clbent04

God the Father lives, and His Son, Jesus Christ, lives. While on this Earth, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life free from sin, performed miracles, and died a martyr. He did this to show His love to the Father and to us that we may be redeemed from our fallen state. He died on Earth as a mortal but miraculously arose from death in His infinite glory and lives again forevermore. I know this is true from praying to God for confirmation. I received these truths by experiencing the positive, peaceful feelings of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit, God confirmed these truths to me personally. I also know this is true from being assured and comforted by the Holy Spirit that I am forgiven as I have repented. This life is a test of our obedience to God. God wants us to turn our hearts to Him, but He will not force us. He pleads with us to willingly give our hearts to Him. He is the source of all things good and praiseworthy. We are to follow God according to His teachings He reveals to us by the prophets He has chosen. Prophets over time have written God’s word in books such as the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon. These teachings were written to be shared with all mankind. I know both the Holy Bible and Book of Mormon are inspired scripture given to us from God. I know this from having studied the teachings and pondering them in my heart as I’ve prayed to God to know their truthfulness. As God allows us to make our own decisions, the history of man has shown a repeated behavior of us drawing close to Him for a period, only to be followed by a period of us falling away. This is a cycle that has repeated itself many times since the beginning of man’s existence on Earth. This behavior has been evident in my own life as I have gone up and down with my relationship with God. I will draw close to the Lord in a time of need only to later become too comfortable with my life and forgetful of what He has done for me. We must always be vigilant in living our lives to God that we may always have His spirit to be with us. Having His spirit with us is meaningful because God is the source of all life. Without God, we would not only cease to exist physically as He is the Great Creator, but we would also be spiritually dead. We must seek after Him to live by His light and not in darkness. Without God, we are lost wandering aimlessly through darkness. I experienced this darkness, or as I refer to it as a “black hole”, during a 3-year period in my life where I did not invite God into my heart. Not allowing God in my life for this period left me spiritually famished and malnourished. It eventually created a spiritual hunger within me so great that the Lord finally was able to pierce my heart and get through to me as I humbled myself to Him once more. The last great period of darkness this world experienced led up to the early 1800’s. Joseph Smith was a young boy during this time the world had lost God’s true gospel. Many people still led good, decent lives, but without the true and everlasting gospel in its fulness, the world was wandering aimlessly trying to take its best guess at how to follow the Lord. It was through Joseph the Lord chose to yet again restore the fulness of the gospel to His children. The Lord not only used Joseph to correctly interpret the Bible, but Joseph was also used to help bring forth the Book of Mormon and restore the Priesthood. Experiencing the power of Priesthood is what first truly opened my eyes to the Church. I received Priesthood blessings of comfort during a time of need. Upon receiving these blessings, the Holy Spirit undeniably bore witness to me of its presence in the Church and how the Priesthood is God’s power entrusted to men to effectuate His work here on the Earth. Since then I have experienced the power of the Priesthood in other settings. Participating in the blessings and ordinances effectuated by the Priesthood has enabled me to be a witness that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is God’s church. I am but one man whose voice may only be heard by a few on this Earth. I share these spiritual truths nonetheless however significant or insignificant the impact may be. May the Lord bless us all that we may fulfill the measure of us having been created in His image. May my life serve as a witness to these truths that I may help those within my reach come unto Christ.

That last conversation did get carried away. I'm to blame for that just as much as anyone. You mods don't always have an easy job. Thanks for regulating and keeping what's so great about this site intact

Point taken. But at the end of the day if you get on this site looking for fight, does it even matter if you're arguing on the right side of the debate? No, it doesn't, at least not in terms of you coming unto Christ because you are not allowing the Spirit to act through you. Your discussions and talking points are being fueled by animosity. The motive for why we say what we say is also important.

Exactly this. If we are so set on proving a point or if we have any motive in responding to someone other than loving God and loving each other, what are we trying to accomplish? Where is the love?

For your reference:

Why is it @Grunt's place to blow up @MormonGator's business? And you're right, it doesn't change anything. That's my point. A member's opinions are still a member's opinions regardless of their current status or activity.

You can label yourself with a religion should you so choose, but @Grunt apparently wants to take it one step further and have people specify their level activity with the Church or what their level of worthiness is. I'm surprised to see the guy back on this forum since he has such a low tolerance for anyone he perceives as less worthy and faithful than he is.

You obviously are if you think there's a need for @MormonGator to preface each post with "ATTENTION - please note before continuing to read my post, I am not an active member of the Church"

@Grunt no one but you is confused that members of the Church come from different backgrounds and have different opinions.

Follow up question: Do you think Jesus' example to us of blessing food could also be for the purpose of giving thanks for the life that passed on that we are consuming be it animal or plant?

That's what I've been wondering myself. Surely the Lord cares more about us remembering Him and turning our hearts to Him rather than blessing food for the nourishment of our bodies alone. However you need to pray to effectively keep your heart aligned to the Lord is acceptable. My issue largely rests on the vain repetition of the phrase "please bless this food" without internalizing what it really means. The Savior didn't tell us to use that specific phrase, and He certainly didn't teach us to recite it mindlessly. Some people don't realize the point you just made. Some people believe blessing food is to nourish the body alone. That's not the point. The point is, as you described, to consecrate the food as nourishment to our bodies for the purpose of serving God. When we make the connection that blessing food should serve as a reminder that God provides both physical and spiritual life, that we need Him every minute of every hour to survive, that is when it becomes meaningful. We need God as the sole source of everything good and praiseworthy to nourish our spiritual life just as much as we need Him for our survival in this mortal life as He has provided the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat.

