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

Today we look at how the Lord gives support to those who suffer for him. There has never been a promise that all life will go smoothly to those that follow Him and this certainly was the case for Paul. We look at how the Lord did give strength to His faithful Apostle.

Elder Neal A Maxwell: When we see things as they really were, really are, and really will be (see Jacob 4:13; D&C 93:24), dispensations are merely seasons, new friendships are but relationships resumed, and prophets sent forth on their errands from the Lord reflect associations which arc across the ages as they later rendezvous on mountaintops and hills, in woods, fields, groves, and even jails.

We are not now ready for all things the Lord has prepared in the City of God for them that love Him. Our present eyes are unready for things which they have not yet seen, and our ears are not prepared for the transcending sounds and music of that city.

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 delve further into accounts of spiritual witnesses and how these may differ with retelling over time. Does this mean that they are not true or do they reflect change within the storyteller?

Book of Mormon Central: John W. Welch has concluded that the accounts of Alma’s vision differ from each other, in light of their individual settings and audiences, but distinctive details in these three accounts show that they all came from the same person. Evidence for this is found in the repetition of distinctive phrases between the accounts. Book of Mormon Central article: https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/why-are-there-multiple-accounts-of-joseph-smith-and-almas-visions Gospel Topic Essay: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/first-vision-accounts

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 compare the three accounts of Paul's experience in the vision of the Saviour and just why there are differences in these various accounts. Tune in tomorrow to learn more about how this relates to other accounts of spiritual events.

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 study into Paul in the final books of the Acts and how he inspirational in his testifying of the Saviour, no matter who the audience was or how grand their stature.

Elder Hugh B Brown: We sometimes meet with skepticism when we say that he still reveals, but let us paraphrase the words of Paul for a moment. Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God will do what he has promised to do? If time would permit we could take you through the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and show the promises of God with respect to the latter days. Why should it be thought incredible not only that he would keep his promise but that he would continue to do what he has done through all the dispensations of the gospel from the beginning?

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 learn from an excellent presentation that Elder and Sister Hafen gave about Faith is not Blind. We study the principles they taught and how they apply to all of us who are striving to develop our faith.

Find out more at these links:

Elder and Sister Hafen interview on Fairmormon: https://castbox.fm/vb/146868421

Elder and Sister Hafen talk at BYU Hawaii: https://youtu.be/hMoS1zLRLlw

Link to Facebook Group with interviews with members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/faithisnotblind/

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 learn the principle that Paul teaches in Acts 20 - that it is more blessed to give than to receive and just what acts of service can be given.

President Thomas S Monson: My This simple act of kindness welded us together as one. We learned through our own experience that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive

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 dive further into Paul's sermon about who God is, particularly on his statement that we are the offspring of God. We consider how powerful a doctrine this is and what it can lead us to understand more fully.

Elder Marcus B Nash: My dear brethren of the Aaronic Priesthood, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this: First, a basic purpose of your life, as Lehi taught, is “[to] have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). In order to have joy, you need to understand that, as a child of your Heavenly Father, you inherited divine traits and spiritual needs—and just like a fish needs water, you need the gospel and the companionship of the Holy Ghost to be truly, deeply happy. Because you are the offspring of God (see Acts 17:28), it is incompatible with your eternal nature to do wrong and feel right. It cannot be done. It is part of your spiritual DNA, as it were, that peace, joy, and happiness will be yours only to the degree you live the gospel.

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 vital truths that Paul taught about the "unknown" God and what these eternal truths about our Heavenly Father can do for our outlook on our lives.

President David O McKay: Today, as on Mars' Hill, when we speak of the resurrection of the dead, there are some who mock and others who doubt and turn away. Today, as then, too many men and women have other gods to which they give more thought than to the resurrected Lord—the god of pleasure, the god of wealth, the god of indulgence, the god of political power, the god of popularity, the god of race superiority—as varied and numerous as were the gods in ancient Athens and Rome.

Thoughts that most frequently occupy the mind determine a man's course of action. As one writer aptly says: "The ever pressing pursuit of secular aims—natural science, commerce, luxury—any form of earthly ambition or absorption, makes the mind incapable of receiving, understanding, or even entertaining the idea of any Being higher than man, or any state of existence higher than the present." It is therefore a blessing to the world that there are occasions such as Easter which, as warning semaphores, say to mankind: In your mad rush for pleasure, wealth, and fame, pause, and think what is of most value in life.

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 boldness of Paul and his companions in sharing the Gospel wherever they were. We look especially at the experience of Paul and Silas in prison and just how this links to our situation today and our perceptions of the interest of those around us.

Elder Henry W Naisbett: It is almost an insult to a great many people now, to tell them that they need salvation, but yet in the innermost recesses of every man's heart and every woman's soul, in the depths that no plummet hath sounded, not even the one made by themselves—there rests the feeling that they need be sorry for many of the things that they have done in life, and if not for those that they have done, at least for the thousand and one things that they have left undone, for there are sins of omission as fatal as those of commission.

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 further into the principle of the Spirit guiding us in missionary work. President Dallin H Oaks gave an insightful message about this theme in the October 2016 General Conference which gives great guidance.

President Dallin H Oaks: Latter-day Saints are surely among those most committed to this great responsibility. We should be because we know that God loves all of His children and that in these last days He has restored vital additional knowledge and power to bless all of them.

Read the whole talk here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/10/sharing-the-restored-gospel