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This is the first episode in a five part series about the doctrine of Christ. In this episode I'm sharing about faith in Jesus Christ.
There's more than one way to be a spiritually minded woman who wants to make and keep covenants, know her Savior and make it back home. Yes, there are essential CHECKPOINTS on the covenant path, but there are NO CHECKLISTS with a million checkboxes you must check off.
Each week on the Spiritually Minded Women podcast I’ll be sharing insights about how to embrace YOUR journey on the covenant path with CHECKPOINTS instead of CHECKLISTS.
Welcome to the Spiritually Minded Women podcast. I'm your host Darla Trendler. You're listening to the first episode in a five-part series on the doctrine of Christ--faith in Jesus Christ. Let's dive in.
Hello. It feels great to be back behind the microphone. It's been six months since I put out a new episode, and a lot has happened for me in that time. I mentioned before I took the break that I was running for political office. I learned so much running a campaign and even though I ultimately lost the race, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.
I also had another child leave home and we are now down to one kid living here and it's really weird, but also really good. Change can be good right. Now, I am just so excited to be back to podcasting. Today I'm starting a five episode series on the Doctrine of Christ. I talked about doing this before my break, and now I'm making it happen.
It's gonna be a little different than I initially anticipated, but this new direction feels right. So this is the first episode in the series, and I'll be sharing about faith in Jesus Christ. All five of the episodes will be solo episodes with me, and at the end of the series I'll be offering a discussion guide for each episode because I wanna help you gather with other women or your own children or your family, really anyone, to talk about the doctrine of Christ together and learn from each other.
So these next five episodes are perfect to share with others who are seeking to make changes in their lives and want to do it partnering with God. So please share this series with friends, loved ones, even your children. Use what you were learning to teach others. And remember what President Nelson said in 2019. This was directed towards women.
He said, quote, "As a righteous, endowed, Latter-day Saint woman, you speak and teach with power and authority from God, whether by exhortation or conversation, we need your voice teaching the doctrine of Christ. We need your input in family, ward, and stake councils. Your participation is essential and never ornamental!"
End quote. Now he ends that quote with an exclamation point. I love looking for the exclamation points that President Nelson uses. Your participation in teaching the doctrine of Christ is essential and it's never ornamental. I love that. Like I said, at the end of the series, I'm gonna give you some discussion guides that you can download and you can gather people and talk about what you're learning and help each other understand the doctrine of Christ.
That is something I'm really excited about. I've always wanted for the podcast to be able to help be, go beyond just listening, but actually doing something and sharing together with other women or your family, your children, whatever that looks like for you. Okay, the other thing I wanna tell you is about is that I'm now gonna be offering coaching.
So in 2021, I certified as a creation coach using Brooke Snow's curriculum. And then in the past nine months, so in 2022, I've worked for Brooke as an accountability coach for women who were certifying this year in her program. And I am now ready to use that certification as an extension of the podcast.
So if you want to learn more about how to partner with God and co-create the life you desire, I invite you to set up a free call with me. You can find the link to do this in the show notes and everything that we talk about in this series with the doctrine of Christ is going to tie in with that and I'll share more about that later. But doctrine is what is gonna help you make changes in your life.
So let's dive in and talk about faith in Jesus Christ. One day last year, my parents came over to my house and they brought some old pictures of family members my dad had recently acquired. I can't remember where he got them from, but one of those pictures that he showed me that day was of my great grandmother, and her name was Lula Hawk, and the picture was of her baptism into the Baptist Church in the Rio Grande River in Del Norte, Colorado.
Now I grew up hearing about Grandma Lula and just who she was. I never knew her, but I've just always felt a really special connection to her, and I really don't know why, but there's just something special about Grandma Lula. And so I was excited to see this picture right of her being baptized.
It's really hard for me to describe the feelings I had. I was sitting in my living room, I'm looking at this picture for the first time. And in the picture, Lula is a young adult woman and the picture's in black and white, of course, because it's from a long time ago. But you can tell she's wearing a white dress.
Her hair is pulled up in a bun. The river, which is only knee deep is clear. You can see her legs in the water. You can see her minister standing next to her, he's in dark pants and a white shirt, and I was just mesmerized by this picture and I thought about it long after my parents left that day. And just as a side note, if you wanna see the picture, I'll put it on my Instagram page.
