Day 225

  • Principle: Jesus Christ is a perfect example of commitment.  
  • Book of Mormon Reading: Alma 50:13 - 50:34
    • What are the blessings to the Nephits for being committed to the Lord? Have you every experienced being "delivered at all times"? (Verse 22)
  • Study from the life of Jesus Christ the healing of the ten lepers, teaching about the Kingdom of God, and two more parables.
  • Here is some additional information for Bruce R. McConkie about these verses.
    • Requirement of the lepers to show themselves to the priest (Luke 17:14)
      • For a leper, “in the day of his cleansing,” the prescribed means of obtaining permission to reenter society required him to show himself to the priests of the people. (Read Leviticus 14:2, 3.)
        Jesus also told the lepers to show themselves to the priests as a test of their faith. When all ten believed and complied with the terms of the cure, all were healed “as they went” to visit the priests. (See McConkie, DNTC, 1:536.)
    • Luke 17: 17,18
      • The one who returned to give thanks was a Samaritan, and “perhaps this exhibition of gratitude by a Samaritan was another evidence to the apostles that all men are acceptable to the Lord and that the Jewish claim to exclusive superiority as a chosen race was soon to be replaced with a command to take the gospel of peace to all races.” (McConkie, DNTC, 1:537.)
    • “Not with Observation” Luke 17:20
      • “Prophecies foretelling the events incident to the first and second comings of the Messiah were confused in the minds of the Jews. They falsely assumed that at his first coming he would come with an outward display of power which would overthrow and destroy all earthly kingdoms. Accordingly, basing their inquiry on a false premise, and with some apparent sarcasm, they demand an answer to this mocking question: ‘If thou art the promised Messiah, as you have repeatedly claimed to be, when will thy power be manifest, when will the Roman yoke be broken, when will the kingdom of God actually come?’” (McConkie, DNTC, 1:539.)
    • The Kingdom of God is Within You (Luke 17:21)
      • “One of the heresies which prevails in a large part of modern Christendom is the concept that Jesus did not organize a Church or set up a formal kingdom through which salvation might be offered to men. This poorly translated verse is one of those used to support the erroneous concept that the kingdom of God is wholly spiritual; that it is made up of those who confess Jesus with their lips, regardless of what church affiliation they may have; that the kingdom of God is within every person in the sense that all have the potential of attaining the highest spiritual goals; and that baptism, the laying on of hands, celestial marriage, and other ordinances and laws are not essential to the attainment of salvation.
        “It is true that men have the inherent capacity to gain salvation in the celestial world; in a sense this power is within them; and so it might be said that the kingdom of God is within a person, if it is understood that such expression means that a person can gain that eternal world by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. But it is also true that Jesus did organize his Church and did give the keys of such kingdom to legal administrators on earth. (Matt. 16:13–19.)
        “Even the marginal reading in the King James Version changes the language here involved to read, ‘The kingdom of God is in the midst of you,’ meaning ‘The Church is now organized in the midst of your society.’ The Prophet’s rendering of Jesus’ thought, as such is recorded in the Inspired Version, is of course the best of all. Its essential meaning is: ‘The Church and kingdom has already been organized; it is here; it has come unto you; now enter the kingdom, obey its laws and be saved.’” (McConkie, DNTC, 1:540.) “Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or Lo, there! For, behold, the kingdom of God has already come unto you.” (Luke 17:21, Inspired Version.)
    • James E. Talmage taught about the Parable of the Unjust Judge (Luke 18:1-8)
      • “The judge was of wicked character; he denied justice to the widow, who could obtain redress from none other. He was moved to action by the desire to escape the woman’s importunity. Let us beware of the error of comparing his selfish action with the ways of God. Jesus did not indicate that as the wicked judge finally yielded to supplication so would God do; but He pointed out that if even such a being as this judge, who ‘feared not God, neither regarded man,’ would at last hear and grant the widow’s plea, no one should doubt that God, the Just and Merciful, will hear and answer. The judge’s obduracy, though wholly wicked on his part, may have been ultimately advantageous to the widow. Had she easily obtained redress she might have become again unwary, and perchance a worse adversary than the first might have oppressed her. The Lord’s purpose in giving the parable is specifically stated; it was ‘to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.’” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 436; read also D&C 101:81–92.)
    • Talmage also explained a little more about the Parable of the Pharisee and Publican (Luke 18:9-14)
      • “We are expressly told that this parable was given for the benefit of certain ones who trusted in their selfrighteousness as an assurance of justification before God. It was not addressed to the Pharisees nor to the publicans specifically. The two characters are types of widely separated classes. There may have been much of the Pharisaic spirit of self-complacency among the disciples and some of it even among the Twelve. . . . The parable is applicable to all men; its moral was summed up in a repetition of our Lord’s words spoken in the house of the chief Pharisee. . . .” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, pp. 472–73; read also Luke 18:14.)
  • Jesus Christ teaches what commitment to commandments looks like.  By acting fully on the word of God blessings come.
    • When have you been 100% committed to following the teachings of Jesus Christ, how did you feel?
    • Jacob 4 talks about looking beyond the mark, how can you be 100% committed without taking it too far?
  • Additional Study:
    • John B. Dickson, “Commitment to the Lord”, April 2007
    • Come, All Whose Souls Are Lighted, Hymns No. 268
    • I Think When I Read That Sweet Story, Children's Songbook No. 56