All this month, the youth of our church have been learning about commandments. I think I'll begin my lesson by listing a few reasons we keep the commandments, and asking the youth to chime in with their own answers. Among the reasons we list (most of which will be better reasons than the ones we'll be focusing on), I'll make sure that we mention a desire to avoid punishment and a desire to receive blessings.
It's my opinion that if God didn't want us sinners to be concerned that we might end up in hell, He wouldn't have told us about it. If He didn't intend to warn us of the consequences of sin, with the intention of those warnings persuading us not to continue in sin, then He wouldn't have. If He didn't mean for the fear of God to literally scare the hell out of us, then He wouldn't have told us what we have to be afraid of.
Similarly, if God didn't intend to use promised blessings as a motivator to help us keep the commandments, He wouldn't have brought them up. Of course, it's not the best motivator. If you had a donkey you wanted to follow you, it'd be so much nicer if it followed you because it loves and trusts you, rather than because you're bribing it with carrots or threatening it with sticks. Still, you will find both sticks and carrots in the scriptures because our righteousness is so important to God that He's willing to motivate us any and every way He can. And while we might be willing to obey God just because we love and trust Him, there's no reason we can't also snag a couple of carrots along the way.
However, the lesson asks a question that approaches the subject of promised blessings from a slightly different angle. It asks why it's important to identify promised blessings, implying that it is important to identify promised blessings, not just "nice" to get a few perks. Once again, the answer is motivation. In a world full of temptations and tough choices, it can be difficult to choose the right. Sometimes, we need all the motivation we can get. God promises us blessings in hopes that we'll want those blessings badly enough that we'll keep the commandment that's attached to the promise, despite being tempted not to. As our youth will learn, if they haven't already, as decisions get tougher, motivation becomes of vital importance.
After we talk for a bit about those first two points, that promised blessings are there to help motivate us and that that motivation can be of vital importance, I'll ask the group what blessings we can get from keeping the commandments. Of course, someone will bring up the generic, but extremely desirable blessing of having the Spirit with us, which we get for keeping the commandments in general, and most especially by praying and reading the scriptures. There will also be mentions of promises for keeping specific commandments, such as good health for keeping the word of wisdom and both material and spiritual blessings for paying tithes and offerings. Eventually, I'll bring up my opinion that, if we keep the commandments throughout our lives and through the eternities, we'll eventually be given every blessing we could possibly receive, even all the Father has.
If we have time after that, we might do an activity where we look for promised blessings in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet. I skimmed through the booklet just now and found a promised blessing on every other page. I'll also want to bring up the possibility of searching for a blessing you want on the church's website to find out which commandment(s) you can keep to get it. For example, I just search for the gift of discernment and found a list of scriptures about it, including one that said that if a person is filled with light, they'll comprehend all things. From this, I gathered that the more I attract the Spirit into my life, the better I'll be able to discern between the Holy Spirit and the evil one. Finding promised blessings in the scriptures and other church materials can help us know which commandments we should keep to get which blessings, and what blessings we can expect for keeping which commandments.
I'll conclude with my testimony of God's desire to bless us and to encourage us to choose the right. With blessings attached to commandments, God can motivate us to keep His commandments and is justified in blessing us when we do. Whether out of our desire to receive blessings, or to let God act on His desire to bless us, we should strive to keep His commandments. Then, we should pay close attention to our lives so we can recognize when we receive the blessings God has promised us.
1 comment:
Sounds like a good lesson!
Post a Comment