First, in the book of Jarom verse 11 we read the following, “Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labor diligently… persuading [the people] to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was.” The footnotes indicate that this passage is dated 399 B.C. So four hundred years before Christ actually came, prophets were exhorting the people to believe in Him as though He already was.

Now take a look at King Benjamin in Mosiah 3:13 (dated about 124 B.C.). King Benjamin told the people that whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceedingly great joy, even as though he had already come among them.”

And again when Abinadi was teaching in about 148 B.C. (Mosiah 16:6) he used some very interesting wording. Notice the words – he said, “And now if Christ had not come into the world (remember this is 148 years before He came), speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption.”

What can we learn from these scriptural examples? When we believe in things to come as though they already were, the blessings are available now. Our Heavenly Father loves all of his children – not just the ones who came after Christ. What great things to come could bless your life now with that kind of faith?

(Re-printed with permission from the author, Dr. Paul Jenkins. Originally printed in, “Orem 4th Ward News”.)

When a citizen commits a crime, they do so in trade for some of their rights. In other words, were I to kill someone, I would give up my rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness and depending on the scenario, I could lose my right to life.

This is natural cause and effect. Every action has a consequence. Certain consequences are desirable, others are not. We learn what to do and what not to do based on receiving these consequences. This is a law of the universe. It cannot be changed.


When we do try to change this law of the universe and take away consequences, we damage not only the person to whom those consequences rightly belong, but we also damage our society.

The damage to the person is that they do not learn what they were supposed to.

The damage to society is that the individual will continue to commit crimes because there is no fear of adequate negative consequence. This leads others to see a lack of negative consequence who then are more likely to commit crime as well.

What exactly the adequate consequences are for any particular crime is a topic for another discussion.

The fact that there is are not adequate negative consequences in place for many crimes is obvious by the number of citizens inhabiting prison cells. What we need is to stop thinking that citizens who commit crimes still have all their rights. They commit crime? They lose most of their rights. They commit crime, they owe a great debt to society. A criminal needs reform and they need to be able to make restitution. They need to repay their debt to society.

In other words, we need to bring back work programs to prisons. We need to rip out all the cable and satellite TV from the prisons. We need to make the food less enjoyable and more utilitarian. Nourishment is all the food should provide. College education? Why should a criminal get a college education for free when honest citizens have a hard enough time getting grants and scholarships? The education a criminal should get is through service to the community. Service and hard work is what builds character and is what is missing from society. If they do not learn it in their families or communities, prison must be the next best option for these wayward citizens.

To that end, a friend of mine had an idea. We should put prisoners to work producing electricity. Put a dynamo in every stationary bike and then hook those bikes up to the grid. Every time a prisoner pedals the bike, they produce power. Put them to work pedaling every day. Energy crisis averted!

How about roads? Prisoners used to make roads. Put them back to work making roads!

Jobs that citizens do not want to do? Let the prisoners do them.

Let us put our prisoners to work. Let them repay their debts. Let us not rob them of the valuable negative consequences for their negative actions. Put our prisoners to work! But not for money. Heavens no! Make them work for Restitution.

If negative consequences are adequate, our prisons will stop filling up. Prison used to be a punishment. These days prisons seem to be 5 Star hotels. A prisoner is released and they do whatever they need in order to get back in? Why?! Because prison is not a deterrent! It is a haven!

Please share your comments with me on this topic.

It would probably seem that Easter is about a magical bunny… that lays eggs. Eggs that mostly contain sugary treats, though occasionally there are other things in the eggs, including baby chickens (what?!). The colors associated with the holiday are usually bright and pastel. Adults hide the eggs and then tell their children that the magical Easter Bunny has visited them and hidden special eggs for them to find. The children then look for the eggs and put them in some sort of basket. After the hunt, the children glut themselves on the contents of the eggs and other treats provided for the occasion. It also appears quite popular to create huge chocolate effigies of this magical bunny and proceed to smash it to pieces and consume it.

Therefore, Easter is about paying homage to a magical bunny. That seems to be the extent of this tradition. Nothing is discussed about the origin of this bunny. No morals or lessons are actively taught. The whole reason for the holiday appears to be an excuse for lavishing sugar upon children.

