Cleansing the Inner Vessel

Cleansing the Inner Vessel

Well, Thanksgiving has now come and gone and now we have Christmas upon us. Time sure does fly by us especially as we get older. I can remember as a child, time just went by soooooo slowly. Last week was Stake Conference and I hear from my son that there were a lot of wonderful messages for us. Too bad we don’t have a newsletter that gets mailed or emailed out to us on as to the messages that get delivered. Oh well! Maybe some day in the future that will happen. Moving on…we did not have any good news moment today so I have no updates for you however, the only good news that I know of is the missionaries update…Elder Vince Darly comes home on December 1st and Elder Daniel Ribble comes home on December 18th. Any you have any good news or know of any good news, pleas share them with us or email them to me and I’ll post them. In fact, if you have anything that you would like me to add to share, feel free to email me and I’ll be glad to post your comments on the blog. My email address is utahgalkelly@roadrunner.com. We would love to hear from you. Your experiences are ours.

Before we get started, let me first share what we did during Music Time. Beth Maranto asked Denise Robbins to share with us a couple of hymns that are special to her. Denise chooses the following: I Know that My Redeemer Lives because it makes her feel at peace. It’s a very peaceful song and she really feels the spirit through the song. Because I Have Been Given Much, again, because of the gentle feeling of the spirit. It’s a powerful song with several humbling words. Finally, The Spirit of God because when she hears and sings this song, she feels so “empowered”. She looks towards the futures and looks forwards to the second coming of Christ. Beth then closes with the following thoughts about the song, Because I Have Been Given Much…Matthew 26:11, it reads, For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. If you read the verses you’ll learn the following messages. Verse one is about the blessings and gifts that we have been blessed with and how we must share of gifts and blessings with our brothers. We too, must give. Second verse talks about sheltered, food and comfort. Verse three talk about how we have been blessed by these wonderful things, we shall bless others by sharing and showing and doing unto others and “thus shall my thanks be thanks in-deed” (Hymn book, pg 219).

So today, our discussion, TFOT (Teaching For Our Times) was on “Cleansing the Inner Vessel” by Debbie Adams. This is a conference talk from the October 2010 Ensign and is given on the 4th Sunday of each month. President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostle, have the message at Conference called "Cleaning the Inner Vessel". Unfortunately I did not have my Ensign today so I wasn’t able to follow along with Debbie with what she was highlighting on today with our discussion. I have not received it yet! Hmmm! Not sure why? I printed out a copy so I could have something to look at. I tried to take notes as best as I could and I will try to find the parts what Debbie was discussing for you. I do encourage you read the message yourself and following while you read the blog. It is a very good message. Sorry, I don’t have the page number for you. Here we gooooo!

Debbie starts off by reading the following scriptures from 2 Nephi 2:26 and 27, “And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.” Lehi taught us “men are free and must be ‘free…to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day.’” The Lord is voting for us while Lucifer is voting against us. We all know the age-old excuse, “The devil made me do it”…yea, not really. That saying doesn’t hold much weight in the eyes of the Lord. Satin can deceive us, he can mislead us, but he does not have the power to force us to do anything to “transgress” us or to keep us in “transgression”. Our “agency is precious. We can foolishly, blindly give it away, [however], it cannot be forcibly taken from us.” The only power that Satin has over us is what we give him.

Fifteen years ago, our world being in turmoil, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles issued “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” This was the fifth proclamation in the history of the Church. This Proclamation is a guide that members of the Church will do will to read, study and follow. “To be entrusted with the power to create life carries with it the greatest of joys and dangerous temptations. The gift of mortal life and the capacity to kindle other lives is a supernal blessing…this power is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness. It is the key-the very key”

The Family Proclamation reveals three very important to us. One is the title, the Family, two, is it the Audience which is the world, and three, the people who wrote it which are the prophet and the Apostle. Our Heavenly Father plan is to have us have a marriage between a man and a women, to pro-create and replenish the earth, to have fidelity and be obedience while Satin plan is for us to have “whatever” and be “whatever”, to have same sex marriage and not pro-create the earth, to be promiscuity and be disobedience to our Heavenly Father. Packer says, “There is something very liberating when an individual determines of his or her own free will to be obedient to our Father and our God and expresses that willingness to Him in prayer. When we obey, we can enjoy these powers in the covenant of marriage. From our fountains of life will spring our children, our family. Love between husband and wife can be constant and bring fulfillment and contentment all the days of our lives. If one is denied these blessings in mortality, the promise is that they will be provided for in the world to come.”

