Today we are talking about one very important thing that Abraham did that set him up to receive amazing promises from the Lord, and how you can use the same thing to get more out of your scripture study. I'm Cindy Young, and this is Primarily Scripture. Our Come Follow me this week is in Genesis chapters 12 through 17 and Abraham chapters 1 and 2. And we learn all about how Abraham was saved from human sacrifice by Jesus Christ himself, and how he left his father's house and was promised incredible blessings by the Lord. Blessings that even seemed a little bit impossible. The way these blessings were fulfilled, and how Abraham's responsibilities are passed on to us today as the Abrahamic Covenant, is literally like a huge, huge topic and it's one that we will not be able to cover here, I'm sorry to say. So be sure you're reading the Come Follow Me manual so you can get as much as possible out of these chapters. What we're talking about today is this secret ingredient that will open up the windows of heaven so that you can understand and receive everything that the Lord wants to teach you. So you can turn to Abraham chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, or those verses are on my worksheet this week. So head on over to primarily scripture.com and you can get those for free. Now if you want to sign up for the newsletter so that you get direct links to the worksheets and the podcast every week, you can definitely do that. But I assure you it is not a requirement to get the worksheets. I am not gatekeeping these in any way. So don't miss out on this actually free resource that I've got for you. All right, are you ready? Let's read these two verses together, and as I read, we are going to look for what these verses teach us about Abraham. It says this- "In the land of the Chaldeans," that's where they were living "at the residence of my fathers, I Abraham saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of residence." He needed another place to live."And finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same;" which means he wanted the priesthood."Having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers." So did you catch any of that? What does it tell you about him? He said that he tried to live righteously and he wanted to have knowledge, but he also wanted to live more righteously and to have more knowledge. He even wanted to receive instructions from God and to keep the commandments. And so to help him do that, he chose to receive the Melchizedek priesthood. I love the simplicity and the power that is in this list of his desires. But I especially love the pattern that we find here. It is one that can be used over and over and over again for each of us. It will help us to participate more fully in those Abrahamic covenant responsibilities that we have, and in turn will help us to receive the blessings that go with righteous living. But this podcast is specifically about scripture study. So that's the lens we're going to use when we look at this pattern. Before we go any further, let's define what is a pattern? It's something that can be followed over and over and over again and receive similar results. So in theory, we should be able to look at what Abraham did to receive an outcome and we should be able to do similar things to receive a similar outcome. And that's a pattern. Now we already know that what Abraham got was covenants with the Lord and he became a mighty prophet who was shown amazing visions about God's plan and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But if we say that in a slightly different way, then it's suddenly applicable to scripture study and each of us. So we could say that what Abraham got in the end was connection with and knowledge about God and his gospel. Do you see how that makes sense for what Abraham got and also what we can get? And because I want to have more of that connection with God and gain knowledge, and I'm sure you do too, we're going to look a little bit closer and see if we can identify the things that Abraham did so that we can follow that pattern. To help us find the specific things that Abraham did, we are going to look for action words and your English teacher would be so happy to hear that you are trying to identify verbs. While it might have been boring at school, it is so helpful in scripture study. So let's look again at verse one. What action words can you find there? Let's mark them. I first see the word "saw." When you see something that's an action and what else?"Obtain" is another action word, which means to get something. Now that we found those action words, we're gonna see if we can use one or both, or even none of them in our pattern. Let's start with the word saw. In order to see if we can use it, we have to identify what it is he saw. This is called identifying the object of the verb, the thing that gets the action. So what did Abraham actually see? He saw that he needed to do something- it was needful. And what was it that was needed? He needed to get something- that's our other action word. What was the object that he needed to get? He needed a new place to live. So remember that a pattern is something that can be repeated over and over again. Do you think that, like Abraham, we can identify needs over and over again? Yes, I think so! That should be part of our pattern. Do you think that we can add, "get a new place to live" to our pattern? Is that something that we're gonna need to do over and over again? Well, maybe, but not specifically. We can't actually say that we're definitely going to need that. So we can have that just be part of our identifying needs. Sometimes we'll need new surroundings and sometimes we'll need something else. So we can move through verse two like this and find more action words and find the object of that action, and we can break it down or rephrase it into something that's applicable to us. Now, spoiler alert, I