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Back to reality. I know what Easter is. At least, I know what it is supposed to be. Easter is an extension of Christmas, which celebrated the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Easter is supposed to be a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Modern Easter celebrations have gone the way of modern Christmas celebrations. They are both currently bastardizations of the truth.

OH BUT WAIT, the symbolism of the new life in the “Easter Eggs” and the everlasting green of the “Christmas Trees” is beautiful and helps the children better understand the meanings since they cannot possibly grasp what Easter and Christmas are really about.

That is nonsense. Complete nonsense.

Current Easter and Christmas traditions do nothing at all to help anyone remember Jesus Christ. The holidays have become meaningless and hollow. They have become commercialized, selfish, and self indulgent. They mock the truth of Christ. They mock the reality of Christ.

I can see Satan laughing now, as we “celebrate” these supposedly sacred holidays. Not passing on an example of love for our Savior or an example of true discipleship to our children. Instead, passing on unhealthy eating habits, gluttonous desires for presents, and the ritualistic worship of false idols, named Bunny and Santa.

I hereby apologize to my children for contributing to the mockery of Christ by perpetuating these false traditions in my own home. For some reason, today I finally realized what I have been doing. In celebrating these two holidays, I have been remiss. By not actively doing something to fix the problem, I have been inactively allowing the default to take place.

I vow to do better.

Please leave a comment and let me know how you celebrate Easter and Christmas in ways that help teach your children about the true reasons for those holidays?

I encourage everyone to read this speech. Here are a couple of quotes from it that caught my attention:

Too often, as a result, we overlook an obvious fact: finding the right answer is impossible unless we have asked the right question.

You just think that because democracy works for you that it will work everywhere. It only works where there is a strong foundation of this particular type of religion.

Those who seek to minimize the role that religions can play on the public stage are … seeking to minimize the very institutions that have given us our civil liberties in the first place.

The full speech can be found here: “The Importance of Asking the Right Questions”

(Thanks to Marie Norris for introducing me to this speech.)

The part that I found interesting was that God told Moses to create a brass serpent and fasten it to the top of a pole. Then, when someone was bitten by one of the serpents, all they had to do was look at the brass serpent and they were healed.

This story is of course very familiar to me, as I have heard it retold since I was a child. However, when we read it through this time, I saw it from a different perspective.

I realized that this was an excellent analogy to help me better understand the age old arguments about faith versus works for salvation.

In the brass serpent story, God prepared the way to be saved, but there was still a task to be performed in order to RECEIVE that salvation.

Just as many symbols that were given to the Israelites, the brass serpent was in similitude of Jesus Christ.

We have all been bitten by the fiery serpents we call sin. Our Heavenly Father has prepared a way for us to be healed from those deadly bites. He raised up His Son, even Jesus Christ. He has prepared a way for us to be saved. And as free as it is for the taking, He still requires us to do something to RECEIVE that salvation. First, we need to have faith in Jesus Christ that He can actually save us. Second, we need to look unto him. Jesus Christ is our perfect example. They way He lived His life is the perfect example to us for how we should be living our lives.

Thus, faith leads to good works. Good works are fruit of faith. That is why James told us that faith with out works is dead. Because if you truly have faith in Jesus Christ then your actions will mirror His actions.

We certainly cannot save ourselves without Jesus, yet He also cannot save us without our acknowledging and accepting that salvation and performing the tasks that He requires of us (His commandments). He has made salvation freely available for us, but we still need to RECEIVE it. We need to have faith in Jesus Christ that He can save us, then look unto Him as an exemplar of how we should live our lives, and live accordingly.

You have probably heard that we should feast upon the scriptures, in other words, the Word of God. You may have also heard the common analogy citing your mind to recall a feast from Thanksgiving or some other occasion where there is much eating. While this is analogy is usually adequate, I find that is not realistic, for I do not find myself stuffing myself silly as I do on those several special occasions during the year.

Our lesson asked us to compare feasting to snacking. When you think of a snack, compared to a feast, you will most certainly think of a quantity that is much less. I think we should also include quality in that comparison. When I feast, the food is usually available in abundant amounts, but it is also exquisitely delectable, or should be.

