Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Home IS Where the Heart Is

The house that we live in does not make a home. We can live in the mansion on the hill or in the little mud hut in the valley, it makes no difference what the structure of our home is, what really counts is the love that is felt.

Home IS Where the Heart Is

What kind of heart do you have in your home?
Is it a soft pliable heart one that expresses love? Is your home a place where you feel safe – secure – Where the Spirit can dwell? Is your heart a humble heart willing to listen and obey the promptings of the Spirit?
Or do you feel a hard heart, is it unmovable, is it a place where things are dealt with harshness – firmness – where agency is taken away?

Is there joy felt in your home how about peace and happiness?

Joseph Smith said
Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it;
And this path is VIRTUE, UPRIGHTNESS, FAITHFULNESSs, HOLINESS, and KEEPING THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.

As we learn to live these principles we will have happiness in our lives and in our homes.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

House of Order

The Great Symbol of Our Membership
Howard W. Hunter

This counsel is still applicable: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” (D&C 88:119). No wonder He has said that in His holy house, “I will manifest myself to my people in mercy” (D&C 110:7).
Gospel Library > Magazines > Ensign > October 1994

As we take a minute and look at our own lives and homes what do we need to change to make our homes a house of order? We can have pictures of the Savior and the temples throughout our homes; we can display our scriptures and church magazines in prominent places in our homes. We can even have clean and beautiful homes but is that what makes our home a house of order?
Our first and foremost responsibility in our home is to bring our children back to God. If there is not a spirit of love and compassion for each other in our home it is not a house of order. We need to help our family members feel, know and understand the divine within us. All that we do in the home should allow the Spirit to dwell within its walls.
Do we allow too much of the world to enter into our homes? We have to go out into the world but we do not have to be of the world and we must do everything we can to keep the negative influences out of our homes. Our family needs a safe haven they can come into where love is expressed and the Spirit felt. They need a place where they can grow in knowledge and wisdom so they will have the strength, courage and power to stand firm at all times and in all places.
What can we do to make our homes a house of order?

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Preservation of the Family

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley

In 1966, BYU Commencement address he said, The preservation of the family will be one of the great and serious challenges facing you in the future into which you come.

The family is under attack. All across the world families are falling apart. The place to begin to improve society is in the home.
If you want to reform a nation, you begin with families
No nation is stronger than the homes of its people.

The family is divine. It was instituted by our Heavenly Father. It encompasses the most sacred of all relationships. Only through its organization can the purposes of the Lord be fulfilled.
I am satisfied that nothing will assure greater success in the hazardous undertaking of parenthood than a program of (4) family life that comes from the marvelous teaching of the gospel; that the father of the home may be clothed with the priesthood of God; that it is his privilege and obligation as a steward of our Heavenly Father’s children to provide for their needs; that he is to govern in the home in the spirit of the priesthood ‘by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; (D&C 121:41-42);
And that mothers in the home is a daughter of God, a soul of intelligence, devotion, and love who may be clothed with the Spirit of God; that it is her privilege and obligation as a steward of our Heavenly Father’s children to nurture those children in their daily needs; that she, in companionship with her husband, is also to teach her children to ‘understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands… and to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.” (D&C 68: 25, 28)
In such a home, parents are loved and not dreaded’ they are appreciated and not feared. And children are regarded as gifts of the Lord, to be cared for, nurtured, encouraged, and directed.
(Pillars of Truth, “ Ensign, Jan 1994).
The primary place in building a value system is in the home
The home is the seedbed of all true virtue. If proper values are not learned in the home, they are not likely to be learned anywhere…
The family is the basic element of society. Good homes become the foundation for the strength of any nation.

Continually he says
I plead with you to put harshness behind us, to bridle our anger, to lower our voices, and to deal with mercy and love and respect one toward another in our homes. There is no discipline in all the world like the discipline of love. It has a magic all its own.
There is too much selfishness
There is too much of worldliness in our homes”

Protect out homes

SHIRLEY R. KLEIN
“Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness.” If our homes compare to the temple, what is it about the home that makes it sacred ? The dictionary meaning of “sacred”: “belonging to or dedicated to God; worthy of reverence; set apart for or dedicated to some person, object, or purpose; that [which] must not be violated or disregarded; properly immune, as from violence or interference.”
As you develop spiritual strength through everyday activities in your home, you are building strong timbers and pickets to protect your homes. In the Doctrine and Covenants we read that God has only given us spiritual commandments and that none of them are temporal (see D&C 29:35). If God’s commandments are not temporal, that means they are not limited to this life: His commandments are everlasting. We can apply this to our homes by realizing that all our actions on earth have consequences. The things we do on earth shape the person we become now and in the life to come. Thus the earthly patterns of living we create in our homes have power to influence our spiritual outcomes. Spouses can “love and care for each other and for their children” and foster development of characteristics to prepare them for eternity.

