How important are other peoples lives, Written by my brother Tom Calton

I received this letter from my brother , Tom and felt inspired to share it with those whom read this blog may it lift you as it did me.

"So let us be thankful, because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We should worship God in a way that pleases Him with respect and fear, because our God is like a fire that burns things up"-Hebrews 12:28,29

Before we start each shift at work we all meet in the break room so the boss can inform us of important items of safety and repairs that are happening on each piece of equipment. We also find out where we will be working for the next 8 hours. The other night I was asked to start cleaning the equipment because we had the board members of our Chinese plant coming in for a tour. I gladly accepted my assignment and headed out on the floor. The comment was made by several people that this was extremely important and "we needed to make everything look like we didn't even work there". Anyone serving in our armed forces has participated in an event like this when a high ranking commander or official was coming by. I myself was volunteered once to paint rocks along the main road of the base only to turn the rocks over and paint the other side so we didn't miss anything and make the rocks look as though they appeared from the ground perfectly white and they were just there when they built the Air Force base.

How often do we make our lives with Christ appear as though nothing is wrong or it is perfect? Do we go out of our way for fellowship? Obey every word in the bible? Do we reach out for help in our small groups? At church? With our closest friends? Do we pray every day? Why are we so afraid sometimes to tell our Creator the things we have done or what we are afraid of? Did He not hear or see us and we got away with it?

1 John 1:6,7 says "So if we say we have fellowship with God, but we continue living in darkness, we are liars and do not follow the truth. But if we live in the light, as God is in the light, we can share fellowship with each other. Then the blood of Jesus, God's Son, cleanses us from every sin."

So why don't we reach out when we are struggling? What about when we see someone else struggling? We should be reaching out to each other and the person on the other side of the sales counter, no matter if they are reaching back or not. We should be praying for the lost world and each other deeply from our hearts. He will hear us. But what do we do? We hide in our shell or take care of it ourselves, we can fix it right? No, let us reach out to one another for help and prayer. Isn't that what we are there for? "Now that you have made your souls pure by obeying the truth, you can have true love for your Christian brothers and sisters. So love each other deeply with all your heart."-1 Peter 1:22. I struggle with that, don't you? .......Sometimes I only want to care about myself..........I don't have time to listen, I have to be somewhere....... It's hard to love and care sometimes. We don't want to admit we can't fix it, our pride and arrogance takes control, instead of Jesus.

It's the start of a new week. Lets reach out and help each other, support each other, and strengthen and lift up each other. "Strengthen yourselves so that you will live here on earth doing what God wants, not the evil things people want."-1 Peter 4:2. Love. Compassion. Share our hearts. "But dear friends, use your most holy faith to build yourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit."-Jude 20

Let God consume every square inch of your life with His holy fire! Trust Him. Obey Him. Talk to Him. Pray!! Stay focused on our Lord and Saviour so we can ask for help and be there for others. Read your bible, let God talk to you. Give Him all your praises and don't complain. Put God first in everything, He will never let you down.

"Here on earth we do not have a city that lasts forever, but we are looking for the city that we will have in the future. So through Jesus let us always offer to God our sacrifice of praise, coming from lips that speak His name."-Hebrews 13:14,15

Thank God for this day we have; He made it for us.

Timing

Sometimes there is just not enough time to sit down and type out huge blogs, this one will be short.
I had the most peculiar phone call tonight one that trouble me so, my 13year old daughter the one that just got baptized, was calling from the neighbors house. Instantly my senses were enhanced and my adrenaline began to flow , I knew it wasn't gonna be good. I talked to her for a minute on the phone and found out that her mother and step-dad were fighting with her about getting home late from a church activity, ( if the kids gonna be late ...that's were I want it to be ) , any ways she was getting yelled at so much and they smacked her for back talk, so I had to call her mom and see what was going on. It turns out that Satan is up to no good as usual, now the reason I say this is because the moment I got on the phone the Spirit was with me.......I felt strong that there was evil a foot. Alex is going to go to the Columbus Temple on a youth temple trip on Saturday with me and several other members and old Satan is doing his best to keep that from happening, I instantly noticed by the way she began swearing at me and taking the Lord's name in vain, once she even referred to me and my Bible and how stupid it was. I new at that moment that the most important thing to do was play it cool and not let the situation get out of hand then all would be well and Alex will still make her first trip to the Temple.

