As I was in the temple a couple of weeks ago, I had the most beautiful thought. My thought reminded me of a scripture that I read tonight. I considered as I read he fact that, Lehi's group had just left their homes, and all of their belongings; as if that wasn't sacrifice enough? They were sacrificing even more, after traveling days into the wilderness.
1 Nephi 2:7
7 And it came to pass that he built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God. http://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/2.7?lang=eng
My thought in the temple, was about the stones that are used to build an altar. For us, the stones can be representation of all that we do to serve God in His kingdom here on earth.
Like Lehi's group, we are asked to leave the world; and enter into a place that some might consider lonely, dreary or undesirable; but to Lehi's group, the wilderness was a great blessing; and a place where many promises could be bestowed upon them; just as leaving the world is full of blessings and great joy, for us as well.
Lehi's group literally took rocks and built an altar, to thank God upon, as they placed their offering onto it.
Today we too have left the world as His disciples. We build our altars by sacrificing our time daily, to do those things that will make our offerings pleasing unto Him.
Some examples are :
As I study more diligently for a lesson that I need to prepare, the rocks that I am stacking, Will be more sturdy, and my offering, or my lesson, will more pleasing unto Him.
As I take extra time to make a person, or child feel loved, my rocks are bigger, that make the platform that my children will stand on, more sturdy, and my offering of raising up righteous seed unto Him, a more pleasing offering.
There are so many examples. and yet, as I ponder upon what I have been reading in the Old Testament about Cain and Abel, and what made each of their offerings acceptable, and unacceptable to the Lord; I consider the inner heart of man, and our motivations; or the reasons why we are trying to build this altar to offer thanks to Him. If we have any selfish reasons behind our building the altar, or the sacrifices that we make in the gospel; say maybe for reasons such as we want to appear a certain way, or because we feel that we have to do these things in order to not be damned; then our offering is unacceptable to Him; just as it was for Cain, as satan was Cain's motivations and influence behind his actions.
When our sacrifices in the gospel of our natural man desires are pure, and holy, our altars are being build upon a sturdy foundation.
The way I vividly saw each act of sacrifice in our lives, as the rocks that build our alters, was beautiful to me.
I saw how one offering even in our day, beyond just paying tithing, could be more whole and acceptable to the Lord, than the next....And the representation of how the altar was built, was a wonderful new way for me to see how we are building our altars daily.
I love to sacrifice even some of the things that I love, for Him. Say some times not getting a workout in, because I need to spend more time with a child, or say sometimes my sacrifice is actually not going to the temple, where I love to be, because I need to spend time with my spouse. Say sometimes, receiving a lower grade because I need to attend the temple and it's the only day I can go, when I have class, and I must miss it.
Say sometimes making the sacrifice of leaving dishes in the sink for a night, in order that I can spend more time in scripture study and prayer.
As I make righteous sacrifices, I can see how truly, in the end, what I am sacrificing is all the parts of me, that I don't want around anyways. It is really not a sacrifice at all, once it's all over.
I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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