Home, a refuge from the storm

Elder L. Tom Perry:
“We need to make our homes a place of refuge from the storm. . . . Even if the smallest openings are left unattended, negative influences can penetrate the very walls of our homes.

President Spencer W. Kimball said 25 years ago
“Many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us.7
The battle for your homes is real. To preserve your family you will need to believe deeply and actively in family life in the home and take action.”

Home

Home is where we preside. It doesn’t’ matter what it is, how expensive or how humble it is, what matters is what is going on within its walls.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Importance of home and family

Gods work is to bring to pass immortality and eternal life of man.
Our work is to know and understand and act upon every needful thing to return home to our loving Heavenly Parents.


We must know and understand the importance of Home and Family
Home is where we preside. It doesn’t’ matter what it is, how expensive or how humble it is, what matters is what is going on within its walls.


Elder L. Tom Perry reminds us:
We need to make our homes a place of refuge from the storm. . . . Even if the smallest openings are left unattended, negative influences can penetrate the very walls of our homes.
In general conference 25 years ago, President Spencer W. Kimball warned:
Many of the social restraints which in the past have helped to reinforce and to shore up the family are dissolving and disappearing. The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us.
The battle for your homes is real. To preserve your family you will need to believe deeply and actively in family life in the home and take action.


Protect Our Homes,
Renew Our Powers
SHIRLEY R. KLEIN

“Only the home can compare with the temple in sacredness.”10 If our homes compare to the temple, what is it about the home that makes it sacred? Listen to the dictionary meaning of “sacred”: “belonging to or dedicated to God; worthy of reverence; set apart for or dedicated to some person, object, or purpose; that [which] must not be violated or disregarded; properly immune, as from violence or interference.”
As you develop spiritual strength through everyday activities in your home, you are building strong timbers and pickets to protect your homes. In the Doctrine and Covenants we read that God has only given us spiritual commandments and that none of them are temporal (see D&C 29:35). If God’s commandments are not temporal, that means they are not limited to this life: His commandments are everlasting. We can apply this to our homes by realizing that all our actions on earth have consequences. The things we do on earth shape the person we become now and in the life to come. Thus the earthly patterns of living we create in our homes have power to influence our spiritual outcomes. Spouses can “love and care for each other and for their children”21 and foster development of characteristics to prepare them for eternity.


Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley

In 1966, BYU Commencement address he said, The preservation of the family will be one of the great and serious challenges facing you in the future into which you come.

The family is under attack. All across the world families are falling apart. The place to begin to improve society is in the home.
If you want to reform a nation, you begin with families
No nation is stronger than the homes of its people.

The family is divine. It was instituted by our Heavenly Father. It encompasses the most sacred of all relationships. Only through its organization can the purposes of the Lord be fulfilled.
I am satisfied that nothing will assure greater success in the hazardous undertaking of parenthood than a program of family life that comes from the marvelous teaching of the gospel; that the father of the home may be clothed with the priesthood of God; that it is his privilege and obligation as a steward of our Heavenly Father’s children to provide for their needs; that he is to govern in the home in the spirit of the priesthood ‘by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; (D&C 121:41-42);
And that mothers in the home is a daughter of God, a soul of intelligence, devotion, and love who may be clothed with the Spirit of God; that it is her privilege and obligation as a steward of our Heavenly Father’s children to nurture those children in their daily needs; that she, in companionship with her husband, is also to teach her children to ‘understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands… and to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord.” (D&C 68: 25, 28)
In such a home, parents are loved and not dreaded’ they are appreciated and not feared. And children are regarded as gifts of the Lord, to be cared for, nurtured, encouraged, and directed.
(Pillars of Truth, “ Ensign, Jan 1994).
The primary place in building a value system is in the home
The home is the seedbed of all true virtue. If proper values are not learned in the home, they are not likely to be learned anywhere…
The family is the basic element of society. Good homes become the foundation for the strength of any nation.

Continually he says
I plead with you to put harshness behind us, to bridle our anger, to lower our voices, and to deal with mercy and love and respect one toward another in our homes. There is no discipline in all the world like the discipline of love. It has a magic all its own.
There is too much selfishness
There is too much of worldliness in our homes


If there is less trouble in the homes, there will be less trouble in the nations.



In the family proclamation
“By divine design mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children
We have divine responsibilities to nurture our children.
What does nurturing look, feel and sound like? (D&C 121:41-42)