If You Give A Little Love . . .
By Alan on Dec 17 in Blog tagged Christ, give, help, kindness, love, others | Comments Off
If You Give A Little Love . . .
. . . You can get a little love of your own.
Let’s make this a better and a more loving world!
Kirk Matson
For The Family
Mitt Romney – Doing Business The Mormon Way
By Alan on Aug 21 in Blog tagged charity, give, hard work, Mitt Romney, Mormon, not what we receive, President, way, what we give | Comments Off
Mitt Romney – Doing Business The Mormon Way
“It is not what we receive that enriches our lives, it is what we give.”
Marlon Snow
For The Family
You Think It’s Hot?
By Alan on Jul 03 in Daily Inspiration tagged country, forces, free, Freedom, give, give thanks, hot, land, liberty, lives, military, pledge, worth fighting | 1 Comment
You Think It’s Hot?
As we celebrate our freedoms and liberties that we so much enjoy today, lets be sure to give thanks to those who protect us and put their lives on the line; especially those who have given them up so that our nation may continue to be able a sweet land land of liberty.
It you think it’s hot, think about what our military have to go through. Are you willing to take the heat and the bullet? Freedom is never free. Since the beginning of time, the opposite forces of liberty try to take them away from us. It is something worth fighting for.
To all of our troops and those who serve this blessed country of ours, we salute you and pledge our allegiance to this nation for which we stand!
Gil Howe
For The Family
ANYWAY – Is How One Heart Will Help
By Alan on Oct 06 in Blog tagged anyway, do good, give, help, honesty, love, no poor among them, One Heart, One Mind | Comments Off
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow.
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world your best and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST
YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY!
http://oneheart.org
alan@oneheart.org
Alan and Suzanne Osmond
For The Family
Sacrifice Helps Us Prepare to Live in the Presence of God
By Alan on Mar 13 in Blog tagged give, give everything, God, Jesus, law, prepare, sacrifice, savior, share, test, tithe | Comments Off
Sacrifice means giving to the Lord whatever He requires of our time, our earthly possessions, and our energies to further His work. The Lord commanded, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Our willingness to sacrifice is an indication of our devotion to God. People have always been tried and tested to see if they will put the things of God first in their lives.
The Law of Sacrifice Was Practiced Anciently
From the time of Adam and Eve to the time of Jesus Christ, the Lord’s people practiced the law of sacrifice. They were commanded to offer as sacrifices the firstlings of their flocks. These animals had to be perfect, without blemish. The ordinance was given to remind the people that Jesus Christ, the Firstborn of the Father, would come into the world. He would be perfect in every way, and He would offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins. (See Moses 5:5–8.)
Jesus did come and offer Himself as a sacrifice, just as the people had been taught He would. Because of His sacrifice, everyone will be saved from physical death by the Resurrection and all can be saved from their sins through faith in Jesus Christ.
Christ’s atoning sacrifice marked the end of sacrifices by the shedding of blood. Such outward sacrifice was replaced by the ordinance of the sacrament. The ordinance of the sacrament was given to remind us of the Savior’s great sacrifice. We should partake of the sacrament often. The emblems of bread and water remind us of the Savior’s body and of His blood, which He shed for us.
We Still Must Sacrifice
Even though sacrifice by the shedding of blood was ended, the Lord still asks us to sacrifice. But now He requires a different kind of offering. He said: “Ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood, … and your burnt offerings shall be done away. … And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (3 Nephi 9:19–20). A “broken heart and a contrite spirit” means that we offer deep sorrow for our sins as we humble ourselves and repent of them.
We Must Be Willing to Sacrifice Everything We Have to the Lord
The Apostle Paul wrote that we should become living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God (see Romans 12:1).
If we are to be a living sacrifice, we must be willing to give everything we have for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—to build the kingdom of God on the earth and labor to bring forth Zion (see 1 Nephi 13:37).
