Sunday, December 20, 2020

Church Services This Week at Oak Ridge Ward Layton North Stake Layton Utah 20 December 2020

Sacrament Service

Moroni 7:40-42

40 And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning ahope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

41 And what is it that ye shall ahope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have bhope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.


Jesus makes our journey possible.  Do we make our journey harder than it needs to be?


Life is not pass or fail.  It is about what we have become.


The speaker shared how his grandson made a FaceBook video called Baseball and the gospel. https://fb.watch/2vHIX_YcxH/


“Do Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with God

By Elder Dale G. Renlund


Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles


To do justly means acting honorably. We act honorably with God by walking humbly with Him. We act honorably with others by loving mercy.


“As followers of Jesus Christ, and as Latter-day Saints, we strive—and are encouraged to strive—to do better and be better.1 Perhaps you have wondered, as I have, ‘Am I doing enough?’ ‘What else should I be doing?’ or ‘How can I, as a flawed person, qualify to ‘dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness’?’


“The Old Testament prophet Micah asked the question this way: ‘Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?’ Micah satirically wondered whether even exorbitant offerings might be enough to compensate for sin, saying: ‘Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten [thousand] … rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for … the sin of my soul?’


“The answer is no. Good deeds are not sufficient. Salvation is not earned.5 Not even the vast sacrifices Micah knew were impossible can redeem the smallest sin. Left to our own devices, the prospect of returning to live in God’s presence is hopeless.


“Without the blessings that come from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, we can never do enough or be enough by ourselves. The good news, though, is that because of and through Jesus Christ we can become enough. All people will be saved from physical death by the grace of God, through the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And if we turn our hearts to God, salvation from spiritual death is available to all “through the Atonement of [Jesus] Christ … by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.”9 We can be redeemed from sin to stand clean and pure before God. As Micah explained, ‘[God] hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’”(Elder Dale G. Renlund, Do Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly with God, October 2020 General Conference)


Sunday School

Some gifts of the Spirit we are likely born with.


“These are not simply three good things on a list. In a certain sense, they are the most important three things in the world. They are the foundational Christian virtues. Each is a trait of character to be cultivated and developed. Each is a set of attitudes and beliefs to guide thought and action. Each is a choice. Each is a gift from God.


Faith, hope, and charity may be likened to the three legs of a stool. As a boy visiting my grandmother’s farm, I was impressed with the three-legged stool used for milking cows. Just as the stool’s three legs enabled it to rest firmly on uneven ground, if we are grounded in faith, hope, and charity, we too will be on solid footing, even when the ground beneath us is rough or bumpy. Just as a one- or two-legged stool will teeter precariously, we too will be vulnerable to toppling over if we neglect any of these three virtues.


In my study of this topic, I’ve noticed several things. First, faith, hope, and charity are mutually reinforcing. An increase in one tends to result in an increase in the others. If we are feeling weak with respect to one, we can gather strength by focusing on the other two.


There is also a temporal dimension to the relationship. Faith is rooted in the past—in Christ’s death and resurrection and in His Atonement for our sins. Hope is focused on the future—in the promise that through Christ’s Atonement and by the covenants we make and keep, we can return to the presence of our Father in Heaven. And charity is enacted in the present—because it is only here and now that we can really love.


There is also a dimension of progression and culmination: faith and hope lead to charity, and it is charity—Christ’s love for us—that never fails.5 If we desire to develop and be endowed with this Christlike love, it will be by traveling the road of faith and hope.” (BRETT G. SCHARFFS, The Most Important Three Things in the World, May 12, 2009, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/brett-g-scarffs/important-three-things-world/)


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