Am I doing all I can?

Tonight we had priesthood leadership , to go over the principles of the Gospel that are in need of our support as priesthood holders. I noticed that a great deal of the topic matter was much like that of General Conference that just transpired this past weekend. I was asking friends of mine and discussing the topic of doing so much already in the church , and later this evening the thought came to mind ....Am I doing all I can? Not only as a Priesthood holder but as a Husband and Father? Do I aspire to be like Christ? I don't think so all the time. One of the topics we talked about was " The One " , for those of you not of my faith , the one is that person that you can think of that is in need of help, or maybe your neighbor when there out doing yard work , maybe they could use a hand . Maybe its the person that is latter in years loading there car at the grocery store ...do you offer to give them a hand. My thought turned about as to what I've done lately and to meet the needs of "the one" . I asked someone the other day if I could help them load a cart full of drywall, they thanked me and said someone was coming so I went on about my day . I could have helped though until the other person arrived ! I didn't do enough , does that make sense? I could have done more that's what I'm getting at , I thought about the weeks past and how I have had opportunity's to serve someone and have not . I also began to think that I , we could be more helpful to our wives and try to help her out more with the cleaning and the kids, You know they talked about that at both General Conference and Priesthood leadership ...treat our spouses better than we have been ! Even if we treat them good we can always do better , something I need to work on .I thought of my dear friend Matt and how I've never in my life seen a man as wonderful as he is with his wife and kids...he is a good example as to what we , I should be aspiring to be like .

Christ showed His service to so many ,We were asked tonight to give examples that we could think of for His display of service throughout the scriptures. Many examples came forward, the story of Lazarus , the story of John the Baptist , the story of the Woman who when being persecuted for adultery the Savior stepped in and said " Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" then He turned to the woman and said " were art thou accusers ? They have fled Lord because of Thee , arise woman for thou are forgive go and sin no more" The Savior not only rescued her from death but provided His Loving forgiveness and built her spirits up again before leaving her. That is the true power of the Priesthood ...service with unfeigned faith and love for the recipient. He went to the American continents among the Nephites and visited with them and He blessed each of there children one by one , that is a great act of kindness and compassion. Most important to me is the effort of the Atonement . Not any act of service can be greater than the offering He gave to me and you ! This is my offering ...I will give all that I have to Him for its all I can Give..My life is my offering .

Next time you see someone that might need a hand or hand up , give them a minute . I can promise you it will be worth an eternity.

Conference

I am so excited that this weekend is General Conference ! This to those of you that are not of my faith , is a chance for us Latter-Day Saint and the rest of the world if there willing with an open mind, to listen to A Prophet of God in this day and age , the very same as those from olden days , to share the message of God to the people . Also it is a great opportunity to listen to the Twelve Apostles of Christ of this dispensation as they address the general public and share the message that Our Father in Heaven has for us . Like those great Spiritual giants of today we are also blessed to be able to hear from other General Authorities and members of the Seventy and General Bishopric . It is a wonderful opportunity to learn of the lesson's that Christ has for us in the modern day.

