Flooding My Life with the Book of Mormon 2.0

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.