A rich young ruler asked the Savior, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered, “Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.” And the rich man said, “All these have I kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, He said, “Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he was sorrowful. He was very rich and had his heart set on his riches. Luke 18:18–23;
The young ruler was a good man. But when he was put to the test, he was not willing to sacrifice his worldly possessions. On the other hand, the Lord’s disciples Peter and Andrew were willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the kingdom of God. When Jesus said unto them, “Follow me, … they straightway left their nets, and followed him” (Matthew 4:19–20).
Like the disciples, we can offer our daily activities as a sacrifice to the Lord. We can say, “Thy will be done.” Abraham did this. He lived on the earth before Christ, in the days when sacrifices and burnt offerings were required. As a test of Abraham’s faith, the Lord commanded him to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Isaac was the only son of Abraham and Sarah. The command to offer him as a sacrifice was extremely painful for Abraham.
Nevertheless, he and Isaac made the long journey to Mount Moriah, where the sacrifice was to be made. They traveled for three days. Imagine Abraham’s thoughts and his heartache. His son was to be sacrificed to the Lord. When they reached Mount Moriah, Isaac carried the wood and Abraham carried the fire and the knife to the place where they were to build the altar. Isaac said, “My father … behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answered, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb.” Then Abraham built an altar and arranged the wood on it. He bound Isaac and laid him upon the wood. He then took the knife to kill Isaac. At that moment an angel of the Lord stopped him, saying, “Abraham … lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” (SeeGenesis 22:1–14.)
Abraham must have been overcome with joy when he was no longer required to sacrifice his son. But he loved the Lord so much that he was willing to do anything the Lord asked.
Sacrifice Helps Us Prepare to Live in the Presence of God
Only through sacrifice can we become worthy to live in the presence of God. Only through sacrifice can we enjoy eternal life. Many who have lived before us have sacrificed all they had. We must be willing to do the same if we would earn the rich reward they enjoy.
We may not be asked to sacrifice all things. But like Abraham, we should be willing to sacrifice everything to become worthy to live in the presence of the Lord.
The Lord’s people have always sacrificed greatly and in many different ways. Some have suffered hardship and ridicule for the gospel. Some new converts to the Church have been cut off from their families. Lifetime friends have turned away. Some members have lost their jobs; some have lost their lives. But the Lord notices our sacrifices; He promises, “Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life” (Matthew 19:29).
Many examples could be given of those who sacrifice for the Lord. Yet a place in our Heavenly Father’s kingdom is worth any sacrifice we have to make of our time, talents, energy, money, and lives. Through sacrifice we can obtain a knowledge from the Lord that we are acceptable to Him (see D&C 97:8).
Train Up A Child In ‘The Way’ He Should Go…
By Alan on Feb 12 in Blog tagged a, attention, blessed, child, childhood, children, church, commandments, communication, conflict, depart, difficult, endure, everyday, faith, give, go, goodness, job, Joseph Smith, kids, learning, long-suffering, Lord, love, More, neglect, neglected, organized, physical, playing, pleasurable, precious, psychological, recreation, talk, taught, teach, the way, time, Tom Perry, train, up, values, working | Comments Off
“Train up a child in the way he should go.” writes the author of Proverbs, “and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
My mind was drawn to this admonition recently while reading an article in one of our current news publications on “Our Neglected Kids.” The article pointed out that “most of them are properly clothed and fed, but something is missing in the lives of countless children.” For many of them, “it is a matter of needing more attention from their parents,” who are caught up in everyday pressures.
The article says:
“In a nation that professes to take pride in its young, … social change is inflicting harm—physical and psychological—on millions of children. For them, growing up in America is becoming an ordeal instead of a joy.
“As their parents struggle to cope with divorce, single parenthood, dual careers, and a troublesome economy, many of the nation’s more than 47.6 million children under the age of 14 pay the price in ways that range from simple neglect to outright abuse.
“Parents are caught in a crunch of conflicting values,” the article points out, quoting Edward Weaver. “They value children, but they value other things as well, such as time for themselves, material goods, status and their careers. Given these conflicts, in a number of instances they neglect children or don’t give them a fair shake.” (U.S. News & World Report, 9 Aug. 1982, p. 54.)
