I don’t think anyone has ever explicitly said that it is, but over the past 10 years as most of my friends have gotten married, I’ve noticed this attitude of wanting to make it to a temple marriage, and then life will be good from there.

Like I said, marriage is fantastic.

But anyone who’s married knows it’s most certainly not the finish line for life.

I think we sometimes fall into setting a standard for when we’ve “made it” –

Whether it’s getting married, finally remembering to read scriptures every day, once all your kids serve missions, once you have a certain calling…

We can read the words “endure to the end” and think of getting “good enough” and then just coasting.

But Rebecca M. Craven taught us recently that “enduring to the ends means CHANGING until the end”.

Marriage is a fantastic goal to have and a fun milestone to meet, but LUCKILY my husband and I have changed a lot over our past 7 years.

And we are excited to change even more.

We endure together by changing together, improving, maturing, and loving better.

In marriage, in any role that we hold, and as an individual, we not only CAN always improve, but we SHOULD always improve.

Our humble general authorities are beautiful examples of this, sharing their journeys of faith, their new discoveries, their changes…

We never get to just cruise in autopilot.

Maybe that’s an intimidating thought.

But I like it.

I’m never gonna earn it and then just endure. I’ll always have something to work on.

Fun, huh?!

That’s how we will stand guiltless before God on judgment day:

Not because we are perfect and actually blameless.

But because we changed every day all the way to the end.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post How to stand blameless first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

The righteous throughout all of the Book of Mormon (usually) do NOT fall into murder.

They don’t fall into lying and dishonesty.

They don’t go from righteous to burning believers.

They always start with one sin.

PRIDE.

Which then leads to

SEPARATION.

Their righteousness brings them so many blessings.

But instead of feeling gratitude to God for their blessings, they use it as an excuse to separate themselves.

They don’t want to associate with the “others”.

Because they feel they are just a little bit better than everyone else.

We call it the “pride cycle”, but I think that pride is that gateway sin that leads to a desire to be separated.

The opposite of unity and love.

It’s no wonder that the civilization in 4 Nephi was mentioned many times in this most recent General Conference.

The antidote to removing contention and separation is to remove pride.

Not pride in the “I’m proud to be who I am” sense.

But the evil pride that starts by keeping us from associating with “others”.

Not serving “those types of people”.

And then it grows into an active dislike.

And then hatred.

Pride leads to division and contention – which, according to the Book of Mormon, is the most likely sin for us to fall victim to if we consider ourselves “righteous”.

So today, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

How are you 1) noticing and 2) removing the pride that has crept into your life?

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Pride and separation first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Yesterday, my daughter did something, and I asked her to stop and explained why she shouldn’t do that.

And then a minute later, she tried it again.

I asked her to stop, and she said, “no!”

She usually has pretty good behavior for a two-year-old, so I was a little surprised.

I picked her up and removed her from the potentially dangerous situation, and while I placed her down, I said a little prayer in my heart:

“What would the Savior do in this situation?”

The quick answer that came to my mind?

“You’ll learn. Just try your best right now.”

I tried something. I think it worked okay. And then I hugged her and told her I loved her.

It wasn’t perfect.

I literally don’t know exactly how the Savior would respond in that situation.

I have ideas and options in my head, but I honestly just don’t know sometimes.

I’ve run into this exact situation a few times lately-

How can I be Christlike when I’m not even sure what being Christlike looks like in this situation?

How can we be men and women just as he was, when we don’t always know what that should look like?

First, I know I’ve learned that I need to be worthy to have the Spirit with me at all times.

Because I know the Spirit can teach me.

But secondly, the lesson I was taught again yesterday was that the Spirit is NOT going to show me exactly what to do every single time I ask.

Because… that’s the whole point.

I need to learn what is the most Christlike response.

And I’ve noticed that Christ didn’t always respond in the same way to everyone.

He tailored his responses and his actions to exactly what the person with whom he was interacting needed.

So the most Christlike response to my daughter’s defiance might look differently than the most Christlike response to someone else’s defiance.

But at the root of being Christlike is knowledge and love.

The more that I love someone, and the more that I learn about them, the better I am able to know what “Christlike” looks for them.

And that’s a long process.

So when I’m asked to be a woman with the same manner that our Savior had, I know that it will take love, knowledge, and a lifetime of learning to discover what exactly that looks like.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post For when we don’t know what Jesus would do first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Quin yelled that at me last week as she jumped off the beanbag.

I was working on my computer but turned my head to watch the jump.

“Great job!” I said, and turned back to my computer.

About a minute later, this entire exchange happened again.

And then about 5 more times.

She asked me to watch her, I’d stop my work for a moment, turn to look at her, give her praise, and go back to work.

And then one time when she finished her jump, she said, “Mommy, wait! Don’t look at your computer! Watch me the whole time!”

And I felt a little sting.

She just wanted my full attention.

Not even really my praise, but my attention throughout her entire “trick”.

Which way do we face?

In 3 Nephi 30, our Savior commands us to “turn… from your wicked ways”.

And then invites us to “come unto me”.

He wants us to actually turn away from the lesser things of the world, and keep our full attention on him.

Not to be entirely focused on other things and only turn our heads when it’s time for church, a prayer, or a lesson.

He just wants our full attention.

We face him, and then everything else comes into perspective.

We know when to work and where to work and how much to work. We know when to spend time with our family and when to pursue other hobbies. We know what to let go of and what to hold on to.

When we face him, we see our lives with the full power of the Spirit.

And we have to decide if we will turn away from the seemingly important distractions and make our Savior our top priority.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Which way do we face? first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

It had “LDS” in the name.

President Nelson had already made statements about the full name of the Church as well as delivered a powerful General Conference address, but in my mind, “LDS” wasn’t really a harmful acronym.

But in March of 2019, the Church announced that they were changing lds.org to churchofJesusChrist.org.

And that’s when I had the strong impression that I needed to change the name of my Instagram account to remove the “LDS” acronym.

I, personally, didn’t feel that putting the name of our Savior into my name was the right thing to do; but I knew that I didn’t want to perpetuate any names for our Church that removed our Savior.

It seems kind of small looking back on it, but it was an important and powerful, tangible change for me at the time.

I already had a few thousand followers on my account at that point, and I was growing exponentially every day. I knew that changing my name on Instagram was not something that was recommended in the social media world.

And yet, I knew I needed to change it. Thus, “Come Follow Me Study” was born – a name that has shaped the trajectory of my account as I’ve shared advice on how to really STUDY the scriptures.

The Savior taught his disciples in 3 Nephi 27:5 that the church needs to be called in his name.

It is his church. We worship him. And others need to know.

Elder Neil L. Andersen taught us recently that, “As the world speaks less of Jesus Christ, let us speak more of Him.”

We can do our part to remove harmful or dismissive abbreviations or nicknames for our Church.

But then we have to fill their places with more talk of Christ!

In virtually every post that I make on this account, I try to make the connection between the principle I’m sharing thoughts about, and my Savior.

I would hope that anyone scrolling through my feed would know that I am not afraid to preach of my Savior.

And I’m working more on making sure my family and friends get that same dose of “Jesus” from me, too!

This is Jesus Christ’s church. Any little adjustment we can make to rid ourselves of harmful phrases and add statements about our Savior will yield blessings!

As Christ himself teaches, “whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day.” 3 Nephi 27:6.

Artwork by Minerva Teichert

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post The Church of Jesus Christ first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.