Debbie points out that Satin is very jealous towards all of us who have the power to “beget life”. Satin cannot beget life because he is impotent. “He seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. He seeks to degrade the righteous use of the life-giving powers by tempting [us] into immoral relationships.”

We have growing among us pornography. Packer says, “In our day the dreadful influence of pornography is like unto a plague sweeping across the world, infecting one here and one there, relentlessly trying to invade every home, most frequently through the husband and father. The effect of these plague can be, unfortunately often is, spiritually fatal. Lucifer seeks to disrupt ‘the great plan of redemption’, ‘the great plan of happiness’”. Continuing on, “Pornography will always repel the Spirit of Christ and will interrupt the communications between our Heavenly Father and His children and disrupt the tender relationship between husband and wife.”

The Priesthood holds “consummate power”. It can protects us from the traps of pornography – “and it is a plague” – should we “succumbing to its influence.” Through the priesthood and our faithfulness, it will give us the power, the strength and even the will to break the habit and “even erase an addiction.”

We as parents must be aware of the dangers and alert of the wickedness that threatens our family circle. We must teach standards of moral conduct to help us to be strong against Satin’s evil plan. Some of us “supposed that [we] were preset and cannot over come what [we] feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and unnatural.” That is not so. Paul promised us the “God…will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”

We have both moral and physical laws that are “irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of the world” and they cannot be changed. History has demonstrated time and time again that the moral standards cannot be changed by battles or by ballots. “To legalized that which is basically wrong or evil will not prevent the pain and penalties that will follow as surely as night follows day”

“I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” D&C 82:10. Every person who is confined in a prison of sin, guilt, or “pervasion” has the key to the gate and this key is labeled “repentance”. If you know how to use the key, Satin cannot hold you. The “twin principles of repentance and forgiveness exceed in strength the awesome power of the tempter.” If we are bound by additions and bad habits that are unworthy, we must stop. “Angels will coach you, and the priesthood leaders will guide you through those difficult times.”

President Joseph Fielding Smith tells of a story of a woman who is struggling to find her way out of a very immoral life. She asked him what she should do now. He said to her to read the story of Lot and his wife in the Old Testament whose wife was turned to a pillar of salt. He asked her what is the moral of the story. She answered, “The Lord will destroy the wicked.” He said, “Not so! His message is ‘Don’t look back!’” We have the gift of repentance and the atonement. If we will repent and become clean, and don’t look back, we will be forgiven and that is a promise from our Heavenly Father.

We must be aware of Satin’s trap. He is witty, shroud and very deceiveful. He has had years of experiences. It’s so easy to be fooled by him and people like him. I’m sure all of us have had some experience in being deceived by people or situations that we think are good and find out later, they were not so great. The good news is that we can be forgiven and make changes to correct things or change things in our lives. We all have our agency and no one can take that away from us, not even Satin. Heavenly Father will give us the strength to overcome our weakness and help us to straighten out our lives, even if we stray away from the church. We can always come back. The Lord’s door is always open. We are the ones who closes the door on Christ. Remember that! And on that note…I’ll say so long. Please share your thoughts and stories with us on the blog. We would love to hear from you. Next week in the first Sunday in December and our message will be given by the Presidency, Julie Barlow. Until that time, take some time and read the message on “Cleansing the Inner Vessel”. There is a lot of good stuff in it. Enjoy, and thanks for reading. Until next time…

Kelly