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This is my talk for Sunday.  I have to go through a couple more revisions but its pretty close to done.

Intro

 

I was asked to give a talk on Obedience.  But because of my past callings, I have different thoughts that have to do with the steps before Obedience can happen. 

Let me try to explain, and hope this doesn’t get too completed.

One of the key principles in the church is agency, this power to choose right from wrong.   But why do we make that given choices (be it good or bad) ?   

The way I have come to see things from my experience is that we need a reason to make that choice (or to not make that choice). 

This reason, or the way I see it, this motivating factor is really the key.  I’m not going to be obedient unless I have the motivation to do so.   This now changes the focus from the actually choice, to the motivation behind the choice.

 

 

This idea about motivation actually started while I was on my mission.  I wondered what in a world a Mission president’s job is.  After going to a couple of Zone Conferences it started to become clear that the Mission president was there to keep the missionaries motivated.  It didn’t take long to realize that really the whole gospel, the plan of salvation, is really all there to motivate us to make the right choice, and to help us endure to the end.   I realize now pretty much any conference talk, to Sunday school lesson is there to help me stay motivated so I will make the correct choice!  Most of the time now as I listen to General Conference I ask myself how can this motivated me more?

 

 

This motivation formula is actually pretty simple. 

 

 

We have some reason or motivating factor that leads us to making a choice (using our agency).   When the reason and the choice are together a decision is made we obtain the given outcome. 

If there is no reason to make the choice, then it isn’t made.  This isn’t rocket science.

 

 

A pretty simple example is brushing our teeth.   Most of us know the reason why we should brush our teeth.  We are motivated to do it for what ever reason.  The choice is made. And the Outcome happens.   The choice is made so often that is easy now.

 

 

But what about flossing?  Most of us know the reason to floss.  We know what the outcome is going to be.  Maybe not as bad as not brushing, but its still not good. 

But for what ever REASON I’m not motivated enough to floss as often as I should! 

 

 

So a key to being obedient is to figure out what the motivation is. 

I remember learning I think it was in institute about three reasons why people do anything. 

First is selfish reasons. 

 

 

 

This is actually kind of the no brainer one.  We tend to think of ourselves first.  Its actually what the scriptures call the Natural Man.  We natural thinking of ourselves and our own best interest.  Really we love ourselves.  

The problem is we are kind of raised this way.  Parents like to make “deals” with there children.  If you eat your dinner you get desert.  If you don’t eat your dinner no desert, or TV, or any other rewards parents come up with.

The Lord also works this way and tries to appease to our desire to watch out for ourselves.  He gives us a commandment and explains the benefits of keeping such commandments like Celestial Glory, and returning to be with Him.  The choice is then ours.  It’s really a matter if the motivation and our faith is there to make the correct choice.

But probably the biggest selfish reason is money.  I find it some what amusing on these TV reality shows, that people will do almost anything if the given dollar value is high enough.  Values and true character that make us who we are thrown out the window for the sake of a game.  Money is a powerful motivator.  

I wonder how different Home and Visiting Teaching would be if we paid people to do it?

What if I said you got $5.00 for every family you visited? 

You now have your motivation!   The choice for what ever reason now seems easier to make.  I’m sure we would be getting 100% if this was the case.

But, this would more be following Satan’s way.

Satan also tries to follow this same pattern by enticing or persuading us to do evil. Satan taps into the natural man of us and gives us reasons that feed our selfish desires.  The point of this talk is to have us take a step back and look at those reasons why we make the choices that we make!

 

 

 

Second motivator is Fear

 

 

 

The fear or guilt tactic in motivation is usually and rightly should be a last resort.  When nothing else works, the consequences of our choices are laid out and tried to appeal to the more rational size of our minds.  In reality it is appealing to the selfishness inside of us, that we won’t let anything bad happen to us. 