If you look at the format of how we will be given inspiration during this General Conference , I would like to point out a very important point. That each of the titles given to those of whom I have listed are not something that Mormons have made up for our leaders but more importantly they are the very names by which Christ Himself had labeled His devoted servants. Commonly miss-conceptualized as a Church that founded itself on its own principles , the Mormon faith is truly in fact, based upon the very format of how Christ had set up His Church when He walked the earth and taught us His Law and His Commandments. This Church , His true Christian Church ( yes I say True ) is founded on His teachings not man's , it is not corrupted by the world nor does it base its decision on what is comfortable to popular opinion . We as Latter-Day Saints read from the King James version of the Holy Bible because it as close to the original writings as we can get in the English language , and it is one of the only copies of the Holy Bible in this day and and age that has not been interpreted a hundred different ways to make people more comfortable about what and how they read it .....In essence we as human have taken the words of God and have changed them so that we have them more befitting to this day and age , so that we can interpret what we think we are reading.

We have the Book of Mormon..Another Testimony of Jesus Christ , miss understood by most as the Mormon Bible , not the case at all . Yes it is a cannon of scripture , and yes it is included in all of are teachings, not because it is to be separate from the Bible but to go hand in hand with the very same teachings of the Gospels of Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John , to edify the very position that The Apostle Paul was preaching , to emphasize the ministry of Peter and most important to build up the Kingdom of God and testify of His Son , Jesus Christ .

I was told as a child and even as an adult ,when I began to investigate this Church, that what was being taught was wrong and that the Mormon teachings was a cult and not of God. That Satan had his hand in it all and they were trying to lead God's good Christians away . Well I have to say that is not true at all! I believe that it is Satan telling people not to follow the Mormon faith because he knows the true identity of Christ's true Church and he can't afford to loose anymore souls than he already has. Satan has the ability to tempt not only the weak but especially the righteous , So to those out there thinking your protected from his influence just because you show up to church on Sunday morning and feel good about praying once or twice a week , I say beware !

If you really need to ask yourself how does one know of a true Church , I say unto you pray , pray that the Spirit of the Lord will testify to your heart the truth of all things and remember that the feelings of the Spirit are listed in Galatians 5:22 , if you pray to know and don't have those feelings ....good chance it wasn't God giving those feelings to you, pray again this time with real intent to know and an open heart.

I look forward to the chance to listen to The Prophet Thomas S. Monson give talks this weekend and to the Twelve and the rest of the General Authority's ,for I know that in my heart and by the Power of God and His Holy Spirit , that as I listen as do so many others , we will blessed to Hear from God himself speaking to us through His Ordained Prophet and Holy Priesthood. To better be prepared for the second coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ . To be armed with the Spirit of righteousness and be empowered to spread the good news of Christ.

God bless all of us ,and may we find peace and happiness in our fellow man , and learn to love one another and strive to be more like Jesus , I leave you with this and say this in the name of Jesus Christ , Amen.

Has our agency gotten in the way of principles?

I have thought much about the question that is presented here. I think that when we chose to follow Christ in the grand council before the world was and accepted our agency as a part of our lives instead of the slavery term based return policy that Satan had in mind, we took upon ourselves a responsibility to be steadfast in the work of God. If we allow ourselves to use the excuse that we have agency that allows us to not visit the sick or the needy , or if we simply don't feel like going to a meeting or attending an important church function , such as any of the conferences or leadership meetings that have come and are coming to pass , we simply are not following the idea of the agency that was truly given to us. I believe that the agency that our Father in Heaven had in mind for us when we excepted the plan was not to do wrong but to do right ! He never intended to have us say that we don't need to learn from his appointed teachers , He never said you already know enough , or would He ever say don't feed my hungry. Unfortunately we are all guilty of this , we often get so caught up in our own lives and the responsibilities that we feel are important to us that we forget that we hold a greater responsibility to those around us, that when the Savior gave a new commandment to the 12 He said " This new commandment I give unto you ,that ye Love one another as I have loved you ,then ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." John 13:34-35 Our agency was intended for this kind of grand design that we may choose to love each other and that we may choose to do good and be true and just with all men. That we would choose to full fill our duty to God.

