Filled With the Spirit Through Reading the Scriptures

by aprayerfulhouse@gmail.com (Jared Tanner) (01/22/2012 4:53 pm)

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“And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord.” (1 Nephi 1: 11-12).

What’s the context of these verses? Lehi had a vision; he saw God, Jesus Christ, and the twelve original apostles of the Savior. One of them – Peter – gave Lehi a book to read. This book was a book of prophecy and revelation; in essence, it was scripture. When Lehi read the book, when he read the scriptures, something important happened: “he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord.”

When Lehi read the scriptures he felt the Spirit. But even more, Lehi was filled with the Spirit. That is one reason why it is so important to read the scriptures – so we can be filled with the Spirit. This is a principle that missionaries use – let people read the scriptures for themselves so that they might feel the Spirit. There, I revealed one of the tricks that missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints use – have people read the scriptures themselves. It’s so tricky because then the missionaries don’t have to do any convincing, they just let the Spirit of the Lord do it for them – they let God convince those reading the scriptures of the truthfulness of what they read. It’s much easier on the conscience to reject people than it is to reject God.

What is important though is that however we feel, if we feel lost and alone, if we feel discouraged or distraught, if we feel burdened down by cares and concerns, we can find solace in the scriptures. The solace comes from the words of the prophets but more importantly from the Spirit of the Lord that accompanies the reading of the scriptures.

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