Flooding My Life with the Book of Mormon 2.0

1 Nephi 17:16 And it came to pass that I did make tools of the ore which I did molten out of the rock. God never does for me what I can do for myself. Lehi could not have made the Liahona, so the Lord made it for him. Nephi, however, had the skills to make his own tools. God could just as easily have dropped a hammer and saw into Nephi's lap as He dropped the Liahona in front of Lehi's tent, but He allowed Nephi to exercise his skills and solve as much of the problem as he could on his own. God likewise expects me to use my intelligence, ingenuity, and talents to solve as many of my problems as I can on my own. He knows every problem, trial, and challenge I face. He does not leave me alone or ignore me. His objective is not to solve every problem and provide me with a smooth and effortless path through life. The real problem He has to solve is how to bring me back to Him better, stronger, more patient and loving, and more like Christ, so that I am fully prepared to enter His ki...

1 Nephi 17:14 Yea, and the Lord said also that: After ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know that I, the Lord, am God; and that I, the Lord, did deliver you from destruction; yea, that I did bring you out of the land of Jerusalem. Seen in their proper perspective, the big trials in my life teach me and testify that God is at work in my life. From an eternal perspective, when I reach the promised land of exaltation, I will truly realize that it is only through the power of Christ because of His Atonement and the grace of God that I am saved and exalted.

1 Nephi 17:13 And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led. I need light in the wilderness because it is a dark and desolate place, cut off from my normal sources of artificial light. No electrical outlets, no way to recharge the batteries in my flashlight, no stores from which to buy oil for my lanterns or candles when the last burn down, no wood to gather to make a fire. As a human, I crave light. God has designed the dark wilderness, so I will search for light until I find His light. The whole purpose of the wilderness experiences in my life is to help me 1) come to myself so that I can 2) come to God and ultimately 3) come home to my heavenly home.  Keeping the commandments does not necessarily rescue me from the wilderness, but it makes the w...

1 Nephi 17:8 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters. It was Nephi's ship, but God used it to carry the people to the promised land. God could have simply picked them up and transported them across the ocean, just as he carried Nephi to the top of the mountain. But He wanted them to participate in their own salvation.  Thus, he says,  "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" ( Philippians 2:12 ). He expects me to do all I can with my agency and the power and gifts He has given me. Not that what I do is essential to Him, but it is essential to me to gain experience and help others along the way. Had Nephi not built the boat, his brothers would not have had the experiences they had with the power of God and the many calls to repentance during the building and on the water.  Nevertheless, it was not the boat that enabled Lehi...

1 Nephi 17:3 And thus we see that the commandments of God must be fulfilled. And if it so be that the children of men keep the commandments of God he doth nourish them, and strengthen them, and provide means whereby they can accomplish the thing which he has commanded them; wherefore, he did provide means for us while we did sojourn in the wilderness. In Nephi's mind, there was no question about whether he would keep the commandments. He never had to weigh the alternatives and make a decision. He simply obeyed the commandments. When he combined his faith with his determination, he was unstoppable. Note that keeping the commandments did not change Nephi's circumstances. But he was changed and strengthened so he could deal with his circumstances. Sometimes I just have to go through things. But I don't have to suffer.

1 Nephi 16:9 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord spake unto my father by night, and commanded him that on the morrow he should take his journey into the wilderness. Different gifts for different people! Lehi's gift was to receive the word of the Lord in dreams. That is not my gift. I have plenty of bizarre dreams, but I cannot recall any that I thought came from the Lord.  Except perhaps one. In my senior year in high school, I experienced a nightmare in which Satan and his minions attacked me and tried to overcome me. Among those wicked servants of the devil were members of a rock band I had recently joined. The message to me was clear: quit the band and stop listening to that kind of music. I told the guys in the band I was quitting with no explanation or reason, and I dumped all my hard rock albums in the trash. But other than that one nightmare, my dreams have not been messages from God. On the other hand, my gift is hearing the word of the Lord in the scriptures. I ...