This topic can be one of a touchy nature , and to those that don't feel that it is relevant to our salvation , I would challenge you to look deep into your own life and question yourself as to this important fact ...do I love my fellow man? Have I put things off because I found a greater excuse that justifies what I chose to do over what I should do ?I know I have in the past ! I think we need to go to great lengths to be strong at everything that is asked of us and that we should continue to strive to be like Christ in all things especially our agency...........yes I said like Christ , He too had agency , didn't He. He could have chose not to go through with it , The Atonement. When He cried out in the Garden, He was second guessing His decision , Satan was there he said to Jesus " you don't have to do it" He could have backed out at anytime but through that same agency that our Father in Heaven gave us, He gave to Christ as part of the plan of returning to Him!

We must use our agency for the just cause and not for the excuse, else we shall have efforts in vain.

Stand

You see all the time on TV these days and hear about it on the radio , these kids that make a stand for what they believe! Whether it is about tobacco use or drugs or alcohol these kids stand for what they believe in not doing , ( I think its fantastic that we have youth that strong in this day and age) . Today I heard on a local radio station I listen to called K-love ( Christian Rock ), there were these kids who were going to meet all over the world tomorrow to stand for what they believe in, Jesus ! They are going to meet at flag poles for prayer at 7:00am and show there faith by joining this cause.

When is the last time we stood for what we believe in . I bare the name Mormon proudly on the back of my truck with its .org behind it hoping that those behind me in traffic just might be brave enough to find out that the thing there so quick to persecute is the very thing they base there faith on ! Jesus the Christ! I have thought often on this subject sometimes even voiced my opinion a time or two, the thing is its kind of a touchy subject for people so I'll say it like I do most things ....the way they are.

Peter the first disciple of Christ and the leader and Prophet of Christ's true Church after the ascension to Heaven occurred for Christ, even faced this problem. When asked on 3 different account , He , Peter denied the Christ , he could not bare the thought of persecution at the hands of the Romans. Peter walked with The Son of God , he talked with Him, he ate with Him , slept next to Him and knew with his whole soul that Jesus was the Christ and still He denied Jesus! That is powerful to me , it shows the true strength that Satan has over us, that fear and doubt is not of God!

We as Mormons , Christians , Jews , Gentile, Muslim , Ect. why do we not stand for what we believe? Is it not our job to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Doesn't our Scriptures teach us that God is no respecter of person's and that we are all His children? Didn't we all choose to be here on this planet at this time ? We sided with Christ in the Grand Council before the World was, and we fought at that time for what we believed in ! That Jesus would be our Savior and that we would fight against Satan at all cost and would try our best to return home to our Father in Heaven that waits there for us . My point is if we cant stand now ....we wont stand later ! We must be diligent in our efforts to spread the Gospel , not for gain ( to those who pay there preachers) not for body's in the seats , but so that those that don't remember Christ may have a chance at redemption.

God loves us all! He wants each of us to Love one another, unconditionally. We don't have time to bicker about religious preferences , we are at the sifting of the wheat . Those who are strong in faith will be strong when they need to be , those who are luke warm or riding the fence .... you will fail!

I put the name Mormon on my truck because I hope it will help someone .......It has if nothing else helped me , when I am about to get angry with someone because the way they are driving and I go to pass , I think about that sticker and think to myself , That's not very Christ-like behavior, I probably should be a lot more reverent than this! If we all had a sticker on us what would yours say?

Distance

Tonight I said goodbye to one of the greatest people I've every known, He and his family are moving so far away.I touched on the subject not long ago but felt inspired to write something again. My friend said to me as we broke from a hug " Keep building up the Elders Quorum and don't stop blogging" , Matt you're the best!!

