Speech delivered by Anthony Lim to KL Branch members of about 120 members.
How many of us are willing to enter into the Celestial Kingdom? Raise your hands. I see all of us want to go there, including myself. All of us have the will to go the Celestial kingdom, but most of us lack the will to prepare to enter there. Today, I am here to talk about the Importance of Spiritual Preparation in order to be accepted into the glorious Kingdom. The will to prepare is more important than the will to win the crown....because eventually, when you have done well in preparing, you are sure to win the crown!
It took me a week to prepare the talk, each time I asked Heavenly Father on how to make you understand the urgency of the Spiritual Preparation--so that you can appreciate and feel the need to prepare properly. First, what is SPIRITUAL PREPARATION?
Let me put it so that you can clearly see it.
Spiritual Preparation, to me, can be liken to a process of a pupa or cocoon stage where the ugly caterpillar is slowly changing and developing into a glorious butterfly to enjoy the heavenly bliss of freedom. Mind you, it is a few weeks process of inner complete change and development--the longest time for the utmost beauty of a new creature to evolve.
So it is the same with Spiritual Preparation to change and develop from a carnal man to a spiritual holy man of God. The beauty of the Gospel is to transform from an ugly duckling to the beautiful and graceful white swan. Hence the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just to inform but to transform us fit to dwell in the presence of Heavenly joy with our Father in Heaven, Christ and holy angels and saints. We are commissioned by the Lord not just to share the Gospel but to shape the destiny of individuals and all mankind., calling to repentance and acceptance of Christ as the Saviour of mankind. It calls for the remarkable change from a natural man to a holy man. The Lord promises his Holy Spirit to guidance and bring about the conversion and ultimate change for the better.
In Amos 4:12: "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel". We have been continual going through the emotions of Spiritual Preparation from baptism to priesthood ordinance, sacrament, scripture studies at home, school and institutes of higher learning, temple work, and fellowship with the saints, and heavenly beings in the temple work.
For those who are prepared they shall not fear about the outcome. D &c 38:30.
We should be willing to support these activities as well as lending support to our church leaders and saints in every possible way.
D & C 109:8 emphasised to prepare EVERY needful thing.
Apart from the above mentioned preparation in need of spiritual and mundane duties, the vital spiritual preparation is to watch for the Second Coming of Christ. By so doing, we actually go through every possible fulfilling of our callings and anxiously engaging in every good cause of charity and love to our fellowmen, and pay our worship to our true God and Christ...John 17:3.
Let me give three short stories.
Abish, a lamanite woman, got so excited when she saw the king, queen and Ammon, and her people fell down in the worshipping place that she knocked at every household to come and witness the power of God. Most of them got converted. Alma19:17.
The Samaritan woman at the Jacob's well was enchanted by Jesus knowing her past five husbands, and the last was live-in man, she went out the city broadcasting that the Messiah was here already! Nearly, The whole city of people were converted on hearing Jesus' word.. He was indeed the Christ,the Saviour of the World!they proclaimed. John 4:42.
At the Sea Tiberias, Jesus advised the disciples to cast the net a little towards the right, and they obeyed him. Overflowing catch of fishes nearly sank the two boats.Luke 5:6.
What have these stories in common?
Three objectives: They simply obeyed the first law of Heaven to get overflowing productivity. Implicit faith to follow the master and the Spirit. Last, they gave their utmost enthusiasm in their efforts to spread their joy of knowing Heavenly blessings.
Lastly, my personal experience of personal preparation of my son, Elisha Lim for his two -year mission to Oden Utah, USA. Elisha was staying in Taiping, 200 miles from me for ten years without the church or the book of Mormon. No testimony of the gospel though he was taught when young. After much prayer and fasting, I cried unto Father and Christ for help. For the months he was with me, at the time of the terriorist attack on the Twin Tower of Trade Centre in New York 11Sept. 2001, he said he needed the testimony to go on the mission. For 26 days, we studied the scriptures,and Book of Mormon, three hours morning and three hours at night, with help from Institue and Seminary manuals, Q & A from Fielding Smith, Richard's Marvellous Book and Wonder, Jesus the Christ, Magazines, we managed to produce the synopsis of the Book of Mormon, too. Four miracles happened which were beyond our expectations-
1. His mission was reverted to Ogden: US Embassy allowed Malaysians to go to US, and the Church reversed his mission to the original area from Brisbane,
2. The urine test was clear which at first appeared pinkish bacterial sign,
3. His passport was received at 8 pm to urgently go to Singapore for a Patriarchal Blessing, which normaly was issued at daytime,
4 and most of all--He received a clear testimony of the gospel and was well prepared for the mission!
He was indeed elated that all things turned to his favour--which he couldn't believe his eyes! He requested for my personal blessing for his mission. Out of the blue, ironically and coincidentally (?), Bro. Gary Orgill Singapoe Mission Counsellor, called me to give him his mission calling and blessing!
It was indeed a huge spiritual preparation which resulted in spiritual manifestations and miracles beyond our beliefs. I gave him the best mission call blessing--with leading baptismal results and outstanding Zone Leader: a gangster leader and wife were converted, as well as a national dancer and mother, who practically had no time to listen to the gospel the past three months. Elisha Lim also achieved the top student in his Univ. class, and accepted the job of Supervisor Auditor at BYU for internship.
Thus, for Spiritual Preparation to be effective, we must be willing to sacrifice four T's:-
1. Talents should be sacrificed to God to build his Kingdom.
2. Treasure..money to help charity and service.
3, Tireless Efforts no matter what the situations are.
4, Total SELF SACRIFICE TO SHOW YOUR WILLINGNESS TO PREPARE GOD'S KINGDOM.
Let us put our shoulders to the wheel: Just get the will to spiritually prepare for the Second Coming of the Saviour, and you shall get the crown!
(At the end of the talk, more than ten foreigners thanked the speaker for the unique talk and they would treasure the four sacrifices of T's and personal experience of preparing mission)
No comments:
Post a Comment