What Is In Your Heart?

I love the interchange in Matthew 15:1-20.

The scribes and Pharisees are giving Jesus grief that the apostles didn’t wash their hands before eating. Jesus turned it back on them and said:

“Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?”

BAM!!!

He is asking - why are you more worried about the old traditions of ritual washings than you are about the commandments of God?

He calls them hypocrites and reminds them that Elijah prophesied they say they honor God but not in their hearts. (vs. 8)

Then we come to one of the verses (vs 14) that I think shows a bit of humor on the part of Jesus when he tells the disciples:

“Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

In my mind it goes something like this:

 “Meh, leave em’ alone.” 

*waves hand of indifference* 

“Blind leading the blind; they’ll fall in the ditch.”

Then Jesus explains the parable he said to the scribes and Pharisees.

Basically, what you put into your mouth comes out the other end and doesn't defile you. What comes out of your mouth, on the other hand, comes from your heart and can defile you if your heart has evil thoughts.

It all comes back to what is in your heart.

You Are Worried About a Speck of Dust?

We are learning some interesting scripture Study Skills in this class. This week I chose to use Flag Phrases. Basically, you look for certain words or phrases that draw attention to something in the verse.

Flag Phrases can be attention words, similes, absolutes, connecting words, summaries, repeated words, superlative statements etc.

I applied attention words to Matthew 7:4:

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Here, the attention word is: behold. This is telling you to pay special attention to the information that comes after.

It really changed the scripture for me!

We have all heard that verse many times. When you read the emphasis on behold, it is like he is saying to you:

 Look! 

Look at yourself. 

Stop judging other people and take a look at your own problems. 

You freaking have a BEAM IN YOUR EYE!!! 

And you are worried about a speck of dust???"

BAM!!!

This showed to me the difference between merely reading the scriptures, and taking the time to slow down and study them.

A Diabolically Tactical Fight

My studies this week brought me to a talk by Elder Ballard in which he mentions the attack on the family.

“Let me say again that the family is the main target of evil’s attack and must therefore be the main point of our protection and defense. As I said once before, when you stop and think about it from a diabolically tactical point of view, fighting the family makes sense to Satan. . .”

“When the devil wants to strike out and disrupt the essence of God’s work, it attacks the family. It does so by attempting to

• Disregard the law of chastity
• Confuse gender
• Desensitize violence
• Make crude and blasphemous language the norm
• And to make immoral and deviant behavior seem like the rule rather than the exception.”

I must take a moment to comment on Elder Ballard's use of "it" when referring to the devil. Not once, but twice. 

BAM, Elder Ballard, BAM!!!

The belief in or use of these have all come to bear in my household since my daughter left the church and moved back home from school. I have had to be bold in making known to her what will not be tolerated in my home. In addition to being bold about our standards and setting boundaries, we have had to be bold in getting our daughter to believe that we still love her no-matter-what! 

Elder Hales tells us how we should handle people who criticize our beliefs: “we must love them. We do not feel we are better than they are. Rather, we desire with our love to show them a better way-the way of Jesus Christ.”

Love. It always comes down to love. We don't have to agree on everything to love one another.

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References:

(Elder M. Russell Ballard, Let Our Voices Be Heard, October 2003 Gen. Conf.)

(Elder Robert D. Hales, Christian Courage - The Price of Discipleship, October 2008 Gen. Conf.)

Of Measurements and Repetition

This week we read How Will You Measure Your Life? by Professor Clayton M. Christensen of the Harvard Business School (HBS). It was published in the Harvard Business Review in 2010. His class at HBS is structured to “help [his] students understand what good management theory is and how it is built.” On the last day of class he asks his students to answer three questions:

1. How can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?
2. How can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and family become and enduring source of happiness?
3. How can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail?

He isn’t flippant about question three. Two of the 32 people in his Rhodes Scholar class at HBS spent time in jail. Jeff Skilling of Enron fame was his classmate. He said “these were the good guys – but something in their lives sent them off in the wrong direction.”

He teaches that the “powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements,” which brought him to this conclusion: 

Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.

What do we learn about going off in the wrong direction? “Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended.” If we don’t spend our time doing what we want to become, we will become what we spend our time doing.

Speaking to question 3 he states: “justification for infidelity and dishonesty in all their manifestations lies in the marginal cost economics of ‘just this once.’” He gives an example of his college basketball days when his resolve to never play on Sunday was tested. He was pressured by coaches and players alike. He remained strong and didn’t play. After that experience he learned it was one of the most important decisions of his life. Why?

My life has been one unending stream of extenuating circumstances. Had I crossed the line that one time, I would have done it over and over in the years that followed. The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.

So where does Repetition come in? I read both this and another speech this week, in a previous class. I was thinking to myself “someone really didn’t plan these courses well because they are duplicating the reading.” 

Tuesday was devotional and Elder David A. Bednar spoke. His focus was on repetition. His example was the repetition in visits and message from Moroni to the young Joseph Smith. “This repetitious teaching was intended to emphasize the deep significance of the things that had been communicated.” He then pointed out that even though the message was the same each time, it was different because new information was given with each succeeding visitation. 

BAM! Palm to the forehead moment for me! The information I had read in a previous class was so important, it was presented to me again, however this time it was given with additional information.

Lesson Learned: Stick to your principles all the time. Don’t give in to the “just once won’t hurt” lie.

References:

Clayton M. Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?  Harvard Business Review, 2010

David A. Bednar, Repeat Over Again . . the Same Things as Before, BYU-Idaho Speech, January 2016