If you compared reading the scriptures to eating food it would be true to say that, “Eating Food is to the Body what Reading the Scriptures is to our Spirit”. On average, we feed our physical body 2-3 times a day, often with snacks of some sort in between. If we are not in the habit of reading the scriptures every day, then perhaps we at least read one verse ever now and then. Compare that to eating food.

With all that in mind, please consider the following analogy. Let us say that, for this analogy, a snack is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

On Monday, I woke up and read a page out of the scriptures. That is all I read on Monday. Tuesday I forgot to read. Wednesday, I remembered to read just as I was getting into bed at night. I read a couple verses quickly and then fell asleep. Thursday, I again forgot to read the scriptures. Friday, I decided to do better and read 2 pages in the morning. Saturday, I once again remembered as I was falling asleep. I grabbed the scriptures, read a verse, barely, and fell asleep. Sunday, I took time to read a chapter.

On Monday, I woke up and had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to eat. That is all I ate on Monday. On Tuesday, I forgot to eat. Wednesday, I remembered to eat just as I was getting into bed at night. I had a couple bites of PBJ and then fell asleep. Thursday, I again forgot to eat any food. Friday, I decided to do better and ate 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Saturday, I once again remembered as I was falling asleep. I grabbed a sandwich, ate one bite, barely, and fell asleep. Sunday, I took time to eat a peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and a glass of milk.

Nutritionally speaking, how am I doing? Let’s do the math. In one week I feed my body 4.5 PBJ sandwiches, an apple and some milk. Would that nutritional lifestyle sustain me for very long? I think malnourishment would kick in pretty quick and I would probably be visiting an emergency room not too long after that.

Yet that is exactly what we are doing to our Spirit when we do not read the scriptures. We are starving our Spirit to death.

Not only do we need to read the scriptures every day, but we need to study the scriptures. We need to feast on the Word of God. It needs to be delectable to us.

Reading the scriptures from cover to cover is certainly a good thing. Yet that is like eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is somewhat tasty and can provide some nourishment, depending on the quality of the ingredients. However, it is not extremely satisfying or enriching.

How much more appetizing is large crock pot full of thick homemade spaghetti sauce served hot over a heaping helping of steaming spaghetti noodles, topped with a generous portion of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Served on the side with hot toasted garlic bread, a crisp house salad with all the trimmings, and an endless supply of Concorde grape juice.

If you do not have the desire to feed your Spirit so richly and abundantly, I challenge you to pray to your Heavenly Father to bless you with that desire. Pray for it often. Eat PBJ until you feel the desire to feast. Then when you are finally blessed with that desire, thank Heavenly Father and ask him to continue blessing you with that desire. The Word of God can and will be delicious to you, if you let it.

Bon Appétit!

This scripture has continued to be on my mind. Having that be a focus of my thoughts, I was recently led to think specifically about what “The Kingdom” is.

A “kingdom” can have several meanings. The meaning that is the most poignant and relevant to this discussion indicates that a kingdom is comprised of the inhabitants thereof. A king may have a castle, walls and weapons of protection, and even endless amounts of land. Yet what meaning does a king or a kingdom have except there be people who live in, work on, and enjoy the land and the protection of that king and those walls and those weapons.

God is our King. The earth is His land. We are His people.

I submit, that we are the Kingdom of God. We, the people, the brothers and sisters of a mutual Heavenly Father. We, all of us, are that Kingdom of which we have been commanded to seek first.

With that bit of perspective in mind, it gives a bit more, and perhaps different, meaning to the verse, “seek ye first the Kingdom of God”.

I interpret that to be yet another form of the same message that our God has given us over and over again.

“As I have loved you … love one another.” (John 13:34)

The greatest commandment, second only to love of God, is

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:39)

In other words, we need to be looking at each other as siblings. We need to be focused more on doing things for each other. We need to be doing things for each other out of love and concern for one another, not for money or power. If we are truly seeking first to serve and love each other, all the riches and blessings of the universe will flow unto us as a natural consequence of our actions.

This building, this city, this state, this nation, this continent, this world, this universe is nothing without us. WE are the most important things in this universe. God made this universe for US, not us for it. We need to treat each other as the most precious and important possessions in the universe. We need to cherish, love, and look after each other.

For we are, the Kingdom.