There are so many things I love about the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of these is how so many principles overlap, complement and enhance each other; and how things that we might have heard many times before can suddenly take on new meanings, or sometimes just become so much more important than they once were.
I was struck a few months ago by something someone said. I don’t remember where I came across it – it might have been a blog post, or a Youtube video, or a General Conference talk or something else entirely – so I apologise of the lack of attribution. I don’t even remember the actual quote, but I remember the reference and the impact.
This continues the series discussing the LDS ordinance of the sacrament. To see the previous posts in the series, see here
As we continue our pondering of the Sacrament prayer wording, it’s important to pause and consider in some detail the Name of Christ. In the prayers, the Priest asks, ‘God the Eternal Father … in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ…’ to bless and sanctify the sacramental emblems. It’s easy to overlook this, because in the LDS Church we close every prayer, every testimony, every talk/sermon, every lesson, ‘in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen’. It’s become a custom, one could almost say a habit.
That’s unfortunate, because there is great power in the Lord’s Name, and we miss out on that when we’re not deliberate and reverent. Indeed, we may well be breaking the third of the great commandments given at Sinai, ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain…’ (Exodus 20:7). It’s this commandment I’d like to focus on in this post.
Those who are of the LDS faith will know what I mean when I say that yesterday was our Fast and Testimony meeting at church. For those who are not of our faith, Testimony meeting takes place once a month and is an opportunity for any member of the congregation to go to the pulpit and declare their faith – their testimony – about Jesus Christ.
I don’t usually take that opportunity to stand and speak, but yesterday I felt that I should do in order to speak about an experience I hadn’t previously shared with anyone. I’m going to repeat that here, with perhaps one or two added details I had left out yesterday.
Earlier this year I had the amazing opportunity to go ‘home’ to Australia and spend a little over two weeks with my brother and his family. I hadn’t seen Tony in over 40 years and I’d never met any of this children, so it was really special to be able to do so. Tony and I are practically polar opposites in almost every way, but spending that time with him and his family allowed me to really get to know him and it was so very hard saying goodbye when it was time to leave. He and his family are now well and truly embedded in my heart and I hope and pray I have another opportunity to visit some time.
Towards the end of my stay in Australia, I had a short dream which had a significant impact on me then, and continues to do so now.
In my dream, I found myself standing above the earth and looking down upon it. God had completed the earth’s creation, but man wasn’t yet upon it.
As I looked at the earth, I found that I could truly comprehend it in a way I had never been able to previously. The word ‘comprehend’ isn’t the right word, but I’m not sure there’s a better one. I saw the mountains and hills; valleys, rivers, streams and oceans; I saw the animals finding joy in their creation; beautiful flowers, trees and much more. But I didn’t just ‘see’ them with my eyes. I somehow could see into their being and truly understand them. It was marvellous. It came to my understanding that the work of creating this beautiful sphere had been long and arduous – and that God had invested a huge amount of Himself into it. The sheer breadth and depth of creation was awe-inspiring.
At that point, I realised that the Lord was standing next to me and also looking down upon His creation. It was then that He spoke these words to me, ‘I created all of this for you.’
At that moment a wave of love washed over me, overwhelming my senses to the extent that I began to cry. I then woke up. That same sense of love endured with me for some time, and even now I feel a portion of it when I think back on the experience.
Those who know me know that I have suffered from depression for much of my life, and since that experience there have still been ups and downs. But since the visit to my brother I have never forgotten that feeling.
For most of my life, I’ve had quite high self-confidence, while simultaneously having very low self-esteem. I’ve always know that God loves His children, but usually struggled to feel that for myself – perhaps you know how that feels. To a great degree, that changed with this dream.
Of course, God’s greatest act of love for us was in the sending of His Only Begotten in the flesh, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins, pains, and suffering of every kind, and to overcome death. But next time you see a rainbow; or feel the beauty in a clear, crisp day; or marvel at the autumnal colours decorating the trees in many parts of the world at this time of the year, please remember: He created that for you.
P.S. I’ve been absent on this blog for several years as I’ve struggled with illness of one form or another, not to mention ‘life’ in general. God willing, I hope to be a little more active again now.
Twice a year, members of the church from the wider area where we live gather together for what we call ‘Stake Conference’. The conference is held over Saturday and Sunday, and I was asked to speak at the session held last night. I share it here in the hopes that it provides some hope and understanding for others.
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Many years ago, I served my mission amongst the beautiful people of Chile. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about a particular experience I had while I was there.
I was in a small town called Coihueco. And my companion and I were teaching a single mother and her daughter who I’ll call Juana, who was about 12 years old. They lived on the outskirts of the town in a small makeshift house of dirt floors. Continue reading →
My wife and I have to take it in turns to attend church on Sundays and this week it was my turn, which I always enjoy.
Being the first Sunday of the month, our congregational meeting was a bit different from normal in that any members of the congregation are permitted to walk to the pulpit and share their feelings of the Saviour and of His gospel. Today’s meeting was particularly enjoyable, and I came away feeling uplifted and with my own testimony of Christ strengthened.
