Talking about Hebrews 13

Hebrews 13 is a great chapter of the New Testament.

In it, Paul teaches us that we need to love others always, that no matter what, at the end of the day, we need to love and treat with dignity, those around us. He reminds us of the golden rule, that we need to treat others as we would want to be treated.

He then goes on and tells us about marriage. He tells us that marriage is vital and important, and that God views marriage as such a vitally important part of his plan and we need to be clean as we enter into it, so we can be clean before him.

Paul also warns about being covetous. He says that we need to be thankful for what we have, we need to appreciate the things that the lord has given us, and have faith and trust that he will always provide for us. We need to focus on what we have, not what we do not have.

Then he goes on and tells us that Christ is always the same, yesterday, today and forever. Christ will never change in what he teaches, Christ is love, and that will never go away.

Paul then teaches us that we can be sanctified through Jesus. His atonement has given us a way to be saved, and we will find peace and safety through him.

Paul then closes with asking the people to pray for their leaders, I think this is important to remember, our leaders are not perfect, they are just people like us, and we need to support them by helping them, not blindly following, but by seeking to be good servants and followers of Christ and his gospel, and in that way, we can support our leaders.

Attributes of a Good Teacher

Today I'd like to look at the attributes of  good and bad teachers.

In  2 Peter 2 we learn about false teachers, and from that, we can learn what good teachers are.

here are a few attributes of False teachers vs True teachers

False - deny god
True - accept god as their Lord and savior

False - teach evil
True - teach truth and righteousness

False - follow lusts of the world
True - have self control

False - follow an unrighteous path
True - live righteously


 Finding truth and knowing who to trust can be difficult, but if we follow god, we can know the truth and know who to trust.

Great things come from finding true teachers who can help us find the truth. As we follow light and truth, we will have peace and wisdom, 

Forgiveness

This week reading the following scriptures about  forgiveness gave me some important insights.

The first scripture was in  Matthew 6: 14-15 "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." I thought this was something really important to remember and focus on, the Lord can only give us forgiveness, if we also offer that same forgiveness to others. 

I dont think though that this is a good motivation to forgive others, we shouldn't be forgiving solely because of the hope that we can have our own salvation, but we should forgive because we know the peace that comes through forgiveness, and our love for others should motivate us to desire to show them that love through forgiveness. 

Another scripture that I liked in relation to this was D&C 64: 9-10  "Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men"

That scripture right there lays it out clearly, simply, and not only that, it is one of the most recent words on the subject. I've heard some argue that you only need to forgive a certain number of times, that is what the bible says. But we have a newer law, a higher law that the Lord requires of us, and that is to forgive and forgive again, because we are not asked to judge, only forgive. 

Baptism

This week in my religion class, we've been tasked with writing a blog post on one of the topics we're studying. I chose baptism this week. 

I find baptism really fascinating, also I feel like the baptismal covenants which we make, are so amazing and profound. 

I think it is really important to understand what baptism symbolizes, we can learn more about that in Romans 6, specifically verse 4. It says "Therefore we are ^aburied with him by ^bbaptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the ^cdead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should ^dwalk in ^enewness of life." So basically Paul is saying that like christ died, we symbolize that as we enter the waters, and like he was risen from the dead as a glorified being, we symbolize that as we raise out of the waters of baptism.

But before that can even happen, we have to forsake our sins, and realize that we need to let them die, as we take on the symbolic death through baptism.

I think these two things together make baptism by immersion really important, because it only truly symbolizes Christ's death and resurrection, if we are buried in the water and then emerge again. 

Another amazing facet of baptism is that we are born again, we have a new life and new opportunity to live with Christ in our lives. We have let our sin die, and now can live in the glory of god.

Through all of this, I think we can learn that baptism is an essential and precious piece of life. Through it we can have freedom in this life, freedom from death and sin.