Come, Follow Me Daily Study Guide for the week of June 8-14, 2020 covering Alma 8-12. For personal and/or family study of the scriptures, geared towards families with teenagers, single adults, and empty nesters.
*This is a suggested outline that coincides with the Come, Follow Me manual. There is not just one right way when it comes to studying the scriptures. Everyone should study in a way that is best for them, but I do hope that you find these outlines helpful.
**I highly suggest getting a scripture journal. Throughout the year there will be several times that I will suggest jotting something down in your scripture journal. These are also great for writing down any impressions or “Aha” moments that you might have as you study the scriptures.
***A free PDF DOWNLOAD of the Study Guide is available at the bottom of this post, making it easy for those who’d like to print out a copy. OR you can add Melanie’s Library to your mobile device home screen by following these instructions, click HERE
****SONGS – For a list of suggested songs for each day of the week, be sure and check out the blog called Music for Latter-day Life by clicking HERE
FHE DAY
Start the week off right with a Family Home Evening that introduces what you’ll be studying during the week. Sign up for the Teach Me FHE email group and receive an FHE outline delivered right to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up at the bottom of this post.
GOD JUDGES HIS CHILDREN ACCORDING TO THE LIGHT & KNOWLEDGE THEY HAVE
BACKGROUND
(Taken from Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Chapter 35)
SHARE THE FOLLOWING FROM THE TEACHINGS OF JOSEPH SMITH:
In November 1823, Alvin Smith, the oldest child of Lucy Mack Smith and Joseph Smith Sr., suddenly became seriously ill and lay near death. Alvin was 25 years old, a strong and capable young man whose hard work contributed greatly to the family’s financial stability. His mother described him as “a youth of singular goodness of disposition,” whose “nobleness and generosity” blessed those around him “every hour of his existence.”
…When Alvin died, the family asked a Presbyterian minister in Palmyra, New York, to officiate at his funeral. As Alvin had not been a member of the minister’s congregation, the clergyman asserted in his sermon that Alvin could not be saved. William Smith, Joseph’s younger brother, recalled: “[The minister] … intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member, but he was a good boy and my father did not like it.”
Pause and answer the following questions:
What are your feelings towards what the Presbyterian minister told Joseph’s family? If that was true, that Alvin had gone to hell, would that have been fair to Alvin who had been a good person?
Finish sharing from the Teachings of Joseph Smith:
In January 1836, many years after Alvin’s death, Joseph Smith received a vision of the celestial kingdom, in which he saw that Alvin, as well as his mother and father, would someday inherit that kingdom. Joseph “marveled how it was that [Alvin] had obtained an inheritance in that kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord had set his hand to gather Israel the second time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins” (D&C 137:6). The voice of the Lord then came to Joseph, declaring:
“All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts” (D&C 137:7–9).
Heavenly Father is the Great Parent of the universe who looks upon the whole of the human family with fatherly care. He cares for everyone with a love that we cannot comprehend. He views everyone without feelings of bias or negativity that most often influences man. When it comes to judgment, you can rest assured that you will find no one more fair than God himself.
SCRIPTURE/MINI LESSON
Invite the youngest child to stand next to the oldest (or show the following picture)
If both had committed the same mistake, how would you determine the punishment given to each? Would the punishment be the same? Why or why not?
Alma’s message to the people in Ammonihah was that because they had hardened their hearts despite being so richly blessed, their state was worse than that of the Lamanites, who sinned mostly in ignorance.
READ: Alma 9: 20-23
What were some of the great blessings God gave the people of Nephi?
What does this contrast teach us about how God judges His children?
TWO QUOTES BY JOSEPH SMITH:
“God judges men according to the use they make of the light which He gives them.”
“Men will be held accountable for the things which they have and not for the things they have not. … All the light and intelligence communicated to them from their beneficent creator, whether it is much or little, by the same they in justice will be judged, and … they are required to yield obedience and improve upon that and that only which is given, for man is not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”
PONDER & DISCUSS
In your scripture journals, make a list of the great blessings God has given you.