I also share it in the show notes@spiritumindedwomen.com on my website if you wanna see it. But one night, not long after seeing this really remarkable picture of Grandma Lula, I was having a hard time sleeping. I was feeling really weighed down with so many things in my life. Do you ever feel that way and you just, you feel like there's just so much on your shoulders and you can't sleep?
That's where I was that night. I laid there and I was just praying for peace and comfort as well as help, and my mind shifted to Lula's baptism picture, and I had something come to me that was one sentence, "Look up the date this picture was taken." It's the middle of the night. I wait until the next morning and first thing I did when I woke up is I got on Family Search because I knew my dad had scanned this picture in and I found the date.
The date the picture was taken was June 27th, 1915. And I will tell you, like I said before, I grew up hearing about Grandma Lula. I knew that she was a widow who had raised my grandfather alone for many years. But as I looked further at the actual dates, I realized something that I had never known before.
And seeing this picture tied it all together for me. Looking at the dates. Just what Lula had been going through in her life just weeks prior to this photo was taken. So remember the photos taken on June 27th, 1915. So Lula had two sons. I mentioned my grandfather, and then she also had another son.
His name was Everett. And at this time, in 1915, Everett was five years old and it was, I looked at all the dates he had struggled for 25 days with Scarlet Fever, and he died May 13th, 1915. So that was just six weeks before this baptism picture was taken. But that wasn't Lula's only loss. After Everett died and just two weeks before the baptism picture.
Her husband, whose name was Otto, had become ill with typhoid pneumonia and he passed away on June 8th, 1915. So just two weeks before. So here's Lula. She is left as a 25 year old widow with her 15 month old son, Tommy, who is my grandfather. So as I put all these facts and the dates together, I realized the strength and the faith that Lula had.
In her darkest hour, her deepest need, she turned to Jesus Christ. Baptism into the Baptist Church was her way of showing her faith in him. In the midst of her grief, Lula showed her willingness to let God prevail in her life. Like I said, I never knew Lula. She actually died the year before I was born, but I grew up hearing about her great faith in Jesus Christ.
That was the one thing I always knew about Grandma Lula, that she had faith in Jesus Christ. She never wavered from that faith. And now over a hundred years her faith continues to inspire me and it makes me wanna have that same faith in Jesus Christ, and I was really grateful for that experience that comforted me in a time when I needed it and helped me to know that's was the answer to the things that were troubling me at that time was to turn to the Savior, just like my Grandma Lula did.
She understood something just so well that the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson would teach years later. But Ezra Taft Benson said, quote, "Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that he can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace."
End quote. You and I can change. We can become something more than we've ever imagined when we partner with God and co-create our lives with him. And that change starts with faith in Jesus Christ. Like I said before, this episode is the first in a series about the doctrine of Christ. So let's talk about what that means.
The doctrine of Christ is one part of the Gospel of Christ. The other part is the atonement of Christ. So you've got the doctrine of Christ, you've got the atonement of Christ. You bring those together and you've got the Gospel of Christ. Brian K. Ashton explained the Gospel of Christ in this way in an October, 2016 general conference talk.
And I really love the way that he explains this, so I'm just gonna quote him, but he said, quote, "The atonement of Christ creates the conditions upon which we may rely upon the merits and mercy and grace of the Holy Messiah, be perfected in Christ, obtain every good thing and gain eternal life. The doctrine of Christ, on the other hand is the means--- the only means-- by which we can obtain all the blessings made available to us through Jesus's atonement. It is the doctrine of Christ that allows us to access the spiritual power that will lift us from our current spiritual state to a state where we can become perfected like the Savior." End quote.
So the doctrine of Christ is the way to get the blessings that Christ offers through his atonement, and it includes five parts, Faith in Jesus Christ, which is what we're gonna talk about today, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.
So each episode in this series is gonna be focused on one aspect of the doctrine of Christ. So this week we're talking about faith in Jesus Christ. Next week we'll talk about repentance.
There are many places in the scriptures, and I'm just gonna tell you right now, I'm quoting a lot of scriptures.
So go to the show notes on spirituallymindedwomen.com. You can find the links to all the scriptures that I'm gonna reference. There's a lot of 'em. But if you want to go into more depth and read more about the Doctrine of Christ, which I highly encourage you to do, to learn more about these five elements that are part of it, here's a couple places you can go.
