Lesson for December 13, 2015

Lesson for December 13, 2015 Today our lesson was given by Kristine Hansen on “A Christ-Centered Life.” She started by asking if anyone reread Joseph Smith’s account and one sister said he mentioned that he would be a great disturber of the devil. He also said his name would be had for good and evil. The Lord chose him because he could be trusted to stick with the truth of his story. There is no more thrilling challenge than to try to live according to Christ’s way. We are truly successful if our lives parallel the Savior’s. It’s comforting because it is something we all can do. We don’t need special talents or achievements to be like Christ. The only way to come back to the presence of the Father is through Christ. Jesus is the Way. The goal is to become perfected through Christ. We know this because of many things Christ has said. We need to trust in Him and hunger and thirst after righteousness. He would not give us that commandment if we could not do it. In 2 Peter 1:5-7 it says to use all diligence to add the qualities of Christ to our natures, one at a time in stair steps. If we have faith in Him, we’ll do what He says. In Young Women’s theme when they incorporated virtue it was difficult to explain the concept, but the leaders eventually said that all the other parts of the theme made up virtue. It is not just chastity, but it is conforming one’s life to moral principles. We should let all the beautiful and praiseworthy things fill our lives. So now we’ve moved from faith to virtue and the next one is knowledge. All true knowledge is valuable. If we have knowledge and test it, then we can add more knowledge. We must seek knowledge by faith. There is universal truth and if we know that, we can discern what is true in what we learn so we can judge what we should do. Knowledge can be the basis of revelation. Our Heavenly Father wants us to know what will save us, including secular knowledge. After knowledge we need to learn temperance, which means being restrained and moderate in all things, especially in controlling our appetites, desires, and emotions and how we spend our time. Even though some things have not been revealed yet, we can be temperate and be patient, the next step up. Patience is another form of self-control, which is being tolerant and waiting on the Lord for the answers, and replacing anger with something useful. The opposite would be a lack of faith. The next step is godliness, which is being more like God and possess His attributes. Then we would have to see people as God sees them and see the goodness. Godliness, kindness, and charity are really all the same step, since He is kind and has charity for all. These things are the fruits of all the other attributes of the steps already attained. Being kind is seeing others as being the same kind as us and feeing a kinship with them. President Benson said that the pure love of Christ is charity, then we must ask how we come to know God. Note that Peter promised that if we have charity and all these virtues abound in us, we can be more like Christ. These attributes can be the instruction manual for how we raise our children. The Lord will help us through His grace. He will help us because He wants us to become more like Him because He loves us and wants us to be with Him forever. It is more the direction we are going than the speed we are going.