Church of Jesus Christ Study Session with Come Follow Me

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We return to the Book of Mormon 21 Day Challenge - this time on Day 2, how can we find joy? In a session that links extremely well to what we focused on yesterday, we consider how we may at times may be discouraged by our own efforts but remember how our Saviour is always there willing to bless us!

Sister Linda K Burton: May the Atonement of Jesus Christ cause a “mighty change” to be wrought in our hearts. As we awaken to this doctrine, declared by an angel of God to be “glad tidings of great joy,” I promise that we will feel as King Benjamin’s people felt. After they had prayed mightily that the Atonement would be applied in their lives, “they were filled with joy” and were “willing to enter into a covenant with … God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things.” Making, keeping, and rejoicing in our covenants will be the evidence that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is truly written in our hearts.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We conclude this week with further study of our Come Follow Me topic. Today we look at how through Christ we can be forgiven if our sins and the numerous positive messages found in these chapters to the Romans. What great peace we can find in these words today!

Elder Neal A Maxwell: By pressing forward hopefully, we can, repeatedly and joyfully, stand on what was yesterday’s distant horizon, thereby drawing even further hope from our very own experiences. Hence Paul described how “tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope”. Therefore, we rightly sing of God, “We’ve proved him in days that are past”.

Granted, those with true hope still see their personal circumstances shaken at times—like a kaleidoscope. Yet with the “eye of faith,” even in their changed, proximate circumstances, they still see divine design.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We take a brief pause today just to inform any new listeners about the purpose and goal of this podcast. We are making LDS Study Session available on more platforms (Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, iTunes and so on) so listening to this first will help you have an idea on what we are trying to accomplish here. Connect with us @mattsroberts90 to join in the study discussion!

Alma 37:6-7: Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We consider the role of outward actions and inner conversions - how these both have an important part to play in our development and how we can use outward actions and inner decisions to move along the path of discipleship.

President Dallin H Oaks: The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan by which we can become what children of God are supposed to become. This spotless and perfected state will result from a steady succession of covenants, ordinances, and actions, an accumulation of right choices, and from continuing repentance. “This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God”.

Elder Christofferson: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2001/06/justification-and-sanctification

Elder Uchtdorf: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/04/the-gift-of-grace

President Oaks: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2000/10/the-challenge-to-become

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We continue with our Come Follow Me study this week with a look into the term 'grace' and how it is an enabling power to those who strive to live as the Saviour did. We also learn about the way grace is made available to all of God's children through his bounteous mercy.

Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf: Trying to understand God’s gift of grace with all our heart and mind gives us all the more reasons to love and obey our Heavenly Father with meekness and gratitude. As we walk the path of discipleship, it refines us, it improves us, it helps us to become more like Him, and it leads us back to His presence. “The Spirit of the Lord [our God]” brings about such “a mighty change in us, … that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”

Therefore, our obedience to God’s commandments comes as a natural outgrowth of our endless love and gratitude for the goodness of God. This form of genuine love and gratitude will miraculously merge our works with God’s grace. Virtue will garnish our thoughts unceasingly, and our confidence will wax strong in the presence of God.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

Join us as we start to delve into Paul's letter to the Romans - today looking specifically about the principle of justification taught in Chapter 3. We explore what this means with our relationship with the Saviour and His Atonement.

Elder D Todd Christofferson: Thus, it is not that we earn these gifts, but rather that we choose to seek and accept justification and sanctification. Since the Savior paid for our sins and satisfied justice for us, we become debtors to Him rather than to justice. We must therefore meet the stipulations He has established for forgiveness and cleansing. Otherwise, He withdraws His proffered mediation, and we are left to deal alone with the demands of justice, lacking the means to become pure. One must choose Christ to receive what Christ offers.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

Today we begin our Come Follow Me study by exploring the context of the Pauline Epistles. We share useful study tools when reading these important scriptures and begin with a well known verse from Paul's letter to the Romans.

Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf: Because “the gospel of Christ … is the power of God unto salvation,” you can be confident, courageous, and humble as you share it. Confidence, courage, and humility may seem like contradictory attributes, but they are not. They reflect the Savior’s invitation not to hide gospel values and principles under a bushel but to let your light shine, that your good works may glorify your Father in Heaven.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We study the 1st day of the Book of Mormon Study Challenge - today focusing on is there a God? We learn about our relationship with Him and how we can come to know Him.

Elder James E Faust: The unfailing source of our hope is that we are sons and daughters of God and that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, saved us from death. How can we know that Jesus truly is our Savior and Redeemer? In human terms His reality is almost undefinable, but His presence can be known unequivocally by the Spirit if we continually seek to live under the shadow of His influence. In the Book of Mormon we read the account of Aaron expounding the gospel to Lamoni’s father. He told him, “If thou wilt bow down before God … and call on his name in faith, believing that ye shall receive, then shalt thou receive the hope which thou desirest.” The old king followed this to the letter and received a witness of the truth that Aaron had imparted. As a result, he and all his household were converted and came to know the Lord.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We conclude this week's excellent study in Acts where Paul's word of warning before sailing to Italy is ignored by those around him. Are we sometimes in danger of ignoring those ordained of God in our own personal lives? We are also invited to consider the role we have of being a voice of warning to those around us.

Elder Harold B Lee: The prophet Joseph Smith in this modern day was facing martyrdom at the hands of enemies for saying that he had seen visions in which God the Father and His Son and others who had lived upon the earth had appeared to him as living, resurrected, glorified beings. Like the Apostle Paul; he dared not deny having had these heavenly manifestations lest by so doing he would offend God and come under condemnation.

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90

We look into three interesting characters who were involved in the incarceration of Paul and different ways they reacted to his testimony. Are there lessons we can learn about the way they reacted and how we react to the words of today's prophets.

Elder LeGrand Richards: To be able to accept the message of Paul in those days that God really had raised the dead, for Christ had been raised from the dead and had appeared to him, was harder, possibly, to believe than the message of the prophet of this dispensation.

You will recall that when that testimony was borne, Festus said, "Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad," to which Paul replied, "I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness," to which King Agrippa replied, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian"

Now the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that the Father and the Son appeared to him when he was a mere lad, not quite fifteen, and the thing that he could not understand was the prejudice that that statement aroused in the minds of leaders of men and leaders of religion, for he was a boy of no great pretense, just a farmer's boy without education, and he said he could understand, but he said he felt as he imagined Paul felt. He knew that he had seen a light. He knew that he had heard the voices of these two Personages, God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. And he said he knew that God knew it, and he dared not deny it because he knew that by so doing he would come under condemnation before God.