Ok, it’s the new year and everyone is supposed to make new year’s resolutions, right? So over the next several days, I’ll post ideas for resolutions on how to strengthen your family by using Church materials and technology wisely.

Resolution #1: Use Church resources to enhance your daily study of the scriptures. The Church provides the scriptures online, in audio format, and in traditional printed formats:

• Online scriptures. If you haven’t experienced scriptures.lds.org, you need to. You can read the text or listen to the audio scriptures. You can even enlarge the text size to make it easier to read. You can click on footnotes and references to jump directly to the referenced scriptures. It also has personalized study tools that let you highlight verses and save personal notes. Those notes are then available to you whether you read the scriptures online or on a mobile device. (See mobile.lds.org.) This is your own digital personal study notebook. And it can include more than just the scriptures. You can also highlight and take notes in other Church publications, such as the Gospel Doctrine manuals or the Institute manuals, and it’s all synced to your personal study notebook.
• Audio scriptures are available in CD format or you can listen to them online at scriptures.lds.org. When in a chapter online, just click Listen in the right margin.
• Printed scriptures are available for purchase in a variety of covers, colors, and sizes.

In Sunday School classes this year, adults will study the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history. I challenge you to try the new digital study tools to highlight what you find important and cross reference the scriptures and information in other Church publications. Refer to the article “D&C/Church History Resources to Support 2013 Study” for a list of the resources provided by the Church to help in your study of the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history.

5 Scriptures to Motivate You to Action

The scriptures are not passive reading materials. They should motivate us to action. On every page, there are messages for each one of us.

In the video below from Mormon Times TV, author and BYU religion instructor John Bytheway talks about 5 of his favorite scriptures that help provide a little extra motivation when we need it.

• Moroni 10:31 - “Awake and arise from the dust”
• Proverbs 4:26 - “Ponder the path of thy feet”
• Doctrine and Covenants 60:13 - “Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known”
• Moses 1:39 - “This is my work”
• 1 Nephi 3:7 - “I will go and do”

John Bytheway has written more about these 5 scriptures.

What are your favorite scriptures that motivate you?