How then are you blessed IMMEDIATELY for your obedience?

Monday 29 May, 2017

Happy Monday everyone!

Look at this Beautiful Tree!

Sorry this week is a short email! I hope you all had a great week! And I hope you all took the time to study Helaman 5:12 and answer those questions!

Today I just want to share something from a talk that I read this week!

Sis Malupo                                   Cowra and Bathurst Sisters

I want to start with the question "How is it that we are IMMEDIATELY blessed for our obedience?"

Generally we think that blessings are realized only over time. For example, the prophet Ether said: "...ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." (Ether 12:6). Another example of how time, diligence and patience play a role in realizing the fruit of your labours is found in the teachings of Alma about the seed (Alma 32). Here, Alma compared the gospel to a seed and said that we can realize the fruit or benefit from that seed only after a season of caring and nourishing the seed (Alma 32). Moses said that the people of Enoch were exalted "in process of time" (Moses 7:21). How then are you blessed IMMEDIATELY for your obedience?

The answer is that there are blessings and THEN there are blessings. Some blessings you wait for; others are immediate and invariable. One way that you are immediately blessed is that you are CHANGED, and change may be the greatest blessing of all! You are the sum total of all that you have thought, done, said, seen, heard and felt in this life and before. You change immediately with each good thought, each good act, and every good word changes you for the better. When you WILLINGLY obey the principles of the gospel, you are changed by the Spirit of God to become incrementally more like him. The degree of change with each small act of obedience may be small, but it is real and immediate. The full, cumulative and perfect realization of this process of change or sanctification happens only over time.  But make no mistake; you are always changing, and the effects of your obedience are immediate, whether for better or for worse, depending upon the voice you choose to follow. 

Just give it up. Surrender your will to Him. Unconditionally, withhold nothing. Turn it all over to Him; all of your desires, wishes, dreams and hopes. Be true and faithful in your head and in your heart, not just in your behaviour. Trust in Him. Trust Him who knows all things. Trust Him who has all power. Trust Him whose love for you is perfect. Trust Him, who alone suffered, paid and atoned for your sins and for your weaknesses as well. Trust Him that He will make of you, immeasurably more, than what you will ever, ever, in all eternity, make of yourself. He will create of you a masterpiece. You will create of you only a smudge. 

President David O. McKay said "The greatest battles you will ever fight will be within the silent chambers of your heart". That is the battleground between what you want and what the Lord wants. If you surrender, if the Lord wins, you win also. If you win, if your will prevails, you and the Lord both lose. The only way to win is to lose. Lose yourself in doing the Lord's will, and you will win beyond your wildest imaginations.

My invitation to us all is to trust in the Lord. To lose the battle with him so that we may come out conquering! Allow yourself to be changed through the immediate blessing of following Him!

Love you!

Sister Roos (: (: 

Elder Beriong - Zone Conference

Pukana