The crowd is buzzing, there all yelling at the top of their lungs going crazy! Only problem... it isn't for you. They are all screaming and yelling to try to make you mess up. You are not playing at home. You are on the road. The sign of a good team and a good player is when they are able to win on the road. It is one of the most difficult things to do. It shows that you are able to stay focused under pressure even with all these distractions around you. When you master being able to win on the road you are a pretty good team. How you win on the road is with preparation determination and ultimately staying focused. You got to do your job and win. No other option.
I am going to relate this to us in this life. We are on the field and the rest of the world is the crowd. There all buzzing cheering and yelling to try to get you to do wrong. They yell and cheer when you mess up and are completely silent when you succeed. We need to block the crowd out. We need to listen to our "coaches" and focus on the task at hand so we can continue on to victory! We stay focused by relying on our preparation. You see there is way more that goes into sports then what people think. In football for example there are countless hours of film watching, preparing plays, and practice just for one game. Its a 24/7 job. Our preparation is as simple as daily prayer and scripture study. When you do these things you are much more prepared for the world we live in and you do not focus on the "crowd" but on the task at hand. Which is to gain eternal life. We truly are playing on the road. Will we crumble under pressure? or come out on top? Its up to us. So lets better prepare and have better focus. That is what I am trying to get across to you.
Any ideas or inspirational stories for this Blog? Have Questions about the Mormon church? Send me a message on Facebook! www.facebook.com/max.elmer (also there is a link to my facebook in the top left corner of the blog.) or send me an email at max.elmer@myldsmail.net
The need for a Quarterback. Very needful in the game of football. He is the one who takes the plays the coach gives him and puts them into action. Without a Quarterback your offencive attack is hurting. A good Quarterback is one who takes the plays then gets them done. He stands tall in the pocket then throws it to whos open. A Quarterback is one who leads the team onto victory! However they are many other key people on the field and they have to do their job also. If a wide receiver doesn't go all out who is the Quarterback going to throw to? So football is a team effort with the quarterback at the lead.
Alright so who is the Quarterback in our life's today? I am going to relate the Quarterback to Prophets. Well who is a prophet? Well some examples of a prophet are Moses, Noah and Abraham in the Old Testament. There are many other examples of prophets throughout scripture. What does a prophet do? well in the book of Amos it says: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." (Amos 3:7). I think the most important part of that is that it says god will do NOTHING save it be threw his servents the prophets. God needs a prophet on earth to tell us what he needs us to know. Just like how a football team will do NOTHING without a Quarterback... we need a prophet. The prophet is the Quarterback on the earth today. He relays gods messages just like a Quarterback relays messages from the coach. He executes Gods "plays" and makes sure that they happen. The prophet will do all that he can and its up to us to be his "wide receivers." A prophet cant do it all. He needs the support from the rest of us.
So we are the wide receivers. What does this mean? As a wide reciver your job is to get open so the Quarterback can throw you the ball. This means effort, you got to go all out and try your best. the Quarterback will throw the ball up to you but are you going to get under it and catch it? or will you just assume its overthrown or not a good pass and just stop runing. Im going to releate this to councel that the prophet gives us. Are we going to follow it and catch the ball or think its to tough or not important and not even try. Just like how a good receiver try's to catch everything we got to obey the prophets council.
We need a prophet on the earth today just like how you need a Quarterback on the field in a football game. lucky for us we got a prophet! His name is Thomas S. Monson. Why would god not provide us with a prophet when he used to? It would be like just deciding you dont need a Quarterback. It doesn't work like that. we need a prophet and we have a prophet that holds the power of god! we have evidence of this all go to my blog Why do mormons have the Book of Mormon? to find out about this. Or you can contact and ask me about it!
We have a prophet on the earth today. I know we do.
Any ideas or inspirational stories for this Blog? Have Questions about the Mormon church? Send me a message on Facebook! www.facebook.com/max.elmer (also there is a link to my facebook in the top left corner of the blog.) or send me an email at max.elmer@myldsmail.net
The book that came from the dust (Isaiah 29: 4), The book that was delivered to the learned and the unlearned man (Isaiah 29: 11-12), The stick of Ephraim and The stick of Joseph (Ezekiel 37: 15-20), The fruitful branches over the wall (Genesis 49 22-26), other sheep Christ has which are not of this fold (John 10: 16). The angel prophesied about in Revelations with the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14: 6).
There are plenty of references in the Bible that talk about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. So what is the Book of Mormon? well in the first part of the Book of Mormon in the intro it reads "The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains, as does the Bible, the fulness of the everlasting gospel." so it walks hand and hand with the bible. It is not taking its place. It is another testimony of Jesus Christ. It is the evidence we have that our church is the one and only true church.
So what does the Book of Mormon talk about? Well lets turn to the book itself to find out. It says in the book of second Nephi: "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ" (2 Nephi 25: 26.) So this book talks about Christ and his teachings! It talks about Christ and his dealings with the ancient people on this the American continent! It Prophesied about Christs birth his death and his resurrection. It prophesies that Christ will return to the earth again. What more could you want in a book? It is a second witness to prove to the world that Jesus is the Christ. Its just like in a court case. Two witnesses is always much more powerful then one witness.
How do i know that the Book of Mormon is the word of god? That it is a true and honest record written by the Prophets of old? Well in the bible it reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1:5). So if you wana know the truth ask God. Its cool how it works like that.
In the Book of Mormon it gives a promise. It is given by the last man to write in it. his name was Moroni. It reads: "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." (Moroni 10: 4-5) This is a promise given to us that if we ask with an open heart really wanting to know if it is true or not. That god will tell us it is true. It may come as a warm felling, it may come as a knowledge, it may come because this church makes since. the felling is different for everyone! but i can promise you that it will come. God does answer prayers. He truly does.