Satan also tries to tap into our fears and usually tries to scare us away from doing what is right.  Pres. Howard W. Hunter taught this about fear:

“Fear, which can come upon people in difficult days, is a principal weapon in the arsenal that Satan uses to make mankind unhappy. He who fears loses strength for the combat of life in the fight against evil. Therefore, the power of the evil one always tries to generate fear in human hearts.”¹

 

 

There are two types of fear that are used.  The fear Satan uses is to leave us with out hope.  We won’t move into action because either we are scared of the outcome, or that we feel we won’t accomplish what we desire.  This would be the Fear of asking a girl out or commitment to marriage.

The other type of fear is when everything is laid before us and the consequents are realized.  This is usually done because no other reason well get us to make the correct choice.  Again, fear is used in trying to motivate us, but fear doesn’t have any real long lasting motivation. 

 

 

 

The third reason is out of Love

 

 

 

When your family or friends ask for money most of the time you are willing help them out, sometimes with no questions asked.  If a member of family needs a lift or needs help with something we are pretty willing to drop what we are doing and help them out any way we can.  Love is a powerful motivator (and not just around valentine day)

 

 

What about the Love of God. I wonder what motivates God to do what he does.  God has agency like we do. The obvious reason God does what he does is because of His love for us.  We have faith that God loves us.   From the Lectures on Faith we learn:

Question—Would it be possible for a man to exercise faith in God, so as to be saved, unless he had an idea that God was love?

 

 

Answer—It would not. Man could not love God unless he had an idea that God was love; and if he did not love God, he could not have faith in him.²

 

 

We first need to Love God, just as he loves us. 

This love of God is the same reason we should be motivated in the choices we make.

As I grow in love for my Heavenly Father, I’m more willing to be obedient to his commandments. 

When I was learning about this in institute this quote by President Hartman Rector, Jr was shared it says:

“I believe this is the greatest lesson that can be learned by the youth of Zion—to do the right thing because you love the Lord. It is so vitally important that, I feel, if you do anything in righteousness for any other reason than you love the Lord, you are wrong—at least you are on very shaky ground. And, somewhere your reasons for acting in righteousness will not be strong enough to see you through.”³

When the love for God is the reason for our actions, then the choice because so much easier to make.   When we try to do things in the gospel and are not motivated for the right reason we end up falling short.   This I feel is why the change of heart that takes places for each of us is so important.  Our hearts change to be more like Gods. Our motivation becomes more like Gods. 

 

 

The strange thing is Faith and Love seem to go hand in hand.  By having the Love of God we have faith in God. 

Rodney Turner a professor at Brigham Young University added some commentary to lectures on faith I just read, he teaches: 

 

 

“[D]ivine love is a quality of the spirit. It is more than mere sympathy or concern, it is a personal, emotional identification with someone or something outside one's self.

 

 

“The Lord expresses his love for us as much as we permit him to. As with any parent, the Father's love can be rejected and rendered [unproductive]. The question then, is not does God love us, but do we love God? For while God is a loving Father, he is not an indulgent one. He practices law-abiding love…The sin of sins is not only to reject, but to betray, the sacrifice of love offered up by the Father in the person of his Beloved Son (see D&C 76:35; 132:27).

John wrote: "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19)… It is a compelling power…The pure love of Christ is at the very heart of the Father's plan of salvation. It illuminates every divine attribute in the sanctified until they are ablaze with light and truth and become one with love as God is one with love.⁴

 

 

So as our Faith in God grows, our Love for Him Also grows.  We need to make sure we don’t turn our back on the Love God offers us. 

 

 

Lets wrap this up.  

After seeing how proper motivation is the key I started to see this principle in ever aspect of my life.

From the scriptures it was easy to see what motivated Nephi vs Laman and Lemual. 

Also about choice I make almost daily like why do I go to church?  Why I do or not do home teaching?  Is it out of requirements, is it out of fear?  Or out of Love for others? What motivates me to go to the temple, get food storage, write in a journal, and keep covenants? What motivates me to do or not do these things.  Where am I lacking in motivation?

