preach that gospel of the kingdom which feel from his lips, and to heal the sick and raise the dead as he did. To worship the Lord is to put first in our lives the things of his kingdom, to live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God, to center our whole hearts upon Christ and that salvation which comes because of him. It is to walk in the light as he is in the light, to do the things that he wants done, to do what he would do under similar circumstances, to be as he is. To worship the Lord is to walk in the Spirit, to rise above carnal things, to bridle our passions, and to overcome the world. It is to pay our tithes and offerings, to act as wise stewards in caring for those things which have been entrusted to our care, and to use our talents and means for the spreading of truth and the building up of his kingdom. To worship the Lord is to be married in the temple, to have children, to teach them the gospel, and to bring them up in light and truth. It is to perfect the family unit, to honor our father and our mother; it is for a man to love his wife with all his heart and to cleave unto her and none else. To worship the Lord is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. It is to work on a welfare project, to administer to the sick, to go on a mission, to go home teaching, and to hold family home evening. To worship the Lord is to study the gospel, to treasure up light and truth, to ponder in our hearts the things of his kingdom, and to make them part of our lives. It is to pray with all the energy of our souls, to preach by the power of the Spirit, to sings songs of praise and thanksgiving. To worship is to work, to be actively engaged in a good cause, to be about our Father’s business, to love and serve our fellowman. It is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to comfort those that mourn, and to hold up the hands that hang down and to strengthen the feeble knees. To worship the lord is to stand valiantly in the cause of truth and righteousness, to let our influence for good be felt in civic, cultural, educational, and governmental fields, and to support those laws and principles which further the Lord’s interest on earth. To worship the Lord is to be of good cheer, to be courageous, to be valiant, to have the courage of our God-given convictions, and to keep the faith. It is ten thousand times ten thousand things. It is keeping the commandments of God. It is living the whole law of the whole gospel.”
(For the full talk here is the link: http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1971/10/how-to-worship?lang=eng ).
Phew! Did you make it through? :) As I read through that quote, I realized where I’m lacking in my worship. It certainly is a good way to learn. What better way to counter Satan’s efforts to take away light and truth than by building our homes in a worship/Christ centered way?
That’s all folks. I hope you learned a bit about worship like I did. Let me know what your thoughts are. I love you all! ‘Til next week :)