As I travel outside the boundaries of this country, I seem to find these same problems growing elsewhere. These are danger signals for our children. We find more mothers with jobs, more single-parent homes, an enormous increase in children born out of wedlock. These growing social changes are causing increased difficulty for the children in our society today.
Articles such as the one I have quoted deeply trouble me, for I had such a pleasant, happy childhood. The pleasure of being a parent has always been special to me. It is impossible to express the love I have for my children and grandchildren.
I marvel at the miracle of the birth of a child. Just recently we experienced it again in our family. You receive a phone call, and there is the anxious voice of your son-in-law on the other end, stating, “I am just on my way to the hospital with Linda Gay.” Then you sit anxiously all day waiting for further news. Finally it comes: It’s a boy! Then you drop everything and rush to the hospital to offer your congratulations. There you see this blessed miracle—your own child, now with a baby cradled in her arms with warmth and tender love. You see a son-in-law so excited, and he starts pointing out that the baby’s nose looks like his mother’s. Maybe the chin and mouth resemble his. Then he looks at the hands and says, “Surely, these must be from the Perry side of the family. Look how large they are!”
A deep love wells up within you as you witness this blessed event and realize the joy and happiness these new parents will now have as the process is repeated again in their lives.
I am surely not an authority on child rearing. I have had my challenges, just as many parents have experienced. However, since reading this article, I have been directed to the words of the prophets, past and present, stressing the importance of the responsibility of a parent to train up a child.
In the Old Testament, there is an account of the Lord giving instructions to Moses just before He delivered the Ten Commandments to him. It states:
“The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
“Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:6–7.)
In the New Testament, Paul, writing to the Ephesians, counseled them:
“And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4.)
The Book of Mormon begins with a son giving credit to the training of goodly parents:
“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father.” (1 Ne. 1:1.)
Instructions through the Prophet Joseph Smith to members of the Church in this day are explicit regarding the responsibilities of parents to children:
“And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrines of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.” (D&C 68:25.)
At the time I was a new parent, President David O. McKay presided over the Church. His counsel was clear and direct regarding our responsibilities to our children. He taught us the most precious gift a man and woman can receive is a child of God, and that the raising of a child is basically, fundamentally, and most exclusively a spiritual process.
He directed us to basic principles we need to teach our children. The first and most important inner quality you can instill in a child is faith in God.The first and most important action a child can learn is obedience. And the most powerful tool you have with which to teach a child is love. (SeeInstructor, Vol. 84, Dec. 1949, p. 620.)
Let us examine together these three basic principles. President Brigham Young instructed parents by saying:
“If each and every one of us who are parents will reflect upon the responsibilities devolving upon us, we shall come to the conclusion that we should never permit ourselves to do anything that we are not willing to see our children do. We should set them an example that we wish them to imitate.” (Journal of Discourses, 14:192.)
If we are to instill faith in our children, they must see us demonstrate our faith in their young lives. They must see us on our knees daily, asking the Lord for His blessings and expressing our gratitude unto Him. They need to see us using our priesthood to administer to those in need, and to bless our children. They need to see us reverently worshiping in our sacrament meetings. They need to see us cheerfully and willingly giving of our time and talents to the building of the Lord’s kingdom here on earth. They need to see us proving our faith by the payment of our tithes and offerings to Him. They need to see us diligently studying and discussing the scriptures to increase our faith and understanding.
I read recently an article in a magazine designed especially for Latter-day Saints about a study that was made of the benefits of reading to children. It stated that when a mother or a father consistently reads to a child, the child enters school at a much higher level and excels in reading during these early grades. If there is a direct correlation between the early training a child receives from parents and the rapidity with which a child learns, how important would it be, then, for us to spend time reading the gospel of Jesus Christ to our children, to imbue and instill in them, in their tender and early years, faith in the gospel of our Lord and Savior?