I hope you can see how having the proper motivation (and knowing the reason behind it) can help put things in proper perspective.  Are their commandments you struggle with in your life?  I challenge each of you here today to look over the choices you make (both the good and the bad ones).  Then figure out why you are making that choice.  What is your motivation for doing that?  See if you need to change your motivation to something better!

See if you can build that Love with your Heavenly Father so you can use it to have proper motivation. 

Testimony

 

Name of Jesus Christ Amen

 

 

 

Quotes

1. Howard W. Hunter, The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, edited by Clyde J. Williams [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997], 83.

 

 

 

2. Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., The Lectures on Faith in Historical Perspective [Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1990], 73.

 

 

3. Hartman Rector Jr., “Live above the Law to Be Free,” Ensign, Jan 1973,  130

 

 

4. Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., The Lectures on Faith in Historical Perspective [Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1990], 217-218.

This is kind of long!  But this is what happen to me this last week and the whole idea of buying some web cams for Christmas.  I needed to write it all up anyways for my Journal.  So I'm just sharing part of it with the rest of you, if you take the time to read it! 

 

 

Most Christmas' I at least have an idea what to get people.  But this year I was completely lost.  The only idea I had was to maybe get web cams for my Sister and her Husband,  my other brother and his wife (who live in other states)  my other brother, who probably wouldn't use it as much, but I felt like including him. And get one for for the parents.  So 4 in total.  The only thing because I like to get the best item out there the web cams were a little more expense then just a one person gift.    Here is how the week went!

 

Monday- I finally got around to talking to my mom about seeing what she was doing for gifts.  After explaining my thoughts with the web cam I wanted to see if she wanted to go in together to get the ones I was looking at.  After explaining how I was kind of planning on doing the same gift for everybody, she seemed willing to go in on it.  (At least for the 3 of the 4 web cams).

Later that night, I checked a couple of YouTube videos to see the quality of them and to check out some reviews.  After sifting through the good and the bad, I found one that showed some of the special add-ons that you can do with that camera.  After seeing those I realize I wanted to get it.  I found a good price and ordered 4 of them that night. 

I guess the only reason I ordered so quickly is because at the price it was the lowest I could find, and I didn’t want to wait until after Thursday, and there not be any left.  I usually don’t order things that far in advance.

 

Tuesday- The cameras shipped from the web site I ordered them from.  I found that a little strange because I did free shipping which was going to be 7-9 days. 

 

Wednesday- While I was at work, I had a though of getting Xbox live.  (Side note,  Xbox live is a service you have to pay for to play Xbox 360 games with other Xbox players.  My brother in law has an xbox and is on xbox live).  Last year kind of more as a birthday present to my self I got three months of Xbox live.  I thought with the upcoming time off of work maybe I would try another 3 months.  So I paid for xbox live for 3 months. 

 

Thursday-  In the evening was the first time me and my brother in law (and Sister) got to play together.  One of the features of Xbox life is you can chat (over microphone) to other players.  So we started talking and getting the game set up and so forth.  Then he puts my sister on to talk to her.  So we are just talking about what happen for the day and so forth, when she kind of out of the blue she asks “Do you know anything about web cams?”  I’m like “Well I have looked into them a little bit”  (I wasn’t sure what to say?)

She says they saw this deal in the paper that office max had a couple of cheap web cams and they were thinking of getting on for his Mom, and themselves.  Then the other brother in law comes into our chat, my sister asks him if getting his mom a web cam would work.  I’m kind of silent now not knowing what to say.  The other brother in law doesn’t think his mom would be able to figure it out.  That’s kind of how the conversation about web cams ended. 