What are you doing to stay true to these blessings?
In your journal, write down any changes you feel you need to make and how you’re going to do it.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
CONFERENCE TALK: According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts by Neal A. Maxwell
ENSIGN ARTICLE: Salvation: By Grace or by Works? By Gerald N. Lund
QUOTE: Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. -Orson F. Whitney
GOD’S PLAN IS A PLAN OF REDEMPTION
BACKGROUND
VIDEO: Plan of Salvation – Missionary Style (1:36), click HERE
SCRIPTURE
(Taken from Scripture Study for Latter-day Saint Families)
READ: Alma 12: 25-33 and have your family look for and mark the phrase that is repeated 7 times.
What are other names that you know of for this plan? (Your answers may include: the great plan of happiness, the merciful plan of the great Creator, the plan of salvation, the plan of justice, the great plan of the Eternal God)
GAME
Play the following game to see how well you and your family understand the plan.
INSTRUCTIONS: Divide your family into two teams. Tell them you are going to say a word or phrase that appears in Alma 12:19-37. The object of the game is to see which team can be the first to find the word or phrase in a verse. Have them raise their hands when they find it. Call on the first person to tell what verse it is in. Someone else on the same team must then tell how that word or phrase fits into the plan of redemption.
Choose words from the following list. Do as many as you want to do.
Fall (verse 22)
Tree of life (verses 21, 23, 26)
Probationary state (verse 24)
Resurrection (verses 24-25)
Temporal death (verse 24)
First parents (verse 26)
Judgment (verse 27)
Commandments (verses 31-32)
Repent (verses 33, 37)
Only Begotton Son (verses 33-34)
Rest (verses 34-37)
MINI LESSON
This week in Alma chapters 10-12 we read of a lawyer by the name of Zeezrom. The object of lawyers at that time was to get gain and their strategy was to stir up the people in order to generate business. In chapter 11 we read of the extensive questions that Zeezrom asked Amulek in his attempt to get Amulek to contradict himself and then claim that what Amulek said must not be true.
READ: Alma 11:34-37
Zeezrom tried to convince the people that Amulek was saying that the Son of God “shall not save His people” when in reality Amulek was simply making clear that the Lord could not save people “in their sins” but that he could save them from their sins. (Cross-reference Helaman 5:10 and 1 John 1:9.)
Watch the following video to help you understand the difference between Jesus Christ saving us in our sins and from our sins.
VIDEO: No Unclean Thing (2:31), click HERE
PONDER & DISCUSS
How does that story help explain the difference between Jesus Christ saving us in our sins and from our sins?
*Discuss how Jesus Christ won’t let us in heaven (His House) if we are dirty in our sins but if we wash ourselves clean from sin then we will be allowed in. The only way we can wash ourselves clean from sin is through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
How does Jesus Christ save us from our sins?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
CONFERENCE TALK: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ By Elder D. Todd Christofferson
CONFERENCE TALK: The Great Plan of Happiness By Marcus B. Nash
GOSPEL MEDIA: Collection of Videos on The Plan of Salvation
IF I WILL NOT HARDEN MY HEART, I CAN RECEIVE MORE OF THE WORD OF GOD
BACKGROUND
VIDEO: Studio C’s April Fool’s Backfire (3:08), Click HERE
Consider how her life was affected negatively because she refused to believe (ignore the ending where she was actually doing the pranking). She hardened her heart over one bad incidence in her life – when she had gotten pranked.
SCRIPTURE
There are specific consequences that come to those who harden their hearts. One of those consequences is explained by Alma in the following verses.
READ: Alma 12: 9-14
Why might the Lord withhold His word from those who have hardened their hearts?
What does it mean to harden our hearts? Do you ever notice this tendency in yourself?
MINI LESSON
In today’s world, we are surrounded by men and women with hardened hearts. The word of God is challenged on a daily basis. New generations modify His miracles, doubt His divinity, and reject His Resurrection. We must each choose if we will join those with hardened hearts or open our hearts that we may receive more of God’s word.