A million times in my life it seems as though things are lost , friends, loved ones , tools , and toys, they aren't all the same but it feels the same when things you love come up missing, I can't express the feelings of joy that Ive had since being a member of this church . I lost a lot entering those waters of baptism ! Not the same kind of loss as my friend and his family moving away because this loss was terrific. I lost a part of my life becoming a member of the Christ's Church and for the better. Many times throughout my new found life in Christ I have wanted or have been able to relate to problems that members have been struggling with, because I've been there .There is not to much before baptism that I had not done , Ive been on both sides of the tracks and have seen and experienced things I pray someday I will forget. That kind of loss I embrace . You see I always knew deep down that God loved me , and that He had something special for me , As we have , but I wasn't willing to accept that . As I grew older in my age I began to forget that God loved me ( I lost my desire to do good ) I began to feel as though He couldn't love me and surly I wasn't worthy of anything He had to offer. I found myself listing to the Adversary and He spoke smoother than that of those trying to help me. I found that the less I thought of God the less guilty I felt about the decisions I was making , you want to talk about losing...... I just about lost everything, including my life!

Our Father in Heaven has this great plan laid out for each of us , things he would like us to aspire to complete , choices He would like us to make (correctly) ,But most importantly He wants us to lose something.........US ! It is important that we lose the mortal capacity of what we should do or be like. He wants us to " Put off the things of this world and take upon us the righteousness of Christ" , to lose can be looked at many different ways. I lost everything that I thought was good and found everything that was really important in life. We as a couple , faced some of the hardest times in our married life just in the past year and a half , But it was by His grace that we managed to survive it . We didn't do it on our own , there is no way we could have , logically and financially there is no way without His mercy could we have survived the challenges we faced .

Some loss is good , Some loss is bad, some is just plain Hard. He has given me and all of us the strength we need to endure to the end. The loss isn't anything if you look at the glass as half full. I found that in every opposition I have had to bear , God has presented a reason or solution , it just needs to be recognized. Old habits , Bad habits ........good loss ! Losing faith.........very bad loss.

Do you have the Faith to look at the glass Half full?

I love you Matt & Ann , Thanks for all you've done , all your help, all your love,and most of all your friendship!

Still Searching

After the last entry on the Atonement and a promise of more I thought about the nature of the topic I had chose to discuss.I realize that for anyone reading this you may ask yourself , why does this person write these topics as if someone had asked to know or was inquiring to a specific question. Truth be told , I write them for myself ! I love to sit and ponder on the deep waters of doctrine and as to why such things are as they are. My Savior gave me a chance by becoming the Christ as He gave up his Ghost that great day on the cross , on that hill . You see He was born a child just like you and I and had the same Vail drawn over his eyes as we have upon our eyes, our amnesia doesn't allow us to remember the grand counsel before the world was , and at the time when Jesus was a boy He didn't know any different than us . It wasn't until a visit from a heavenly messenger that He came to know who He was, He wasn't the Christ until He had went that extra mile of suffering for us that misery we can't fathom . It was in the garden of Gestamine that He plead a prayer with His Father the Great Elohim , Our Father , Please Father He begged let this cup pass from me, How He must have been afraid......Sound silly doesn't it? To think that Jesus was afraid. He was still a man was He not? Perfect in every effect, there's no doubt of that , but never the less still a man , who had feelings and was suffering even then by great drops of blood from his pours . He suffered when he was taken from Pilate to be Chastised and think of the pain..Lacerations over your hole body from cataninetails ( whips made of leather usually containing pieces of metal, and bone, sharp enough to rip flesh from bone ) . I can't even imagine. But I'm thankful......So greatly appreciative of the strife that He endured so you and I could live as free men , children of our Father in Heaven. I wonder if I can ever aspire enough to be good enough as a person to be worthy of the debt that was paid that I might breath! I think not , so I say that I must strive to be the most effective in all that I do in the name of Jehovah, I must be diligent in my scripture studies and pray with the most sincere heart , and not forget to count my blessings in doing so. There will never be enough time in this dispensation to make up for what the Son did for us. I will pray that all that think on this subject will begin to ask the question of themselves......Do I strive to do the best I can at being thankful for the breath I take ? Am I willing to lay down my life for His cause? Would I go to the end of the atmosphere to prove to Him that I love him with my whole Soul? Brothers and Sisters out there I would. He is my Savior , My God, My King, I would tell Him over and over if He were here on the earth still today, I love you Jesus and Thank you , My spirit thanks you , my soul thanks you .