During the meeting there was something our Bishop said that really chimed with some thoughts I’ve been having lately, and that was about limitations. He was talking about the balancing act he has to give between his family, his employment, and his calling as Bishop, and how it can be really hard to get right. This is especially true when one of these cranks the volume up and demands more attention. Continue reading →
In my last post, I talked about sadness – and my own lack thereof – and how it is a necessary part of our life, ultimately allowing us to receive a greater happiness.
I thought at the time that it was a distinct topic from my series on the sacrament (you can read the posts in that series here). But as I sat in church today listening to the sacrament prayers, I realised that wasn’t the case. Obviously, all gospel topics are inter-related in some ways, but this was more so than I had imagined.
To bless and sanctify. Bread and Water. Emblems of His death and suffering. To our souls. Hmm.
When I started this series about the LDS ordinance of the sacrament, I thought it would take me two posts to cover the sacrament prayer. As I sat down to dissect the prayers into areas I wanted to cover, however, I realised that it was going to take longer than that. So this is the first of, well, several short articles about the sacrament prayers themselves. If you want to see a list of all of the topics on the sacrament covered so far, go here.
As I’ve said before, the prayer on the sacrament must be word perfect. Any mistake must be remedied, and the Priest will repeat the prayer until every word spoken is correct. I love the symbolism of that.
Yes, we are commanded to be perfect even as the resurrected Christ, or His Father in Heaven, are perfect (3 Nephi 12:48). But we can’t actually achieve that. Not any of us. We all make mistakes and transgress the laws the Lord has given us.
But that’s okay. Because of the atonement of Christ, the emblems of which are displayed on the sacrament table, we can all partake of His grace, repent, and start again. No matter how many times we’ve failed, we can try again. Thus, even with our imperfections, we can keep this commandment by being “perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:33).
Indeed, we can only obey this commandment to be perfect through our Saviour and Redeemer, and the requirement for perfection in the prayers on the sacrament is a beautiful metaphor for that. Continue reading →
In my last post, Our Modern Altars, I talked about the table upon which the bread and water of the sacrament is placed. A table which serves as a modern altar for us. Today I’m going to discuss the cloth covering the same bread and water.
I started preparing this post thinking that one would be enough to talk about the significance and symbolism of the sacrament cloth, but it has developed so much I’ll need to take two. So this is part 1.
Indeed, there is so much to ponder when considering the sacrament cloth it’s difficult to know where to start. So perhaps it’s best to start with the Church handbook.
“Sacrament tablecloths should be white, nontransparent, clean, and pressed.” (Handbook 2, Administering the Church, 20.4.2)
It would be easy to read this sentence and think that only the colour of the cloth is symbolic, white being the symbolic colour of purity; the other requirements being primarily signs of respect. And while having a clean and pressed cloth certainly does show respect, there is more to it than that. Continue reading →
I was very blessed to have been born into a Christian family. My parents never wavered in their testimonies or Church attendance, and I grew up learning from them the importance of it.
I’m not sure at what point I began to understand the difference between the Church and the gospel – the earthly (though divinely mandate and approved) organisation through which gospel ordinances are performed in our day, versus the eternal principles by which our future happiness is governed.
At some point I did, though. And at about the same time, I also began to notice other principles we often conflate within the Church. Believing versus faith. Doing versus becoming. Reading – or even studying – versus feasting.
Whichever set of words you look at, they’re both necessary: essential even. But our ultimate aim is always the second. We strengthen our belief until it grows into faith. We study the scriptures until we come to a point where we love them: our soul “hungers”, as Enos put it, and we desire to feast (see Enos 1:4). We do the things the Lord commands until we become a people who would naturally choose those things anyway – even without commandments, and without thinking about it.
It wasn’t until my darkest time of despair, however, that I realised my understanding of these things was intellectual only, a mere grasp of the theory. Continue reading →
Over the years, I’ve learned loads of things at Church. In my adult years, though – like many life-long members of the LDS Church I’m sure – very little has come from the actual words spoken in meetings and lessons. Because those who speak to, or teach us, in Church have to cater for a wide range of gospel understanding, our lessons and sermons tend to be fairly basic in content; with lessons getting recycled every four years.
I still enjoy them, though, for a couple of reasons. First, on odd occasions I’m able to make a contribution to a topic which I hope others find helpful (certainly others make contributions which I find helpful). Second – and relevant for this post – the things I learn are most often from words that are not audible. They are from the words and feelings that come directly into my mind.
That was the case today. The sermons in our main worship meeting were on the subject of prayer and while what the speakers had to say was good, there was something else I learned on the subject; something they didn’t talk about. A phrase came directly to my mind which cause me to ponder quite deeply; to examine myself and my approach to prayer. It is something which will change the way I approach my Heavenly Father when I kneel before him in my solitude. It affects the power of my prayers. Continue reading →
Many years ago, I served my mission amongst the beautiful people of Chile. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about a particular experience I had while I was there.
My wife and I have to take it in turns to attend church on Sundays and this week it was my turn, which I always enjoy.
When I started this series about the LDS ordinance of the sacrament, I thought it would take me two posts to cover the sacrament prayer. As I sat down to dissect the prayers into areas I wanted to cover, however, I realised that it was going to take longer than that. So this is the first of, well, several short articles about the sacrament prayers themselves. If you want to see a list of all of the topics on the sacrament covered so far, 
All Things Witness 