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TODAY'S THEME
During His Ministry in Palestine Our Savior, Jesus Christ, Brought People Who Had Died Back to Life and Healed the Sick. During His Visit to the Nephites in Central America Soon After His Resurrection From the Dead, He Healed the Sick! He Has Granted His Power of Healing In Our Day To All Those Who Worthily Bare His Priesthood.
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Jesus Raised Lazerus From Death - Painting: Carl Heinrich Bloch |
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Jesus Raising the Daughter of Jairus (From Death) - Painting: Greg K. Olsen |
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Jesus Healing the Sick at Bethesda -Painting: Carl Heinrich Bloch |
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"And He Healed Them All Everyone" - Painting: Gary Kapp This Depicts the Resurrected Jesus Healing Nephites in Central America as Described in the Book of Mormon. |
In our day Jesus Christ's chosen representatives, the Prophet and Apostles of His personally authorized Latter-day Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have been given the power to heal that comes from Him. That comes through the power of His Holy Priesthood which He has granted them. That same priesthood that carries with it the heavenly power to bless the ill and otherwise afflicted has also been given to all worthy male members of that church who possess the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Much of the healing and rescuing from death being done now is most often not as dramatic as that which the Savior was depicted doing in these four extraordinary paintings, (painted by masters of their craft), but nonetheless, the blessings given by His representatives in our day are equally significant. You could ask those who have been healed in our day about that! In some cases healing occurred when they were at the very edge of death and at times, even beyond.
Much of the healing and rescuing from death being done now is most often not as dramatic as that which the Savior was depicted doing in these four extraordinary paintings, (painted by masters of their craft), but nonetheless, the blessings given by His representatives in our day are equally significant. You could ask those who have been healed in our day about that! In some cases healing occurred when they were at the very edge of death and at times, even beyond.
Healing the sick and rescuing those who are on the brink of death is a great spiritual service. Closely related to healing those who need that is serving them regarding their temporal needs.
Please view now the video in which the present Prophet, and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Thomas S. Monson, urges church members to serve others.
*(Please also read my note later which is marked with this same red asterisk near the end of this blog post.Look for President Monson's photo just above the red asterisk.
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Jesus Restores Vision to a Blind Man - Painting: Del Parson |
This article tells about a special service which is related to our Savior, Jesus Christ's having restored vision to the blind during His lifetime. (Please view the above painting)
This kind of service is what He expects His Latter-day Church leaders to provide through volunteered service from faithful church members who are professionally trained in improving vision and are willing to take time out of their busy schedules to provide.
Such free assistance to members of this Church and to many who are not members, is without financial compensation to those providing it. Many or perhaps, most, of those they serve, would likely never receive such service otherwise.
This article will take us to the South American country of Peru.
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| Arlin Nusbaum, BOMC -Photo is From His Website |
You may have read some of the comments found at the end of about four or five of my fairly recent blog posts, made by Arlin Nusbaum who terms himself a "Book of Mormon Christian." He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as in his web site it is indicated that he served a full-time mission for that church as a young man.
It was reported there that he had a substantial number of conversions from among the people he taught during his mission. He evidently is no longer a member of the LDS church as he has, as was shown in the comments made at the end of some of these posts of mine, proven himself to be now quite critical of this church, unfortunately. From his comments he appears to be well educated and very capable of expressing himself and tells us that he believes strongly in the Book of Mormon.
I will summarily restate his criticisms made in his comments to my posts. I do this because from what you have already learned in this particular post and will continue to learn in it is that Arlin's specific criticisms of the LDS Church are greatly lacking in validity. He also failed to respond to strong evidences I presented to him from the Book of Mormon, ( a sacred book in which he says he believes), that the church of the future described by the angel who prophesied to Nephi of "the Church of the Lamb of God" could be none other than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Arlin alleges that a great percentage of our members have become inactive and the church is not growing very much. He claims that our temples are not well attended and implies that many members of the LDS Church do not serve others very well or very willingly.
He also alleges that the growing numbers of temples and and the many services the Church provides have only come about because the Church has much money.
