I don’t think anyone has ever explicitly said that it is, but over the past 15 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 your 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 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 throughout our years together.

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.

“If he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world.” (3 Nephi 27:16)

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post How to be guiltless first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

My son yelled that at me last week as he jumped off a giant beanbag. ⁣

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

“Great job!” I said.

And then I turned back to my computer. ⁣

This happened about ten more times.

And then one time when he finished his jump, he said:

“Mommy, wait! Don’t look at your computer! Watch me the whole time!”⁣

And I felt a little sting. ⁣

He didn’t really care about my praise for his jump—

He just wanted my attention.

Which way do we face?

Where are we giving our best attention?

Jesus commands us to:

“Turn, all ye Gentiles, from your wicked ways.” (3 Nephi 30:2) 

He doesn’t want our entire bodies and souls facing toward someone or something else.

He doesn’t want us only turning our hearts to Him when it’s time for church, a prayer, or a lesson.

And then turning our head back to whatever we were doing before the “church stuff” interrupted.

Jesus wants us to fully turn away from the lesser things of the world and give Him our full attention.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post “Hey mom, watch this!” 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, 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. ⁣

And yet, I knew I needed to change it. Thus, “Come Follow Me Study” was born!⁣

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

“Have they not read the scriptures, which say ye must take upon you the name of Christ, which is my name? For by this name shall ye be called at the last day”.

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.” 

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post LDS no more first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Here’s the thing:

Asking “What would Jesus do?” is a GREAT question to guide our lives as Christians.

Jesus even taught:

“Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” (3 Nephi 27:27)

But… what do you do when you don’t know what Jesus would do in your exact situation?

The other day, my daughter did something that could potentially be dangerous.

I got on her level, calmly asked her to stop, and explained why she shouldn’t do that.

And then a minute later, she tried it again. ⁣

I told her to stop and she said, “No!”⁣

I picked her up and removed her from the dangerous situation.

When I placed her down, I said a little prayer in my heart, “What would Jesus do or say in this situation?”

Like, how exactly would Jesus react to a child who kept making a poor choice even if it looked fun to them? How would He react in the moment? How would He teach?

The quick answer that came to my mind wasn’t as clear as I wanted, but it still answered my question:

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

Life doesn’t always present scenarios where we choose to be either mean or nice.

Most of the time, there are shades of niceness and meanness and every other intent in between.

So how do we do what the Savior would do?

I think the key is to have the Spirit with us.

And then we just try to move forward the best we can with the information we have.

The Spirit can’t always tell us the exact answer in the moment.

(In fact, that would make things a bit too easy!)

But He can give us the next step to help us learn how to actually become more Christlike.

And what my daughter needs as a Christlike reaction might be very different than what another child needs.

I love that the Spirit is here to help us in the nitty gritty as we work through trial and error to figure out what Jesus would really do.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post What WOULD Jesus do?!  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.