Digging Higher
I decided after an epiphany I had last week, I wanted to make the first series in Giving Virtue a Voice a weekly message that shares insights from the "Come, Follow Me" lessons. My hope is that together we can explore ways to connect the spiritual principles covered in the CFM curriculum to our daily, temporal pursuits.
Since this is my first official post in the blog, I feel like I should begin by giving you a glimpse into who I am, where I've come from, and why this blog is such a blessing to me.
I mentioned last week that one of my greatest dreams has always been to become an inspirational writer and a motivational speaker. As a child, I used to deliver motivational messages to imaginary audiences. I would sit on my swing set for long stretches of time, dreaming up motivational books I would someday write. Then, as I grew older, the swing set came down and our backyard became a track for riding Honda 50 and Trail 70 minibikes. I would come home from school and literally ride in circles until my mom called us inside for dinner. While circling the yard, I would dream of delivering keynote addresses to large crowds, or I would imagine being interviewed on a television talk show about my latest book. My mind lived in a wonderful world of imagination with dreams larger than life.
And then I hit adolescence, and those dreams died a quick death.
I realized (because when you're 13 years old you believe what the "world" tells you to believe), that I was a nobody. I was not tall enough, smart enough, popular enough, blonde enough, talented enough, or special enough. I had an intense longing to "fit in" and to belong -- to someone. Anyone.
At that time, I understood very little about God, and I knew nothing about His plan for our happiness. I fumbled my way through junior high and into high school trying desperately to be like the girls who were popular. When, at 15 years old, I found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I embraced it with all my heart. I learned that I was a daughter of God with divine potential and eternal value and worth. I turned away from my former life and friends, and I looked forward with great hope to my future.
Opposition Shows Up
And then the tempter came. He knew exactly where my weaknesses lay, and by the time I turned 17 years old, I was convinced once again, that I was nobody special. In my head, I believed in everything the church taught, but in my heart, I felt that all those promised blessings were meant for others--people; who were special. There were not meant for me.
It has taken me 40 years....40 YEARS! To receive God's perfect love for me and to know--really know--that I am somebody special to my Father in Heaven and to His Son, Jesus Christ. This is one reason why this week's "Come Follow Me" lesson has touched my heart so deeply. You see, the tempter tried to do to the Savior what he successfully did to me for so many years. He tried to make Jesus question his divine potential. He tried to veer Him away from His true purpose for leaving the throne of God and coming to this earth.
There is not room enough in one blog post for me to share all the thoughts and insights that have come to me as I have pondered the teachings in Matthew 4 and Luke 4-5, but I hope to plant the seed of an idea, and that no matter where you are in life, or where you are in your walk along the covenant path, or where you are in your temporal pursuits, you will find some meaning in what I have chosen to share.
I have title my first episode in the CFM series "DIGGING HIGHER."
To give credit where credit is due, I full-on stole the phrase, "Dig higher" from a speaker who gave a talk in our ward a couple of years ago. I have adopted her phrase as my personal mantra in my study of the gospel. I love the imagery of digging deep in order to gain higher perspectives. This works with secular learning as well. 🤓
I have spent the majority of my scripture study this week searching for a deeper understanding of the temptations of Christ and how they relate to the temptations that we face in our day. The comparisons seem to be pretty straight forward, but I could not shake the feeling that I was missing something important--something that the Spirit really wanted to teach me. I kept reading and re-reading the passages. I followed all the scripture chains in the footnotes. I recorded notes in my scripture journal. Yet, still, it felt as though I was missing something vital. I knew I needed to DIG HIGHER.
I decided to begin again, only this time I did it through writing. Writing is like magic (to me). When I write, the Spirit often whispers to me and gives to me what I consider golden nuggets from Heaven. I love that feeling when I realized I am being taught by the Holy Ghost!
The First Temptation of Christ
For the remainder of this post, I will share some insights I gained while writing about the first temptation of Christ: “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he (Jesus) answered and said, It is written Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:3-4)
Notice that the first thing Satan does is to try to plant a seed of doubt about Christ’s divinity — “IF thou be the Son of God …” He used a similar tactic with Moses on the Mount, he used it on me, and probably, he has used it on you as well. He does it constantly. Fortunately, Jesus did not take the bait.
Clearly, the temptation to turn the stones into bread correlates directly to Christ’s physical hunger after fasting for so long, but have you ever asked yourself why changing stones into bread was considered a temptation? Where is the sin in feeding yourself when you’re hungry? After all, Jesus turned water into wine, and he turned five loaves of bread and two fishes into enough food to feed a multitude of 5,000. So why then, was Satan’s temptation to turn the stones into bread considered a temptation? On the surface, this does not seem like a terrible thing for Christ to do.
