Sunday Learning

Today in Sacrament Meeting the speakers spoke about the first and the fourth commandments.

Commandment #1: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”

Commandment #4: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

The sister who spoke about the first commandment said something that made me write this down: If I put ANYTHING before God, I am breaking the first commandment.

Then, when the brother who spoke about the fourth commandment read from Doctrine and Covenants 59:12, he brought attention to the footnote of the word oblations.

Oblations = Offerings

Some examples of my offerings (oblations) are: my time, my talents, or my means in the service of God or fellowman.

So I wrote this down: If I put my time, my talents, my means, my work, other people, my emotions, my thoughts, my hobbies, or my way of “life” before God, I am breaking the first commandment.

Whoa.

Then, in Sunday School - our last Family Search class – I was so moved by this statement by President Boyd K. Packer about my responsibility to do work for my kindred dead:

"Family history work has the power to do something for the dead. It has an equal power to do something to the living. Family history work of Church members has a refining, spiritualizing, tempering influence on those who are engaged in it. They understand that they are tying their family together, their living family here with those who have gone before.


"Family history work in one sense would justify itself even if one were not successful in clearing names for temple work. The process of searching, the means of going after those names, would be worth all the effort you could invest. The reason: You cannot find names without knowing that they represent people. You begin to find out things about people. When we research our own lines we become interested in more than just names or the number of names going through the temple. Our interest turns our hearts to our fathers—we seek to find them and to know them and to serve them.

"In doing so we store up treasures in heaven."

Finally, in Relief Society, our instructor talked about how Deliverance is the theme of our lives.

It was the theme for Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the children of Israel.

Deliverance was key for Limhi, for Alma and his people, for the Anti-Nephi Lehies.

It was in the desire of Mormon pioneers who trekked across America.

Truly, Deliverance is really the theme for all of us. For all of us will find ourselves in a terrible abyss, looking for a way to escape.

“I believe,” our instructor said, “the Lord has planned an escape for everyone!"

Only it is up to us to take His escape route.  For His Atonement is the ONLY escape, the Savior being our Deliverer.