 

Friday – I talk to my mom about what happen.  After thinking about it more, I realize I probably should come clean and let my sister know that I had already ordered the web cams, actually much to my surprise they came today (3 days for free shipping).   So I thought maybe that night when I’m back on Xbox live I would tell my sister the story. (I realize now I should have just sent at least a text to my brother in law telling them NOT TO BUY A WEB CAM)  

During the DAY my brother in law gets on xbox live and we just chat for a couple of seconds about our day.  Nothing new with me,  but I come to find out that they DID go and by those cheaper web cams at Office max.  Now I’m even more confused!  Do I tell him right now!  What should I do?  Again I’m lost at the news.  I don’t tell them the news yet. Nobody comes onto xbox live that night.

 

Saturday – In the morning, kind of out of the blue my Brother (not brother in law)  calls me up.  Was a little strange because I don’t normally get a call from him.  I was like oh great I know what he is going to ask!   He starts talking and says  “What do you know about Monitors?”   So I explain a little.  He ends up wanting to buy a new one, like the widescreen I have.  I end up finding a good deal on line ($150, for a 22” Widescreen monitor)

Later in the day I talk to my mom again, and again realize I am just going to have to call, my sister and let her make the choice on what to do. 

 

Getting ready for some turkey dinner,  my other brother comes over to the family house and we are watching the football game.  One of the commercials during the game is from Best buy, which is talking about some Grandparent being able to see there grandkids open up gifts because of the miracle of web cams!  So I found out another reason to hate best buy!!!

 

Then later in the after noon my brother calls back and asks about the monitor I actually ordered for him.  Then again out of the blue he says, so we are thinking about getting a web cam!  So, this part was actually pretty easy.  I said to him, you don’t need to worry about that, you are already getting a web cam.  We then talk about getting one for Her parents, and I tell him the little I know about web cams.

Then after talking with him, I call my sister and let her know!  They did find it a little funny!  But by then they had already opened the one they had bought and I guess set it up, I don’t know all the details. 

 

Then telling my mom, the story, she said, why don’t they take the extra web cam and give it to my other brother to give to her parents!  That’s a pretty good idea, but nobody knows that yet.

 

The things I found so funny about all of this.

 

1.  I normally don’t buy gifts that soon, I guess I know why?

2.  I would have never known that my sister got a web cam, unless I would have gotten on Xbox live.  Maybe I would have heard about it later in the month, but by then it would have been kind of late.

3.  I guess its good to pick a gift that everybody is already thinking about!  (Or could be a curse)

 

Moral of the story!  When its Christmas time don’t ask people if they know anything about web cams, just ask if they are GETTING a web cam! 

 

I have never written a blog before.  I thought I would I give this a try with something I saw last night on Night line.  I guess there is this guy that formed a church to help Porn “stars” get out of the business.  The part that was on Night line was they held a forum at some college (I think). They had two people on each side to debate it.

 The battle was really about how does porn affect our society today. (Does it really hurt it, or not?)  The dangers of pornography are far more then I think society has realized yet.  I don’t think we have come close to realizing how all of these new technologies affect us now.   Me being a computer programming I keep up on new technologies pretty well. 

 

This last Sunday I was talking to a Sister in my ward that is a English teaching at a Junior High.  I told her how computers have made me a really bad speller! (I never was a great speller in the first place) I really can’t write anything out with out a spell checker anymore.  I can type faster then I can write. (I wonder if kids well learn to type before they learn to write)  I suggested to this teacher that text messages do help me get a little better with spelling (I at least need to get the words close to correct), but the teacher thought other wise because everything in a text message is short hand like (2mrw) This English teacher then even said that kids she teaches doesn’t even know what cursive writing is anymore.  (I made the joke it has nothing to do with swearing).   

 

I think we always knew Satan had shifted his battle front to the media some years ago.   But I think the internet is so much more now the front line on this battle against Satan!   The good on the internet versus the bad is getting lopsided all the time! Who would of thought the LDS church has a youtube page? The battle that Satan is fighting happens more and more in our homes!  It really is amazing how bad things are now, who knows what they well be for the next “chosen” generation.