Lesson 3

This week I was able to share about two things that impressed me from the reading. One of those was Matt 16:13-18 What I love about these versus is how the Lord points out how his church will be built upon revelation. Many when they read these versus believe that when Jesus said “thou art peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” they take it to mean that Jesus Christ was passing the church onto peter and for him to take on the role as the leader going forward. We know that Peter was called to be the prophet of God after Jesus left, but we know that this is not what the savior was trying to teach in these versus. It’s important to note that Jesus had just asked peter who he believed Jesus was. Peter replied by saying “thou art the Christ” and Jesus answered him saying “blessed art thou simon bar-jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.” There the savior was pointing out that Peter had received revelation from God. He then goes on to point out that “this” is the rock upon which I will build my church. Certainly if any man was to be the rock upon which the church was built it would be Christ and not peter. Here the savior points out that its revelation that the church is built upon.

The other was, Mark 9:17-25, I love this story because it applies to all of us. A man had a child that had a devil inside of him and seeks for help. The disciples try to heal the young boy and they are unable. The savior steps in and says to them that he is not going to be with them forever, he cannot keep doing these kinds of things for them. The father expressed his desire for help and pleaded for compassion. The savior then taught “ all things are possible to him that believith.” Helping us to all remember that although things may seem impossible, with God, all things are possible to him that believith. The father then went on to say" Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief" do we not all relate to this? All of us feel we can believe, but we are unsure if we have done enough and if we have enough faith. He looks to the savior for the help to get the rest of the faith and belief he needed. We can all learn so much from this.

This is one of the many reasons I have grown to love the new testament. I feel like so often we read from the Book of Mormon and so many of us do not appreciate all that there is to offer in the New Testament and the bible. Each of these stories stood out to me because they have had helped me out at one point our another to strengthen my testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel. That is one of the reasons why we read the scriptures, to strengthen our testimonies and to give us guidence and direction. These two stories have been able to do that for me and I hope that I will be able to continue to find stories that strengthen me and give me guidance as I make  scripture reading a more regular part of my life.