Book of Mormon Goal - 30 minutes every day

[Faded]

I think I'm like most everyone. I struggle to remember to read my scriptures every single day. I often forget to say my personal prayers every single day. One of the best ways to succeed at something is to make yourself accountable to others.

I remember my mission and how powerful the Spirit was in my life then. There are a lot of reasons for that which I simply cannot duplicate in my life right now. But I CAN start my day like any good missionary does. Read from the Book of Mormon for 30 minutes every day. Read from other scriptures for 30 minutes every day. I know that I easily manage to waste that much or more time every single day on things that are unimportant. TV, video games, etc. And those things haven't done me much good.

I remember in college at BYU Idaho, there was a Book of Mormon class that I took. The teacher did not have stunning insights into things nobody had every thought of before and the class discussion was much less interesting than other religion courses. But the one thing that class had that made it truly special was the daily homework: Reading a chapter in the Book of Mormon daily and writing in a journal what you learned from that chapter that day. It was very informal and my thoughts in that journal often wandered. That was not the important thing. The goal was to do more than just read. It was mechanism to force yourself to really get something from your reading every single day. So if nobody has a problem with it, I think I'll shamelessly use this thread in this forum to keep that journal. Day 1 is tomorrow.

[Hemidakota]

Actually, it is your own desire that draws the Spirit in learning something new vice any teacher. I had sat in meetings, where someone would read directly from a typed scripted talk and still found it worthy of listening and learning, while others would be annoyed.

There are many non-current doctrines that are not taught due to the immaturity of the membership of the church and yet, you can easily find them within the scriptures but it does require the Spirit to allow it to be manifested.

When you find something that is odd or unusual, ask GOD, for the interpretation and don't forget to record it in your personal journal. This is point I do make with the youth when they study the scripture, record those moments of insights when it is given.

[Faded]

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 – Moroni 10
Everyone that has read through the Book of Mormon multiple times always goes about it the same way. Start at the beginning and finish at the end. Not this time! I’m starting with Moroni 10 and reading my way backwards from here.

420 years had passed away since the birth of Christ. No doubt, Moroni had wandered far from where he originally started out in attempt to escape the Lamanites that sought to kill him. If anyone has any doubts about there being enough archeological or cultural evidence of the Book of Mormon, I think this provides an incredible perspective. These are the last words of the last prophet of God’s People here in America. Their enemies want to completely erase Christianity, yet we know full well that traditions of the coming of Christ survive in virtually every Native American tribe. That is impressive considering that we are about to enter 1600 years (420 AD – 1820AD) with no prophets and no men of God keeping record. We know going into this long age of darkness that the Lamanites seek to kill anyone who will not deny the Christ. Traditions of the coming of the “great white god” survived the long night of Apostasy anyways. But 1600 years is a long time. It is 600 years longer than the entire recorded history of the Nephites in the Book of Mormon. Look to any other culture in the world and you learn that 1600 years is more than enough time to erase countless powerful ancient cultures and kings and emperors from human memory. Add to that the fact that the Lamanites were actively trying to erase the Nephites from memory, and it becomes surprising how much evidence actually did survive.

Moroni has spent all those years hunted by the Lamanites, yet his final words are an appeal to them – or more specifically, to their descendants. That is truly an example of the true love of God. The famous “pray about it” scripture: Moroni 10:3-5. I won’t be the first nor the last to analyze this passage.
1.) Remember that God is merciful.
2.) Pray to God in the name of Christ.
3.) Ask with a sincere heart – in other words do not go to God with the answer already dead set in your head.
4.) Be honest and open to both possible answers.
5.) And don’t pray just because someone else said you should or for any contrived reason. Pray because you truly want to know. God does not answer questions that we don’t want the answers to.
6.) Ask with real intent. This means you’re laying it on the line and committing to do something about it if you get an affirmative answer. I have known many people who prayed about the Book of Mormon and any number of other things in their lives. They say they didn’t get an answer. It usually comes down to this piece. They wouldn’t have been willing to change their life or taken any action if God had answered them. This acts as a giant brick wall to the Holy Spirit. As CS Lewis put it, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’”
7.) The truth of the Book of Mormon will be manifested by the Holy Ghost.
8.) The answers to all questions and all knowledge and all learning will come through the Holy Ghost if you properly seek it. These verses are not just a formula for knowing the Book of Moron is true. These are a formula for receiving personal revelation and answers to our prayers about EVERYTHING.

As we continue on in the chapter we find the gifts of the Spirit. There are many of them, and we should not take any of them lightly. Gift of wisdom, of knowledge, of healing, of miracles, of tongues and interpretation of tongues, of prophesying, of angels, etc.
This chapter has some of the best insights into something that I often don’t understand well enough: Hope. If we have true faith, we will not spend every hour of every day asking ourselves if we are good enough. We trust in the Atoning blood of Jesus Christ. We believe Him when he says He has paid an infinite price and believe him when he says that it will cover our finite guilt and sin. Living with hope as Moroni describes it is living with an iron-clad sense of trust that God will take care of me in spite of my failures and imperfections. All that I have to do is continue to try my best and most importantly, never give up no matter what. Some day long after I am dead, I may become perfect. That is not the way life on this Earth works though. Live with hope. Stand up and be happy, not miserable because I’m a failure at perfection. Stay in the covenant and I know Christ will take care of me. I don't have to live in constant terror of not being good enough. Leave the covenant and I have no such promise. It is the power of hope, through faith, that any true Christian catches fire and becomes something truly wonderful to behold.