Contrary to what my new friend, (I consider him as such), Arlin proposes is the case with "The Mormons," I invite you to review my post 36i from which one can learn that the payment of tithing by faithful members of the Church all over the world is why the Church "has so much money." Also in this same older post of mine you will also be able to learn more about the principle of Tithing.
Unfaithful members of this church do not usually pay tithing, but faithful members do so, along with donations of "fast offerings." The payment of Tithing by faithful church members is why there is sufficient money to support the extensive work and great growth of this church.
Fast offering funds come in regularly once a month from the huge number of faithful Church members throughout the world that go without eating two meals on the first Sunday of each month. They give the money that they saved by "fasting" to help pay for those service projects our prophet, Thomas S. Monson calls for us to provide, along with providing the bishops of the church the funds necessary to provide financial assistance to individual church members who have genuine financial needs.
Neil Birch's previous post 36i
Also, a very short and pertinent Church News article that appeared January 29, 2011 caught my attention.
As you will have noticed in the article you have just read about the LDS temple which is to be built in the Indianapolis area of Indiana, active members of the church there, and there the 42,000 church members who will be served by that temple, have been; at their own expense, commuting to either the Columbus Ohio Temple, the Chicago Illinois Temple or the Louisville, Kentucky Temple to do temple ordinances for themselves and also for deceased ancestors.
As you can imagine, trips from cities in Indiana to these other LDS temples are long and expensive trips. In spite of that many church members have been making those trips because they believe strongly in the importance of the ordinance work they can do in the Church's temples.
I know something about how active members of the church feel (and there are many of them in Indiana) about this announcement of a temple to be built closer to where they live, because my fourth oldest daughter, her husband and three young children live several hundred miles south of Indianapolis. They were very glad to hear the news about a temple being built within a fairly easy driving distance from their home!
Again my new friend Arlin Nusbaum has provided us with information that does not reflect the facts about the involvement of active members of the church in temple work and there are many active members in Indiana and in surrounding states that are extremely happy because of the plans for the building of this new "House of the Lord." That is because temple attendance is of great importance to them. This is also true of LDS Church members all over this world!
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| President Thomas S. Monson |
"Now, this is when you both get your real salary."He was referring to the special opportunity we had of serving adoptive families and the birth mothers whose babies are placed with them. It was then that I began to realize how service oriented our future prophet was then and now I know he still is!
However, I know that all of our past church prophets (church presidents) have had that strong orientation.
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DISCLAIMER
This website is not owned by or affiliated with the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called the Mormon or LDS Church). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the position of the Church.
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TO ACCESS NEIL BIRCH'S BLOG INDEX: To Either Read the Full Index Item Which Refers To This Blog Post, (Or To Search The Index For Any Other Blog Post You Desire To Access), After You Have Read All of This Paragraph, Please Scroll Back Up And Click on the Following: The Welfare Program of the LDS Church is Strong Evidence that Members of Our Savior's Latter-day Church are Following His Perfect Example in Assisting People to Recover From Their Afflictions. Post 42f. AND Monson, (Thomas S.) In an Approved LDS Church Video, he urges LDS Church Members, as their Prophet and President, to serve others. Post 42f. When The Picture of Our Savior, Jesus Christ Sitting Next To a Little Boy Comes Onto Your Screen, Please Scroll Down In The Index To Your Target Item Or Use the Alphabetical Scrolling Device (When It Has Been Installed).
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"Have You Really Read the Book of Mormon?" Legal /Statement. Thank you for visiting. The author retains intellectual property and creative licensing rights. Permission to use or reprint must be given in writing. © Est.2008 Neil Birch Legal /Statement.
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I deeply appreciate your readership and hope you found very beneficial, that which was presented to you in this blog post.
If you have any questions about what you have read or viewed in this post or in any previous posts of mine, or if you even have a curiosity about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and or its teachings, please e-mail me. I'm Neil and my e-mail address is: jneilmelva@gmail.com. If you contact me I'll get back to you just as soon as possible.
I invite you to let your friends and relatives know about this blog if you think they would be interested in it. Please be advised that I also have an additional blog. It is in Spanish: Its content is translated from the English in this blog:
Neil Birch