So second Nephi in the Book of Mormon, in chapters 31 and 32, this is where Nephi gives his final address and talks to his people. And what does he teach them about? The doctrine of Christ. It was really important to Nephi. So go to second Nephi 31 and 32. You can also read the Savior's own words about his doctrine in third Nehi 27, 13 through 21. So this was during his visit to the Americas after his resurrection he taught about the doctrine of Christ.
And I'm gonna talk about some other scriptures as well as we go through this series. And again, I'm gonna link everything up in the show notes, but I just really invite you to go and read them and study for yourself.
What do the words of Nephi and Jesus teach you about the doctrine of Christ? So let's talk about faith in Jesus Christ. As I was thinking about this topic, I had a distinct thought that the first component of the doctrine of Christ is not faith. The first component is faith in Jesus Christ.
You can have faith in a lot of things. You can have faith in yourself. You can have faith in your bishop or another leader. You can have faith in a family member. You can have faith in a situation, and I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but the only thing that can truly help you start to create change in your life is to have faith in Jesus Christ.
The scriptures that kind of started me on this path to learning about the doctrine of Christ and studying them over these last several months and also wanting to share more with you on the podcast is a story in the Book of Mormon of the Prophet King and his last address to his people. So I'm gonna be weaving in a lot of what King Benjamin taught his people into this podcast series because his people are a beautiful example of what applying the doctrine of Christ and obtaining the blessings of Christ's Atonement can do to help us change our lives. These people have a beautiful story of how they changed using those things. One of the things King Benjamin taught his people was that faith in Christ is the only way.
And he said this in Mosiah 3:17. "And moreover, I say unto you that there shall be no other name given, nor any other way, nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.
So those were King Benjamin's words, and basically he's saying Jesus Christ is the only way.
What his atonement gives us power to do is to change. We aren't stuck in sin. We don't have to live in misery because of difficult circumstances. We can change our lives and it starts with faith in Jesus Christ. And the really good news is our faith doesn't have to be perfect. It can start so, so small.
So Jesus himself taught in Matthew 1720 "If ye have faith as a grain of a mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto you."
Have you ever seen a mustard seed? It's tiny, but it has the potential to grow up so huge.
And the prophet Alma, in the Book of Mormon has a great sermon about faith, where he compares faith to a seed. And that's another place to dive into the scripture. Alma 32, right? If you've read the Book of Women before, this is a kind of a famous chapter about faith, but Alma says in verses 26 and 27 he says, Now, as I said concerning faith that it is not a perfect knowledge, but behold, if you will awake and arouse your faculties even to an experiment upon my words and exercise a particle. Faith, Yea even if you can know more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you even until ye believe in a manner that you can give place for a portion of my words." End quote.
And the Savior himself taught that partial faith can get you started. In Mark 9, you can read about a troubled father who came to Jesus to have his son healed.
The father described his son's ailments as having a quote "dumb spirit," and that his son was tearing at things and foaming at the mouth and nashing his teeth. He was basically possessed by another spirit. He described to the Savior how his son was putting himself in harm's way and he begged the Savior to help him.
In verses 23 and 24, we read, "Jesus said unto him, if thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth and straightway the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief."
Then Jesus cast out the spirit in the boy and he heals him. This father didn't have to have perfect faith for Jesus to heal his son, right?
He just said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Help me where I'm falling short. Where I don't know. And I love that story because it means that wherever you and I are at with our faith in Jesus Christ, in this moment, it is enough for Jesus to help us. It is enough for Jesus to help you. You can start with a mustard seed, a particle, a desire, or with whatever you do know is true and he will be there.
But in order for faith in the Savior to have the power to change you, you can't hang out there. You can start, but then you've got to keep going.
After King Benjamin taught his people that Christ was the only way to salvation, he said, "And moreover, I say unto you that the time shall come when a knowledge of a savior shall spread throughout every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, and behold, when that time cometh, none shall be found blameless before God, except it be little children only through repentance and faith on the name of the Lord God Omnipotent."
I don't know that the knowledge of the Savior has spread everywhere in the world, but it has spread to you. You wouldn't be listening to this if you didn't know about him. So now is the time to act on what you know and let that desire work in you.
In Nephi's discourse on the doctrine of Christ, he said in second Nephi 31 10, and he's speaking of Jesus.
He says, "And he said unto the children of men, follow thou me. Wherefore my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father."
To me, another word for faith is follow. Follow Jesus. Have faith in him. Keep his commandments. Do what he did. And what does that mean?