Here is a story told by Thomas S. Monson of a man whose hard heart was softened and because of it, he received more of God’s word and gained more understanding.
Robert Blatchford, in his book God and My Neighbor, attacked with vigor accepted Christian beliefs, such as God, Christ, prayer, and immortality. He boldly asserted, “I claim to have proved everything I set out to prove so fully and decisively that no Christian, however great or able he may be, can answer my arguments or shake my case.” He surrounded himself with a wall of skepticism. Then a surprising thing happened. His wall suddenly crumbled to dust. He was left exposed and undefended. Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had scorned and ridiculed. What had caused this profound change in his outlook? His wife died. With a broken heart, he went into the room where lay all that was mortal of her. He looked again at the face he loved so well. Coming out, he said to a friend: “It is she, and yet it is not she. Everything is changed. Something that was there before is taken away. She is not the same. What can be gone if it be not the soul?”
Later [Blatchford] wrote: “Death is not what some people imagine. It is only like going into another room. In that other room we shall find … the dear women and men and the sweet children we have loved and lost.” (I Know That My Redeemer Lives!, Thomas S. Monson, April 2007)
PONDER & DISCUSS
- What caused Blatchford’s change of heart?
- What did he come to know because of his changed heart?
- How have you experienced the promise of receiving a “greater portion of the word”? What was that experience like?
- What can you do to ensure that God’s word is “found in [you]”? If you had God’s word in you, what effect would it have on your “words,” “works,” and “thoughts”? (Alma 12:14).
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
CONFERENCE TALK: I Know That My Redeemer Lives!, Thomas S. Monson, April 2007
NEW ERA ARTICLE: How to Receive God’s Word By Elder Neil L. Andersen
VIDEO: If they harden not their hearts (11:20)
GENERAL CONFERENCE DAY
Study a recent General Conference talk. A great way to study a conference talk is to have your own conference issue of the Ensign and a highlighter. Listen to the talk and as you listen, highlight the part(s) that stands out to you. Then after the talk, review and/or share and discuss what you have highlighted.
THIS WEEK’S TALK: The Great Plan By President Dallin H. Oaks, click HERE
SUMMARY: God’s divine plan of happiness allows all to rely on the Savior. His resurrection redeems all from physical death, and His atoning sacrifice pays the price for the repentant to be cleansed from sin. “This atonement of Jesus Christ is central to the Father’s plan.” Through that atonement, God’s plan provides four great assurances: His suffering and one’s repentance allows sins to be forgiven and remembered no more, He took upon himself all mortal infirmities, His resurrection revokes the finality of physical death, and one’s progress need not conclude with the end of mortality. During the 200th anniversary of the First Vision and the Restoration’s initiation, “we know the Lord’s plan, and we are encouraged by two centuries of its blessings through his restored Church. In this year of 2020, we have what is popularly called 20/20 vision for the events of the past. As
we look to the future, however, our vision is far less sure.” With “more mortally experienced workers” in the spirit world and more temples to perform the ordinances of eternity, “all of this furthers our Heavenly Father’s plan. God’s love is so great that … He has provided a destiny of glory for all of His children.” Many Latter-day Saints do not fully understand this plan, which answers most questions about doctrine and inspired policies. “We who know God’s plan and who have covenanted to participate, have a clear responsibility to teach these truths and do all that we can to further them for others and in our own circumstances in mortality.”
CATCH UP DAYS
Do one of the days that you missed OR any of the additional resources listed.
Yours Truly,
P.S. For more Come, Follow Me resources, check out my post Your Ultimate Guide to Come, Follow Me. It lists over 100 Come, Follow Me resources that are available online starting with the church’s resources at the top. You can find it by clicking HERE.
P.P.S. Sign up here for the Teach Me FHE email group and receive FHE outlines delivered right to your inbox every Sunday morning.
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