Friday, September 27, 2013

Baptism of Jesus Christ

Week 3: Baptism of Jesus, and Being Born Again


All four of the Gospel writers record the baptism of Jesus, and the remarkable moment in time when we have Jesus standing in the water humbly receiving baptism at John's hands, God the Father speaking from Heaven, and the Holy Ghost manifesting himself in the sign of the dove. The church has created some beautiful Bible videos, so we watched this one to get a feel of the wonder of that moment. It is in the Digging Deeper section. Also in that section you will find some interesting facts about how reading the scriptures affects our mental capacity. We knew they were helping our spirits, and it turns out they also help our brains work better!

What does it mean to be born again? Jesus challenged Nicodemus with the statement that unless we are born of water and spirit, we cannot see, or enter the kingdom of Heaven. We explored some scriptures that talk of this doctrine and examined what that "mighty change" might look like in our daily lives by taking the "quiz" in Alma 5. 

We had the delightful Daryl Allen talk to us about rejoicing in Christ, and her experience singing with Gladys Knight's gospel choir. She led us in a soul-satisfying rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" and challenged us not to be afraid to use Jesus's name, as it brings a spirit with it when we do. We could feel it! So we decided that this week we are going to mope and worry a little less and feel the joy of the Savior's love a little more.

Our question for the week came in the form of a writing assignment, based on the scripture in 2 Nephi 25:26 which states: And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. And to that end we were all assigned to write our feelings about the Savior and send them to someone we love. 

Next week we embark with Jesus on his Galilean ministry and the miracles begin. I woke up this morning wondering, just how far did he walk during his three-year ministry? Let's see if we can figure that out...