The second principle President McKay outlined for us is obedience.President Joseph Fielding Smith has said: “Of course there should be prayer and faith and love and obedience to God in the home. It is the duty of parents to teach their children these saving principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that they will know why they are to be baptized and that they may be impressed in their hearts with a desire to continue to keep the commandments of God after they are baptized, that they may come back into his presence. Do you, my good brethren and sisters, want your families, your children; do you want to be sealed to your fathers and your mothers before you? … If so, then you must begin by teaching at the cradle-side. You are to teach by example as well as precept.” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1948, p. 153.)
I remember being impressed one time with the need to teach obedience. I was on a new job working long hours, and I guess I was somewhat neglectful of my family. My son seemed to crave more time and attention. He was finding all sorts of ways to attract my attention. One day when I came home, his mother had him prepared to take me downstairs to see what mischief he had recently created. As we descended the stairs, he sheepishly opened the door to our food storage room. There I found he had been using his dart set to practice his marksmanship on our food storage. He caught my attention all right, and made me realize he was looking for the metes and bounds we expected of him in our family government. When they were outlined, and when I gave him the proper attention, then he was very obedient. How important it is that we teach obedience early in the lives of our children, especially to the commandments of the Lord!
Finally, President McKay taught us the necessity of love. I’ve always been impressed with the fact that when the Lord was teaching His disciples in those final hours of His earthly ministry as they met in the Last Supper, after teaching service by the washing of their feet, His next instructions concerned love. He taught,
“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” (John 13:34.)
I recently enjoyed an article in the Reader’s Digest written about enduring values. It stated “that the climate of our times tends to support the idea that love is a seasonal monsoon: it comes, it blows fiercely; it goes by. That is too bad, because a child needs the kind of love that is as trustworthy as the rising of the sun. If a child is to grow up to truly join the human race, he needs to know how to keep love alive.
“A child should learn not merely to love, but to be a loving person—to make love his stance in the world. ‘Love’ may come and go, but a loving person, like the sun itself, never loses his or her sustaining warmth.” (Reader’s Digest, June 1981, p. 164.)
Sometime ago I remember reading about an experiment with chickens. I do not remember the source. Young pullets, as they grew in their life cycle, were given all of the food they needed to eat, without being required to make an effort to obtain it. Then as the pullets matured, they were turned out into the chicken coop, where they had to scratch for their food. A chicken who had never been taught how to scratch as a pullet would mature without learning this ability and would literally starve to death, even though just below the surface of the ground was all the food it needed to sustain life.
Then the article went on to compare this example with a child who was not taught the ability to love early in its life. In all probability, according to the article, the child would not be able to develop that choice characteristic as it matured to adulthood. How tragic it would be if a child were deprived of the ability to love!
Today, I would like you to pause, ponder, and think of the value of an immortal soul, especially the ones entrusted to you as parents. Where are your priorities? Have you committed yourself to give the sufficient time necessary to train your children?
Dr. Nick Stinnett of the University of Nebraska gave a most interesting talk at an annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations. It was titled “Characteristics of Strong Families.” His six points were:
- A strong family spends a significant amount of time together while playing, working, eating, or in recreation. Although family members all have outside interests, they find adequate time to spend together.
- Strong families have a high degree of commitment to each family member, as indicated not only by the time spent together, but also by their ability to work together in a common cause.
- Strong families have good communication patterns, as indicated by the time spent listening and speaking to each other in conversation.
- Strong families have a high degree of religious orientation.
- Strong families have the ability to deal with crises in a positive way because they have spent time together, are committed to each other, and have good communication patterns.
- Strong family members frequently give compliments to each other which are genuine and not superficial. (See “In Search of Strong Families,” in Building Family Strengths: Blueprints for Action, ed. Nick Stinnett, et al., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979, pp. 23–30.)
We who have embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ ought to have the devotion and the determination necessary to build strong family units. May God bless us that we may “organize [ourselves]; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house” (D&C 109:8) for those we love that is worthy of an eternal family unit is my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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L. TOM PERRY
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.
By Alan on Nov 19 in Blog tagged control, divide, give, lie, money, own, power, split, steal, take away, wealth | Comments Off
You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)
