BYU (Brigham Young University) is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church.” As part of their undergraduate coursework, BYU students take multiple semesters of spiritually uplifting, stimulating religion classes.
In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.
In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelites who settled in ancient America. (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names. We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages.)
Let us know if you’d like to receive your own digital copy of the Book of Mormon, and/or if these messages encourage and assist you spiritually as well.
Mormonism: Pray, He Loves You
Heavenly Father loves us. He loves all of his sons and daughters. This means that he loves you, me, your next-door neighbor, and everyone else. We are literally Heavenly Father’s sons and daughters, and Heavenly Father has a fatherly love for all of us.
We can speak to God through prayer.
Most of the interactions and stories in the Book of Mormon come from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the one who appears unto the prophets in a vision. He is the one who visits the people in the America’s after He was resurrected, and He gives many commandments and teachings to the people in the Book of Mormon, as well as us. Heavenly Father loves our elder brother and His son Jesus Christ, so He gave Him almost all responsibility for all His children (us) on earth. But the one thing He didn’t give to only Jesus Christ is prayer.We pray to our Father in Heaven. I think this is amazing. We have a loving Father who wants to hear from us. He gave up everything to Jesus, but didn’t give away that sacred experience to communicate with us here on earth.
Our Father in Heaven loves us and wants to hear from us. He wants that connection with us where He can listen to our thoughts and words being directed to Him. Sometimes prayer can be taken lightly and put low on our priority list. As college students here at BYU, I want us to imagine what our earthly father would think if we never called him, or if we did call him, we never acted interested in talking and never put in real effort to communicate. I know my dad would be very sad. We need to have deep, thought-out prayers with our Father. He is listening and we are actually communicating with Him! He wants to hear from us, and He wants to help us. I know that as we pray to our Heavenly Father, we will feel His deep love for us.
If these reflections helped you, or if you have any questions or comments, I would be happy to hear from you.
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