Here's King Benjamin's definition in Mosiah 4:9. "Believe in God. Believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth. Believe that he has all wisdom and all power, both in heaven and in earth. Believe that man does not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend. And again, believe that you must repent of your sins and forsake them and humble yourselves before God and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you. And now if you believe all thesethese things, see that you do them."
Did you catch that last part? If you believe all these things, see that you do them. Doing is key to developing your faith in Jesus Christ.
In his address In October, 2022, General Conference, Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy posed this question, "Are we willing to put forth more than a superficial effort into strengthening our faith in Christ?" End quote. He went on to share that our Heavenly Father's love is perfect, but he also has expectations of us. The biggest expectation is to put the Savior first in our life.
One place to start to increase your faith in Jesus Christ is to look at the things in your life that are part of your everyday existence but may have become routine because you do them so often.
One of the discussions that my husband and I have quite a few times recently, we've talked a lot about this. We've talked about the sacrament. So we go to church every week. We take the sacrament every week. But are we really preparing for that experience? Are we partaking only superficially? That's what we've been discussing in my house, in our Come Follow Me and my husband and I on long car rides, we just talking about the sacrament.
I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail about the sacrament, because that's not my point here but I am gonna talk about it in an upcoming episode about baptism. But the point here is how can we make more of an effort with the things that have become routine, normal, and maybe even mundane in our lives, and let them strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ?
Ultimately, as you start with faith in Jesus Christ and you nurture and grow that faith to repentance, and then to make the covenant of baptism and partake of the sacrament each week, and then use the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide you and help you find joy and peace to endure, you will be able to change and become who our Heavenly Parents know you can be.
As President Nelson shared in his talk, Overcome the World and Find Rest in the October, 2022 general conference.
"Living the doctrine of Christ can produce the most powerful virtuous cycle, creating spiritual momentum in our lives." End quote. That's why we should want to follow the pattern we are given in Christ's doctrine because following this pattern gives us blessings of his atonement. Through his atoning sacrifice, we can change and grow.
We can co-create our lives with God. The doctrine of Christ is a pattern that if followed will help you know who you are. It'll help you know your identity. The doctrine will also help you know how to apply Christ's atonement to create change in your life.
As President Boyd K. Packer said, "True doctrine understood changes attitudes and behavior. The study of doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior." End quote.
If you're interested in self-help or personal development and changing yourself, there are so many good resources out there, but the greatest resource is right in front of you, the Gospel of Christ, which includes the atonement of Christ and the doctrine of Christ.
I've been reading this book called Divine Patterns by Roger Connors and he quotes a woman in there, her name's Ariel Zuck, I think I'm saying her last name, right? But I loved what Ariel shared in this quote, and she said, "I'm learning that God is much less a divine dictator who demands perfect compliance to a predetermined plan for our individual lives and much more a co-creator with us of the kind of lives we want to live. I'm learning that his plan for me is a lot less like a laser across the minefield and a lot more of a journey to coming to know myself and coming to know him."
So God hasn't left us here to just figure things out and he's given us all these tools and not only has he given us the tools, like the Doctrine of Christ and the Atonement of Christ, but he also wants to be there right beside us, co-creating it all together.
And your first step is the same step my grandma Lula. Have faith in Jesus Christ no matter where you are. If you're just starting out and you only have a mustard seat of faith, or if you've had faith but it's waning, or if you wanna strengthen your faith even more in him following the pattern set forth in the doctrine of Christ will give you access to the blessings of Jesus Christ's atonement, and that is how you become a co-creator of your life with God.
Start with faith in Jesus Christ.
I am so grateful to be back to the podcast. Thank you for being here. I hope something I shared has helped you. More importantly, I hope something you have heard will spark you to take action and do more to draw closer to Jesus Christ.
I pray every time I sit down to record that this podcast will be one way you can know what God wants you to know right now through the Holy Ghost.
Join me in the next episode to hear more about the second component of the doctrine of Christ, repentance.
Until then, I'm cheering you on.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please share it with a friend. I would love it if you would leave a review and rate it on Apple Podcasts. This actually helps more women find the podcast and learn how to use Christ's atonement and doctrine to co-create the life they want with God by their side. To find out more about discussion guides, coaching, and more ways to be part of the Spiritually Minded Women community, head over to spirituallymindedwomen.com.
Have an amazing day. I'm cheering you on.