Search for the Truth

I never in my life had thought about the Atonement of Christ as much as I have been here in the past few weeks. The word Atonement, for those of you that are not members of my Church, is the word that tells of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, that in its self made Him the Christ , the Savior of the Universe. For those of you wondering it is a Christian term and does come out of the Bible as well as the rest of the Canonical books of scripture , it is more comely used by people that read from a more traditional set of scriptures rather than those that are re-translated like so many are these days. In any case the point I make is that if we as humans were to dig deep within the scriptures and search diligently with an open heart we may be able for a small instance to begin to understand what it is that Jesus the Christ suffered so greatly for us for. Not throwing any stones to those out there that don't follow my faith , but simply being " Saved" isn't enough , and frankly I don't believe a person can say a repetitious prayer that was said the week before in Sunday service and be truly saved , such as the ones I was raised saying growing up in the Pentecostal church. I'm not trying to hurt feelings , its just I can say that I KNOW by the still small voice of the Holy Spirit that struggles I make in effort to please my Heavenly Father are fare greater recognized today than that of the feelings I had back when I followed a different faith. I believe that God does recognize those prayers of others as commitment, just as those who get baptized without proper Priesthood authority , I believe that He smiles upon those people and accepts there prayers and their honest intent for whats its worth , but I also know that there is an order to the plan of Salvation and to simply say I 've been saved and to do nothing more is really not aspiring to follow the commandments of God. He is a mercifully God and His Son Jesus is very mercifully to us all , He , Jesus , said there is only one name by which ye can come unto the Father that name is Jesus Christ. A friend of mine and I were talking on the subject of how it feels to truly know the amount of suffering that Christ had to endure, I related to the movie " The Passion of the Christ" , if you haven't seen it you should , you can get an enormous amount of understanding from watching that movie , we discussed how it wasn't really relevant to have to watch a movie like that to understand, and I feel that if you have the spiritual capacity to comprehend the scriptures enough then you can fully understand the suffering . I did some digging and reading from the different "Gospels"of the Bible and looked through the epistles of Paul and there is more underlying there than what one truly knows. Then the funny thing was that on this past Sunday a Friend of mine came up to me at Church and gave me a CD to listen to titled " The importance of the Atonement"I could go on and on for hours to get all the point across that I would like , but honestly I don't have the time . I will save more for another day.Next time you read your scripture , Take time to pray first and if you have the Spirit with you.......Who knows you might find something you never seen before.

Friends

Holiday weekends sometimes make for the most long drawn out weekends ever. With the visiting of friends and family it can be some what burdensome from time to time. I had the opportunity to spend one of these days off with one of my best friends and his family, it was a great time to be able to have that time for memory sake. I ,unfortunately will be loosing this friend of mine and his family , due to a move that will benefit his family greatly, I must say that I am rather depressed about the whole thing, I know that that is selfish , but I hate to see them go. I know that I won't really be loosing them , but they will not be so easy to visit nor will be as convenient to talk with them . I will pray that they may always be safe and that when they get established in the new home that awaits them that it too, will bring such marvelous joy to them , I will also pray that the Lord will continue to bless them with good kind people and friends that can be there for them when they need it . I know that the Lord has magnificent plans for this man and his family and I believe that he is following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, that guides all that live righteously , and because of that , he and his family will be blessed again and again for his obedience to the word of God. You know who you are if you read this , and I want you to know that I love you and your family ! I will never forget the kindness that was shown to me and my family by you and yours. I will always remember the love that has been shown towards my children in primary, and your patience when I was new to the Gospel. Not very often in someones lives do you encounter people with such pure hearts as the ones these friends of mine have . Like friends of mine that not long ago moved away as well , they have blessed my life with great joy that can never be repaid. I will aspire to be as they were for I know that through them I became a better person . Thank you.