Verse 32-33 is perhaps the best invitation to come unto Christ in all scripture anywhere.

[Hemidakota]

adding to your list...

9] Based on our desire of conversion from Moroni's challenge, having that zeal for further truth, our character begins a transformation of one that shuns sins and seeketh to be like the Savior - being cleansed. When we demonstrate this further change and zeal for further instruction, it is then the Lord will speak to that person, personally; as it was with Paul.

[spiritseeker]

Faded I think this is a wonderful idea. I am going to begin tommorrow myself doing the exercise of reading for 30 minutes a day and journaling about a chapter a day. As a novice I think this is wonderful! Thank you and God bless you!

[Faded]

Woke up late yesterday and I thought I could get my study time done in the afternoon. Obviously, didn't happen. I'm finding that if I don't get it done first thing in the morning, then it doesn't happen. But time to get back on this thing!

[Faded]

Thursday, April 23, 2009 – Moroni 9
What would be my greatest comfort if I were in Moroni’s position? Completely alone and wandering for years and years, doing my best to not be killed by the Lamanites. Well, here we may have an answer to that question. Moroni is following in the example of the first writers in the Book of Mormon and writing the things of the Spirit. For Nephi, that was Isaiah. For Moroni, it is the words of his father, Mormon. Considering how powerfully the Spirit resides in Mormon’s retelling of the history of his people, I can’t say I’d disagree in the least. It’s also a touching example of a son who loved his father like a son should.

In this letter to his son Moroni, Mormon states that he fears that the Spirit has ceased striving with them. I have often wondered what this means exactly. We know that the Nephites and all the children of Lehi were given light and knowledge far beyond what we have today, and they turned against it. How far had they fallen? Had they committed the unforgivable sin and denied the Holy Ghost? It is difficult to say for certain, but we do know this much: A person who denies the Holy Ghost and commits the unforgivable sin is no longer capable of repentance – somehow they burn the capacity of repentance out of themselves. We cannot know with any certainty whether they had fallen that far and it is not for us to speculate. What we can tell for certain is that even if they had not fully qualified themselves as Sons and Daughters of Perdition, they were extremely close. In the face of extinction and with one of the greatest prophets of God in the history of the world right there with them, they utterly refused to repent. They utterly refused to reconcile with God. It seems they were willing to curse God to the very violent end. Yet Mormon and Moroni had the same expectation from God as any true prophet: Continue trying no matter what. But Mormon, the man whose words have inspired millions in our day, knew that it was a waste of time. He knew they would not listen and that they were beyond recovery. All he could do was do everything he could, and all he could hope for was salvation for his own soul, as was the case with Moroni.

If anyone doubts the justness of God in letting the people of Nephi be utterly destroyed off the face of the Earth, this chapter helps put those doubts to rest.

When Cortez met the Aztecs, Maya and others, he met a people who had institutionalized human sacrifice and human torture beyond anything imaginable. The archaeological data also shows a people who did terrible things to each other. Here we see a glimmer of that. The Lamanites take Nephite captives. They kill the men and feed each family their husband and father. Surely this was a way of complete dehumanization and disgrace. The use of such methods is unconscionable. So the Lamanites are well on their way to being the blood obsessed religionists that were there when Cortez arrived. The Nephites did worse than the Lamanites. They took the women captives, raped them, tortured them to death in the most cruel manner they could devise and then cannibalized them … as a token of bravery. Yeah … crazy people. This is just a small glimmer and as we read on, this was nothing all that surprising to Mormon or Moroni. But I think that Moroni wants to include this to answer any doubts about the justness of God in letting them be destroyed.

There are times in human history when a people gets so wicked that the best that the Lord can do is wipe them out completely and start over: The flood in the times of Noah. The Jaredites. The Nephites. Sodom and Gomorrah. We have more intimate knowledge about how and why this happened with the Nephites than any of the others. What we see is a people that was wicked beyond all belief. They got there after having light beyond all others and turning their backs on it. We don’t have the details on most of that. We do know that Enoch and his city was around before the flood we trust that God did everything He could. The people of God were taken away, and the rest were destroyed because they had gone beyond the ability to repent. We know that the city of Salem was somewhere in or near the Holy Land, and we know that their king Melchizedek was among the greatest prophets in history. We know very little about him, but we are told that he and his city were also taken up into heaven, just as the city of Enoch was. Because we know good God truly is, we can make a few assumptions about the people who were left behind after Salem was taken. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the Lord could do nothing further for them. Christ did say that if he had come to them personally, they would have repented, so it is hard to assume that they were Sons and Daughters of Perdition. But under the circumstances, there was nothing more God could do to save them. They were destroyed. The other remnant people, the Canaanites, were supposed to be destroyed as well, but the Israelites did not fulfill the Lord’s will in that matter. It will be interesting to get the full story on such peoples, but we know God well enough to know that he would not wipe out entire nations for no reason.

[Hemidakota]

Faded, ensure you keep a personal electronic journal, beside this website.

[Hemidakota]

"There are times in human history when person gets so wicked that the best that the Lord can do is wipe them out completely and start over: The flood in the times of Noah." Same sentiment.

[Faded]

Originally Posted by Hemidakota

Faded, ensure you keep a personal electronic journal, beside this website.

Yes I'm typing these in Word and then copying and pasting them here.