Tammy’s Family
Home Evening Lesson
May 2016
Thomas S.
Monson – Keep the Commandments, Choices
Opening Hymn: # 254, “True to the
Faith”
Opening prayer: by invitation
Thomas S. Monson, October 2015, Keep
the Commandments:
“My message to you tonight is straightforward.
It is this: keep the commandments.
“God’s commandments are not given to
frustrate us or to become obstacles to our happiness. Just the opposite is
true. He who created us and who loves us perfectly knows just how we need to
live our lives in order to obtain the greatest happiness possible. He has
provided us with guidelines which, if we follow them, will see us safely
through this often treacherous mortal journey. We remember the words of the
familiar hymn: “Keep the commandments! In this there is safety; in this there
is peace.”1
“Our Heavenly Father loves us enough
to say: Thou shalt not lie; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not commit
adultery; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; and so on.2 We know the commandments. He
understands that when we keep the commandments, our lives will be happier, more
fulfilling, and less complicated. Our challenges and problems will be easier to
bear, and we will receive His promised blessings. But while He gives us laws
and commandments, He also allows us to choose whether to accept them or to reject
them. Our decisions in this regard will determine our destiny.
“I am confident that each of us has
as his ultimate goal life everlasting in the presence of our Heavenly Father
and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is imperative, therefore, for us to make choices
throughout our lives that will lead us to this great goal. We know, however,
that the adversary is committed to our failure. He and his hosts are relentless
in their efforts to thwart our righteous desires. They represent a grave and
constant threat to our eternal salvation unless we are also relentless in our
determination and efforts to achieve our goal. The Apostle Peter warns us, “Be
vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour.”3
“Although there is no time in our
lives when we are exempt from temptation, you young men [and young women] are
at an age when you may be particularly vulnerable. Teenage years are often
years of insecurity, of feeling as though you don’t measure up, of trying to
find your place with your peers, and of trying to fit in. You may be tempted to
lower your standards and to follow the crowd in order to be accepted by those
you desire to have as friends. Please be strong, and be alert to anything that
would rob you of the blessings of eternity. The choices you make here and now
are forever important.
“Disregard for the commandments has
opened the way for what I consider to be the plagues of our day. They include
the plague of permissiveness, the plague of pornography, the plague of drugs,
the plague of immorality, and the plague of abortion, to name just a few. The
scriptures tell us that the adversary is “the founder of all these things.”7 We know that he is “the father
of all lies, to deceive and to blind men.”8
“I plead with you to avoid anything
that will deprive you of your happiness here in mortality and eternal life in
the world to come. With his deceptions and lies, the adversary will lead you
down a slippery slope to your destruction if you allow him to do so. You will
likely be on that slippery slope before you even realize that there is no way
to stop. You have heard the messages of the adversary. He cunningly
calls: Just this once won’t matter; everyone is doing it; don’t be
old-fashioned; times have changed; it can’t hurt anyone; your life is yours to
live. The adversary knows us, and he knows the temptations which will
be difficult for us to ignore. How vital it is that we exercise constant vigilance
in order to avoid giving in to such lies and temptations.
“Great courage will be required as we
remain faithful and true amid the ever-increasing pressures and insidious
influences with which we are surrounded and which distort the truth, tear down
the good and the decent, and attempt to substitute the man-made philosophies of
the world. If the commandments had been written by man, then to change them by
inclination or legislation or by any other means would be the prerogative of
man. The commandments, however, were God-given. Using our agency, we can set
them aside. We cannot, however, change them, just as we cannot
change the consequences which come from disobeying and breaking them.
“May we realize that our greatest
happiness in this life will come as we follow God’s commandments and obey His
laws!
“We cannot allow ourselves the
slightest bit of leeway in dealing with sin. We cannot allow ourselves to
believe that we can participate “just a little” in disobeying the commandments
of God, for the sin can grab us with an iron hand from which it is
excruciatingly painful to free ourselves. The addictions which can come from
drugs, alcohol, pornography, and immorality are real and are nearly impossible
to break without great struggle and much help.
“If any of you has stumbled in his
journey, I assure you that there is a way back. The process is called
repentance. Although the path is difficult, your eternal salvation depends on
it. What could be more worthy of your efforts? I plead with you to determine
right here and now to take the steps necessary to fully repent.” -- Thomas S.
Monson, October 2015, Keep the Commandments:
Thomas S. Monson, April 2016,
Choices:
“I have been thinking recently about
choices. It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and
so do people’s lives. The choices we make determine our destiny.
“When we left our premortal existence
and entered mortality, we brought with us the gift of agency. Our goal is to
obtain celestial glory, and the choices we make will, in large part, determine
whether or not we reach our goal.
“Most of you are familiar with Alice
in Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You
will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each
stretching onward but in opposite directions. As she contemplates which way to
turn, she is confronted by the Cheshire Cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path
shall I follow?”
“The cat answers, “That depends where
you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter
which
“Unlike Alice, we know where we want
to go, and it does matter which way we go, for the path we
follow in this life leads to our destination in the next life.
“May we choose to build up within
ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense
against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will
sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right. Without such faith,
we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals.
“Although it is imperative that we
choose wisely, there are times when we will make foolish choices. The gift of
repentance, provided by our Savior, enables us to correct our course settings,
that we might return to the path which will lead us to that celestial glory we
seek.
“May we maintain the courage to defy
the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.
“As we contemplate the decisions we
make in our lives each day—whether to make this choice or that choice—if we
choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice.” – Thomas S. Monson, April
2016, Choices
Closing hymn: #303, “Keep the
Commandments”
Closing prayer: by invitation
Handouts:
I printed the following handouts on card stock and laminated them to use as bookmarks, etc.
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