1 Nephi 16:5 And it came to pass that they did humble themselves before the Lord; insomuch that I had joy and great hopes of them, that they would walk in the paths of righteousness. I usually think of a single path of righteousness. The Lord provides only one way to come to Him, and that is through the ordinances and covenants of the priesthood. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leads to eternal life.  Yet, Nephi here employs the plural "paths." There is only one path to salvation, but can there be multiple paths to be righteous?   I believe the answer is yes, there are as many ways to approach a righteous life as there are individuals. We each have an individual relationship with the Father and the Son. We receive individualized communications through the Holy Ghost. In other words, we can come at the gate from any number of directions depending on our starting point. No path is wrong that leads us to Christ.

1 Nephi 16:3 And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us. Murmur shows up many times in the Book of Mormon. It means to express one's discontent about (someone or something) in a subdued manner. It is a form of passive aggression. It is a tactic of the devil to spread contention among people and destroy faith by gradually wearing it away. If I meet a solid challenge to my faith, I can meet it with power. But when indistinct doubt rubs the polish off gradually, I hardly notice the tarnish until it is too late.

1 Nephi 16:2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center. The truth is hard for the guilty who don't want to hear it. When the prophet speaks, and I feel he is being unfair, unrealistic, out of touch, impractical, overly dogmatic, harsh, or unkind, or if I think he must be speaking to someone else, I ought to look deep inside myself. Something is surely amiss, not with the speaker but with the hearer.

1 Nephi 15:36 Wherefore, the wicked are rejected from the righteous, and also from that tree of life, whose fruit is most precious and most desirable above all other fruits; yea, and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God. And thus I spake unto my brethren. Amen. Nephi puts the fruit of the tree of life into perspective. The love of God, as evidenced in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, bears a most valuable and desirable fruit, even my salvation. I am valuable to God because I am part of His family. My salvation and exaltation are His one and only priority, and He and His Beloved Son have paid dearly to enable me to bear fruit and to be the fruit of Their labors.  Thus, I am precious and desirable above all else in the universe, not because I am all that special in and of myself, but because God loves me and has set my price--the price of redemption through the suffering and death of His Son.  Knowing that, I ought to value myself as highly as God values me. I cannot take Hi...

1 Nephi 15:34 But behold, I say unto you, the kingdom of God is not filthy, and there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of filthiness prepared for that which is filthy. I must be as clean as the kingdom in which I hope to dwell. God's kingdom is perfectly clean, and so I must be perfectly clean to be in it. Only Christ can make me that clean.

1 Nephi 15:32 And it came to pass that I said unto them that it was a representation of things both temporal and spiritual; for the day should come that they must be judged of their works, yea, even the works which were done by the temporal body in their days of probation. What I do in this life matters. I cannot earn my way into heaven, but I can disqualify myself. As a probationer in mortality, I started off with a clean slate when I was born. God sent me into the world with a conscience, called the Light of Christ, to give me a moral sense of right and wrong. Making right choices simply keeps my slate clean. Making wrong choices, however, puts black marks on my slate.  We are all going to make mistakes that deface our clean slate. If we learn from our mistakes and correct them, we limit the number of black marks. But how do we remove the marks we made before we knew better?  That is where Christ's atonement comes in. He gives me the opportunity and ability to repent. I can ...

1 Nephi 15:25 Wherefore, I, Nephi, did exhort them to give heed unto the word of the Lord; yea, I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul, and with all the faculty which I possessed, that they would give heed to the word of God and remember to keep his commandments always in all things. Nephi set for us the consummate example of the diligent teacher. He poured all his energy, imagination, and abilities into teaching his brothers. Nephi magnified his calling to teach his family.  Do I put the same effort and diligence into ministering to my assigned families? Do I expend all the energy God requires of me to teach my children and grandchildren? Or am I stingy with my energies and faculties? Do I save my energy for trivial, temporal activities? Do I put more imagination and creativity into my hobbies than I do into fulfilling my assignments in the church? Do I save my best work for the world, or does my family and my callings get my best effort?  In the Final Judgment, G...

1 Nephi 15:24 And I said unto them that it was the word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction. The key to avoiding apostasy is daily immersion in the scriptures. Each time I open and read in the scriptures, I attune myself to the influence of the Holy Ghost. God pours His spirit into me as I study His word. Now, another way to read this passage is to recognize that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. When we hold fast to Christ, we cannot go far astray from His gospel. He will use His power to protect us and guide us.