How To Worship

What do pandas have that no other animal has?
Baby pandas.

Recently I've been doing a lot of thinking, studying, and pondering on the subject of how to worship. The reason why I have been studying this subject is because I go to church every Sunday to worship God, but I realized I still need help in that area. In Doctrine & Covenants 20:29 it says, "And we know that all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ, and worship the Father in his name..." From this we know that we worship God in the name of Christ. From D&C 20:19 and 1 Timothy 2:5 we learn that we are commanded to only worship God the Father and that there is only one mediator to do so, "the man Christ Jesus;"

In Alma 34:38 it goes a little more in depth on how to worship, it reads, "That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you."

When I was studying this scripture a few things stuck out to me,

the first is that there seems to be three prerequisites to worshipping God:

1. "contend no more with the against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it"

2. "take upon you the name of Christ"

3. "humble yourselves even to the dust"

How do we accomplish these things? Well we need to be baptized so that we can receive the Holy Ghost, we need to be humble enough to recognize and act on the promptings of the spirit, and we need to repent daily, partake of the Sacrament weekly, and strive to live worthy of the spirit in every single passing moment.

The second thing that really stuck out to me is that

based on this verse there are at least three ways to worship God:

1. "Worship God, in whatsoever place ye may be in"

2. "Worship God... in spirit and in truth"

3. Worship God by living "in thanksgiving daily,

for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you."

How do we worship God in these three ways?

We need to stand in holy places and remain temple worthy, and if we aren't temple worthy we need to get temple worthy. We need to seek the will of the Father through the Holy Spirit. We need to be willing to stand up for the truth and we need to be willing to endure hardship with high spirits and thankful hearts. We need to give freely and freely give thanks for the things we have been given.

These six things can feel like a lot to do, so why do them?

Besides, when you fall short it hurts and we know we are all going to fall short so why try?

In 3 Nephi 12:48 Christ says, "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I,

or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."

And in Alma 34:32 Amulek says, "For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors"

But what Amulek doesn't say is that this life is the life to achieve perfection, and what Christ doesn't say is, be ye therefore perfect in this life. It is ok to fall short--it's how we learn and grow. The possibility of us even coming to this earth began in the Garden of Eden with two mistakes, mistakes are necessary for our growth they are necessary to learn how to rely wholly on "the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah." (2 Nephi 2:8) Christ was perfect so we don't have to be in this life and so we have the opportunity to become perfect eventually.

It's part of God's perfect plan, the plan of happiness.

What this doesn't mean though is that we don't have to try. God doesn't expect is to be able to achieve perfection in this life, BUT what he does expect of us is improvement. He expects us to keep trying to endure to the end and endure it well. He expects us to be heading in the direction of perfection but God doesn't measure time (Alma 40:8) so the speed in which we achieve perfection is not important as long as we are improving. "behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed." (Alma 34:33)

I have a Testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, I have a testimony that we are all children of God and that just like children grow up and have the opportunity to become parents eventually, we have the opportunity to, as children of God, become like Him eventually because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for our Savior and I am so grateful for the birth of this Savior and the opportunity we have to worship God in gratitude for the matchless gift of His Son. The Lamb of God.

Let us all invite others to come worship with us this Christmas season and, to come and see on December 22nd. For we have something priceless, the Lord's kingdom once again restored to the earth. I end my testimony in His sacred name Jesus Christ amen.

Side note back on the subject of worship. After spending somewhere around ten ish hours studying worship I searched the phrase "How to Worship" in gospel library, and boom there it was a General Conference talk by Bruce R. McConkie titled "How to Worship" which in about 25 minutes of reading explained how to worship simply and outstandingly well, what a blessing. So if you want to save yourself about nine and a half hours, here's the link to the talk...

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1971/10/how-to-worship

Merry Christmas!

Elder Saunders