As I dug a little deeper, however, I might have stumbled upon a possible explanation.
Christ Did All He Did For Us
I believe the temptation here tests the Savior’s very purpose for coming to earth — to save us. Satan was trying to get Jesus to give in to his physical need, to allow his flesh to control his spirit, and to use his Godly power to gratify his own physical needs. Jesus understood that his power was never meant to serve his own purposes. His power comes through his infinite and eternal love for His Father and for each of us. When he performed miracles, he did for the sole purpose of serving and blessing others. He never used His Godly ability to benefit or improve his own circumstances. This has been a chief point of mockery and criticism by non-believers for centuries, who ask the question, “If Jesus was really God, then why couldn’t he save himself from being crucified?” The more correct question these critics should be asking is not why couldn’t he save himself, but why wouldn’t he save himself? Discussion for another day, right?
Just imagine if Satan had been successful in tempting Jesus to do something for himself — something that seemed innocent enough and not harmful to anyone — The mere idea goes completely against our Savior’s very purpose and nature.
What about us? Does Satan ever tempt us to do something that isn’t technically a sin … but that goes against our very purpose and nature as sons and daughters of God? If you doubt this happens, then you have never known someone with an addiction. (Yet another discussion for another day.)
Dual Beings
We are dual beings, temporal and spiritual. Eating bread may satisfy our temporal need for nourishment, but it cannot satisfy the need to nourish our spirit. If we focus solely on one, the other will eventually starve. Christ’s ability to resist the temptation to satisfy his hunger is a lesson to each of us about the importance of overcoming our natural man tendencies and allowing the will of our spirit to overcome the will of our flesh.
Like the Savior, when we use our power —- the gifts and talents with which we have been blessed —- to serve and benefit others, we come to understand the meaning of losing ourselves to find ourselves. When we focus on the needs of others, we are manifesting through our deeds our willingness to become like Jesus …. our willingness to develop the pure love of Christ towards our fellow men …. Our willingness to develop the Godly virtue of charity.
Man Shall Not Live By Break Alone
Now, let’s consider for a moment Christ’s response: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Time to dig a little higher.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Certainly, this suggests that we need to nourish our spirits by feasting on the word of God, but every time I read this verse, I get the nagging feeling that there is more to Christ’s response than what it means on the surface. As I followed the scripture chains in the footnotes, I came to realize that “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” refers not only to modern and ancient scriptures but to the Covenants we make at baptism and in the temple.
The Sacrament
In the ordinance of the Sacrament, the bread represents the body of Christ, or his mortal body, which he willingly sacrificed when he gave up his life on the cross. But bread is also referred to sometimes as representing immortality — as in, the body that Christ laid down (for us), and then took up again as a resurrected, immortal body. Having broken the bands mortality (death) he could then guarantee every single one of God’s children immortality. But we don’t take the bread, alone, when we partake of the Sacrament.
Dig higher ….
“For behold, this is my work and my glory–to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)
Immortality, is one half of God’s “work and glory.” What about eternal life?
Do you see where this going?
Dig higher ….
You see, Jesus was right! (Well, duh! Of course, He was!)
Man shall not “live” by bread alone!
We will all rise with an immortal body, so that part of the Lord’s work is finished. But we cannot live the life God lives …. Eternal life… just by becoming immortal beings. We must also drink of his blood! It is through the blood of Christ’s atonement that we are cleansed from our sins and sanctified, or made holy. Only then can we live forever in the presence of God.
Golden Nugget for the Week
When we partake of the Sacrament each week, we are obeying the command in Christ’s response to Satan that, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” The word shall in terms of law, is an imperative command. In order to renew our covenants made through the saving ordinance of baptism, we must partake of both–the body and the blood of the Lamb. It is by partaking both of the bread (body) and the blood of Christ that we can qualify to enter the gates of the kingdom as resurrected, immortal beings who are spotless before God.
Thus, man shall not live by bread alone ….. Not if we want to live forever in the presence of God, and live as God lives.
And there it is …. my golden nugget for the week.
This blog is the beginning of me fulfilling that childhood dream of mine to someday become a motivational and inspirational writer and speaker. I am taking my own advice from last week’s vodcast and making my own path straight. I am removing the obstacles of self-doubt and fear of ridicule and discomfort that come with trying something new, particularly at this stage of my life. If I start at the bottom, then there is nowhere to go but up, right? I want to learn as much as I can, so please offer your advice and suggestions for improving my blog and YouTube vodcasts. I welcome your help.
If you enjoyed reading this I hope you will consider sharing the link with your friends and family on social media.
Follow me on Instagram @melinda.r.morgan