I’m sure glad we aren’t asked to do animal sacrifices anymore. 

For many reasons.

I know I’ve learned that Christ did away with animal sacrifices and that instead, we are now asked to sacrifice our wills and hearts to Him.

I loved the additional angle Joseph taught in this scripture:

“Let us, therefore, as a church and a people, and as Latter-day Saints, offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness; and let us present in his holy temple, when it is finished, a book containing the records of our dead, which shall be worthy of all acceptation.” D&C 128:24

Joseph said that one of our biggest offerings, our biggest sacrifices, will be handing the Lord a book.

And in this book, we will present the names of every proxy ordinance we have performed, collectively as a church.

Can you even imagine?!

Can you picture a prophet handing the Savior a giant record of all the temple work that has been completed in this dispensation?

Now, I have no clue if there will actually be a physical book handed over, or maybe a computer, or maybe it’s all symbolic.

But either way, I don’t want to be the slacker in this worldwide Latter-day Saint group project.

I want to be able to tell the Lord I contributed to that book as much as I could.

Because temple work IS a sacrifice.

It is our big purification.

Instead of sacrificing unblemished firstlings, we are in the temple, allowing our hearts to be molded and shaped.

Focusing on selfless, eternal things.

The book is so so so important.

But the biggest point will be what happened to our hearts in the process of making that book.

How many worldly desires and selfish actions were transformed into beautiful, clean, pure hearts, ready to give over to the Savior?

My takeaway from this week’s powerful study?

I think temple work is much more important than I can even begin to realize right now.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Temples purify first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

How to walk into a room and not worry about who you are going to sit by— just sitting down and knowing you’ll be fine no matter what.

How to make decisions and feel confident about them.

How to plan events and host.

And it’s not like these things aren’t important…

Being confident has blessed my life in many ways.

But I’ve recently been starting to get a glimpse of something much more important.

Love and service.

Walking into a room and looking for someone I could sit next to who might need a friend.

Not always making the most efficient decisions because they would leave some people out.

Hosting in a way that I’m still able to connect with others, and not in self-serving ways.

With this idea sitting in my mind a lot recently, I couldn’t help but see a new perspective to this pretty popular verse:

“For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.” D&C 128:15

Why can’t we be perfect without performing proxy ordinances for every single person who has ever existed?

Because that is the loving and compassionate thing to do.

It isn’t enough to just be righteous and confident people who keep to ourselves.

It isn’t enough to just worry about ourselves.

Why?

Because Jesus isn’t just worried about Himself.

So if we are asked to become like Jesus…

Then we can’t just worry about “our own salvation”.

Because “our own salvation” requires us to become Christlike.

Which means we are filled with so much compassion and love that we HAVE to, no, we WANT to do the work for absolutely everyone else.

We would never be content with just our own perfection.

Because Christ isn’t content just with His.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Self-confidence and perfection first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

It was stake camp, so we had helped the girls create their banners, make gifts, create cheers, and pretty much every kind of crazy preparation you could think of.

And then the word came– wildfires in Arizona suddenly shut down the state land, including where our stake YW Camp was to be held.

Camp was canceled at a stake level and turned over to the ward level with less than 2 week’s notice in the middle of the summer.

Girls were disappointed. Leaders were disappointed. Parents were disappointed. No one was happy about having to create camp from scratch with basically no prep time.

A wise leader spoke to us at church that Sunday as frantic plans for a ward camp were being thrown together, and the message was one that we all needed to hear.

This had not surprised God.

This was not a wrench in the plan that He had no clue would happen.

As we wrote skits and painted posters and designed t-shirts, God knew it wouldn’t come to fruition.

And He would sanctify every sacrifice we thought we had been making for the stake camp to bolster our ward camp instead.

And it was 100% true. The ward camp came together in miraculous ways, and everyone was spiritually uplifted.

But that lesson has stuck with me.

God can’t be surprised.

Joseph even taught this about baptisms for the dead:

“The Lord ordained and prepared before the foundation of the world, for the salvation of the dead who should die without a knowledge of the gospel.” D&C 128:5

Baptisms for the dead wasn’t an ordinance of, “Whoops, a lot of people are missing out on essential ordinances! I guess we should come up for a way to kind of get the same blessings, too.”

Nope.

THIS WAS THE PLAN FROM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.

Proxy ordinances have always been the plan, because they are the only way we all make it back together.

God will not be surprised!

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post God will not be surprised first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Don’t get me wrong, learning from the Lord, as recorded by Joseph, is amazing, and I’m so glad that most of our scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants are straight from Him.

But I also have learned SO MUCH by studying these two sections about how Joseph received revelation.

Because if I know anything about Joseph, this man KNEW how to receive revelation from the Lord.

So what did Joseph do in order to receive this groundbreaking instruction about baptisms for the dead, a completely new concept?!

“I will write the word of the Lord from time to time” (D&C 127:10)

Joseph knew that revelation took time and came little bit by little bit.

“I now resume the subject of the baptism for the dead, as that subject seems to occupy my mind and press itself upon my feelings the strongest” (D&C 128:1)

Joseph received revelation by following the subjects that his mind and spirit were pulled toward.

“As you will find recorded in Revelation 20:12…” (D&C 128:6)

Joseph was in the scriptures. He quotes 5 different scriptures from the Bible and talks freely about them, making connections between the glimpses of doctrine that are taught.

“I have a few additional views in relation to this matter, which I now certify” (D&C 128:2)

He thought that he had learned something, but then he received more revelation later that clarified and adjusted what he had learned earlier.

“Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King!” (D&C 128:23)

He praised the Lord constantly as he received revelation, and always brought his mind back to gratitude for what he had been given.

What a cool master class in receiving revelation, right?

What stood out to you as you read Joseph’s own words in Sections 127-128?

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post A master class in revelation first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

This was a question asked during a Q&A held during our 5th Sunday lesson yesterday.

There was a fantastic discussion that followed this question, including the ideas that we have to be acting and using all our resources to get rid of the bad habit, reaching out to others for help, and learning the doctrine behind the change we want to make.

But ultimately, someone shared:

“God could absolutely take away your weakness right now.

“It is entirely up to whether or not that is His will.

“So have you prayed to ask what God’s will is with your bad habit?”

What a tough thing, right?

Doesn’t God want my trials to disappear? My bad habits to slide out of sight? My weaknesses to become strengths?

Because that’s what most of MY prayers are focused on.

“Help me fix this.”

But I can think of scriptural examples of prophets and other good people who did not get everything “fixed”.

Who endured a “thorn in their flesh” their entire lifetime.

Whose weaknesses stayed as weaknesses.

Now of course, sometimes He does help to take these trials and bad habits away.

He could do absolutely anything.

So… have I followed up my pleas of “Please help me overcome this!”

With, “But, what is THY will for this weakness”?

It’s a small but powerful shift.

And I think I’m ready to be led to the answer.

“What is the will of the Lord…?” D&C 125:1

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post What is the will of the Lord? first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.