Since the Book of Mormon is true what does that mean? Since the Book of Mormon is true, that means it came forth the way Joseph Smith said it came forth. Meaning that he was telling the truth when he said he saw God the Father and his son Jesus Christ. It means that they showed them selves to him and told him that none of the churches where true. It means that he was a prophet of God and that he did restore Christs church back to the earth. You see Joseph Smith had a question many of us had. He wondered which church was true. He was reading the bible and came across that scripture in the book of James that I shared early. which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1:5). He took this scripture to heart. He decided if any one lacked wisdom he did so he decided to ask god which church to join. he went out to a grove of trees to pray, and in his own words he said "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!
They went on to tell him that none of the churches were true that they where going to restore the truth back to the earth threw him. He was given the Book of Mormon as evidence of this. so when people read and pray about the book of Mormon. they can know that he was a prophet of god. countless of people have done this. have you?
Take the challenge read and pray from the Book of Mormon. I know that this book is true. I know it with all my heart.
Football is not a contact sport. It is a collision sport! I love football. It is by far my favorite sport to watch. The big hits, the wonderful runs, the precision passes, a stadium filled with 70000 fans screaming their head off! It is awesome! Who couldn't like football? Anyways to my point in order to play football you got to be smart. Yes football players are not just big dumb jocks. Id be willing to say that football is one of the most complex sports. You got to make sure your in the right place at the right time because if not, the offense is going to hit you for a big gain. Or on the reverse side the Defense will hit you for a loss and the next thing you know its 3rd and 15 and your in a bad situation. So you got to be smart to play football and you got to be tough. You got to hit harder then they hit. so what does this mean?
Well lets relate this to us. We are the defense the adversary, (the devil,) is the offense. He can not "gain yards" on us unless we let him. This means what? We got to number one be smart and the second thing is we got to be tough. We got to be smart by not getting "caught out of position." we do this by not letting ourselves be put in positions where we can choose wrong. If we put our self in a position where we can do wrong its like being caught out of position on the Football field. which means the next thing you know the ball is on the other side of the field then you and you are way out of position and you get hit for a big gain. Its like saying this in our lives. "I can go hang out with those people, I just wont do what they are doing." Over time (like football) you get worn out and then boom there is the big play you where scared of. You end up doing things that there doing. I have seen multiple examples of this (including myself.) I have been caught on the wrong side of the field many times. Do not let this happen to you.
So now you have been hit for a big play. you have caught yourself falling into temptation. Now comes the being tough part. They have one yard to go before they score. You know that they are going to run the ball up the middle. This is where you got to be tough, you got to hit instead of them hitting you. This is really what shows who is tougher. You know where the ball is going but can you stop them? This is like sin in our lives. we know we are doing whats wrong but can we stop? Are we going to put forth the effort to stop doing whats wrong and began to do whats right? This is where we got to be tough.
Its a good thing that we got help from the best middle linebacker in the game (no im not talking about Ray Lewis.) We have Jesus Christ to issue the blow. He is more then willing to come in the game. we just got to let him.
I testify that Jesus is the Christ. He suffered and died for us so we can return to live with God. He knows what we are going through we just got to let him in our lives. He has stuck out his hand to help us up off the "field," to brush us off, then join us in the fight. I testify that he has restored his true church back to the earth. I testify that the Book of Mormon is true and that it came forth the way Joseph Smith said it came forth. I testify that the head of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints is Jesus Christ. This is the only church that holds the power of god on this our earth. I know that to be true. You can to.
To find out more about the Gospel and Sports Click Here
To find out more about the Book of Mormon click Here
Any ideas or inspirational stories for this Blog? Have Questions about the Mormon church? Send me a message on Facebook! www.facebook.com/max.elmer (also there is a link to my facebook in the top left corner of the blog.) or send me an email at max.elmer@myldsmail.net
Practice. Yes we are not talking about the game we are talking about practice. What does practice do for you? Well simply put practice makes the game. Every athlete puts countless amount of hours into their sport before they even have a game. Yes that means work. Practice most of the time is not something you look forward to. I remember during my football days I really did not look forward to running around with 30 pounds of pads in 110 degree weather (Im from Arizona so it was really hot). However though the more you put into it the more you get out of it. (amazing how that works.) What my coaches would always tell us is that "practice does not make perfect" (contrary to the popular saying "practice makes perfect"). They would always tell us "Perfect practice makes perfect." If you dont put your all into practice then it is just going threw the motions. You get nothing out of that. so how can we have "perfect practice" in our life?
I am going to relate practice to scripture reading. Yes scripture reading. It is something most of us probably dont look forward to during the day. However, like practice, it is very important. It is what gets us ready for the "game" we all call life. Well why do we have scriptures? In the book of Romans it says: "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15: 4) So there where written for our learning and our benefit. The scriptures will help us in our life. They where written for our day. many people have given up there lives so we can have these records. They gave up their lives so we can have the "practice" we need to go throughout our life with peace and comfort.
Just like in practicing for a sport we need to have perfect practice in scripture study. this means just not going threw the motions. we need to study it with all our hearts in it. it doesn't do as any good just to blow threw it and just think "well that was a nice story." we need to study it with all our strength and relate it to us in our lives today. that is what they where written for.
May we have "perfect practice" in our lifes by reading and studying from the scriptures with a full and open heart.
Any ideas or inspirational stories for this Blog? send me an email at max.elmer@myldsmail.net or send me a message on facebook! www.facebook.com/max.elmer (also there is a link to my facebook in the top left corner of the blog)