Yes, but my point is how did Christ specifically bless the food and to what purpose? To strengthen and nourish the bodies of those who consumed it?

Hoping Bishop @Vort will weigh in on this one. How do you "bless your food" or what specific phraseology do you use?

Don't you throw your kung at me, @anatess2

Lol. Northerner? I'm more south than you, homie

Ano ang sinasabi mo?

Exactly. Spot on to my opinion on the matter.

It might help them develop common sense (eat food = nourishment for your body), but I don't think such repetitiveness helps develop a meaningful, active relationship with God

Consecrating the use of food for the welfare of our souls makes more sense to me than blessing it to nourish our bodies. I've even worded my prayers to incorporate this idea and including the specific phrase "please bless this food" by saying something to the effect of, "Please bless this food that the energy provided thereof may be used to do good," but since this is phrased so awkwardly I've tried avoiding specifically saying "please bless this food" altogether. Much more meaningful for me to pray in gratitude thanking the Lord for the food and acknowledging all life and sustenance comes from Him, both physical and spiritual sustenance.

What is the purpose of praying to God to bless our food? Or more specifically, what are we trying to accomplish by reciting the phrase, "Please bless this food"? Another common version of this is for members to recite the phrase, "Please bless this food to strengthen and nourish our bodies" or "Please bless this food for the strength and nourishment of our bodies." Are we to specifically bless food for the purpose of strengthening and nourishing our bodies? What I don't understand is regardless of if we ask God to bless the food for our nourishment, the food is going to nourish us either way. We pray for nutrient food to nourish us, and it nourishes us. We don't pray for nutrient food to nourish us, and it nourishes us nonetheless. So what is the point of reciting a phrase in prayer that doesn't change the outcome of the food nourishing our bodies? Do we specifically have to say the words "please bless this food" in prayer? Recently I've tried avoiding repeating these words in prayer because I don't understand why I'm saying them. I'd be happy to return to use this specific phrase in prayer if we are in fact instructed to recite it, but I'd probably also need someone to help me understand why we would specifically need to say verbatim "please bless this food" before every meal. It's more meaningful for me to pray before meals with the purpose of acknowledging before my Heavenly Father that all physical and spiritual nourishment comes from Him. I believe this is the true purpose of why we are to pray over our food. It's make more sense to me that we are to pray over our food in gratitude and remembrance of the life God gives us rather than asking Him to "bless the food." Since we depend on food and drink for our daily sustenance, our hunger serves as a needed reminder that all life and good comes from God. Making the connection that we are just as dependent on Heavenly Father for spiritual nourishment as we are with physical nourishment has made my prayers before meals more meaningful.

Do we have a duty as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to speak up when someone uses the Lord's name in vain around us? I ask because of the example President Kimball set while in a hospital one day. I think about this story sometimes whenever coworkers or others around me use the Lord's name in vain. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1981/02/president-kimball-speaks-out-on-profanity?lang=eng

Jeff Bezos has created a behemoth of a company. He is an amazing example of dreaming big and successful execution. Yes, he had extremely fortunate timing starting Amazon when he did, but he deserves credit where credit is due. Will Amazon ever stop growing? As long as Jeff Bezos is alive and in control, I don't think so. Will the US eventually interfere and try to break up Amazon? I know Amazon has been cautious in its structuring to not get flagged as a monopoly, but I could see the possibility of future government interference. When does Amazon close its doors, and if it ever does, what comes after?

It requires significantly less effort on your part to pray for something like having charity when you've given your heart 100 percent to the Lord. That's when He and the Holy Spirit can really work with you and elevate you to spiritual levels you could never reach on your own. What I didn't realize before are the areas in my life that prevented me from truly giving my heart over to the Lord (e.g., not praying sincerely with every prayer, not staying as far away from the edge as possible...). So developing charity for someone like me that didn't realize how much focus I needed to truly turn my heart over to God turned out to be an impossibly difficult task. Truly opening my heart to Heavenly Father this time has allowed Him to build me up spiritually in ways I've never experienced before. My struggle before was I only knew how to run the 100 meter dash. I could be exceptionally on target for these brief spiritual bursts of energy I had, but I never learned or realized what it took to run the marathon. And without truly living the gospel and inviting the Holy Spirit into our regular, everyday lives, we will fail, and any spiritual aspirations we have will be in vain as I have so thoroughly learned.

Thinking about it, I understand the reason behind what you're saying, but it still seems like plagiarism in a sense of putting your name on someone else's work you summarized. I guess this is part of where my confusion has stemmed as to why the Book of Mormon is named as such. I didn't realize histories are commonly named after those who compiled the information together. I also didn't realize before that Mormon had summarized and interjected his own inspirations into the Book of Mormon as much as he did. I thought his abridgment of the plates entailed more of his compiling the information together rather than summarizing and simplifying the messages for us in as many of the books as he touched. Part of my confusion remains however as to why the entire volume of scripture comprised of many books is accredited to just one prophet in the naming of the entire volume. It makes more sense to me now, and maybe if I mull it over a bit longer all my confusion will clear up.

That's a good quality to pray for. Having charity seemed overwhelmingly monumental to me before that I just gave up praying for it. Developing charity for others can be a daunting task for those like me who don't let the Spirit work within them. I'm just barely starting to focus enough now where each prayer I pray is meaningful and sincere. The amount of focus required to let the Spirit work within us to develop such a trait as charity is tremendous, although not impossible as we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives to help lift us up and give us the hope we need to become who we are meant to be.