actually did this already. So if you look in the third column of the worksheet, there is a study activity here. I listed a bunch of actions that I found and a bunch of objects that I found, and it's your job to match them up with each other. And since we've already identified what he saw, we can draw that line right here on the worksheet. And then there's an example done for you, so Abraham had already been... what? Living righteously. You can go back to verse two and reread it and find more of those actions and match them up with their objects and decide if they work in the pattern. For a bunch of the other things that are in this verse, I combined them all together into this phrase right here- that Abraham wanted... what did he want? Connection with the Lord. And that includes knowledge, and greater knowledge, and instructions from him, and to keep the commandments. These are all ways that we can connect with the Lord. Isn't that what we all want when we study the scriptures, we want knowledge, and we want to know what to do just like Abraham did. And so what can we do to receive this kind of connection? We can do these things right here that we matched up. And let me point out that I did not put them in any kind of special order. Now, sometimes order matters. There are some patterns where the order is very important. For instance, you're not gonna receive the gift of the Holy Ghost before you get baptized. And in order to make and receive any covenants with God, you need to be living righteously. But all of these things can be worked on in any order and at the same time, even. And as we do those things, do you remember what Abraham got? He got increased knowledge and more connection with God. That's amazing! Now I do want to point out that this says that Abraham took steps to receive the priesthood, and as a woman, that's not an option for me. But I want to remind you that receiving the priesthood is making a covenant with God, and that is something that each of us can do. So don't get too caught up in which exact covenant Abraham made, and just remember that the important thing here is that we're trying to make and keep those covenants. Okay, so now that we've found all of these things in our pattern, we can get down to the secret ingredient, which is what all of these have in common and will bring so much power into your scripture study. Every single one of these things that Abraham wanted and did was because he wanted to be closer to the Lord. Now this is very similar to what we talked about two weeks ago where I told you to take what you learned from the scriptures and apply it to your own life in ways that would strengthen your relationship with the Savior. Today's tip is related, but we're gonna do it in the opposite order. I want you to try out inviting Jesus to be with you FIRST. And then as you study, you'll be able to learn more and understand more, and you'll find more peace and happiness and rest. It'll be easier for you to know what to do. Your faith and your capacity to keep the commandments and follow the Lord will be strengthened and increased every day. Why? Because you invited Him in. I'll say that again. You will get more out of your scripture study because you invited Him in. It's all up to you. The same way that Abraham made choices to invite the Savior to be a stronger influence in his life, you can do that, and what do you think this will look like? Well, prayer is a great place to start. If you feel like you already have a really good relationship with the Savior, then you can just sincerely, talk to him in your prayer the same way that you would talk to a friend. Have you ever prayed like that? Like you're talking to a friend? If not, then this is a great time to try it. Tell him what you want to get out of your studies today, what you're worried about. Ask him what you should do today. And then as you study, you're listening for answers. Your studying is the second part of the conversation that you already started by inviting Him in. Now you might get clear instructions, like Abraham asked for, you might get more knowledge about something, or you might get feelings like Abraham described of peace and happiness and rest. There are a lot of different ways that the Lord answers prayers. And I can't tell you what it will look like or feel like for you. You have to put in the work and figure it out for yourself. Now, if you feel like maybe you don't have such a strong relationship yet with the Savior, then you can start by asking him to show you what you need to know and do in order to build that relationship. Ask for his help in building it. He wants to help you. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ always honor our choices. They let us decide, including whether or not we want to connect with them. So a really great first step in building that connection is telling them that you want it! Now, it might sound a little bit cheesy, kind of like saying, Hey, do you wanna be my friend? But when you say it out loud and when you truly want it yourself, then your heart and your mind will be prepared for the next steps and the next answers that come. The trick is that you have to act in faith first. Your desires really do matter. Which is why I asked you to make goals related to your scripture study this year, and if you haven't made those goals yet, then maybe now's a great time to start because we see from Abraham's story just how powerful our desires can be in helping us to do, and receive, and to follow, and, and to become! And if like Abraham, you have a desire to connect with the Lord, then you have to take steps to show Him that. I invite you today to literally invite the Lord into your scripture study. Feel it in your heart. Feel it down deep inside, and really talk to the Lord about this. Rather than starting with knowledge and building a relationship, you can start with a relationship that will help you to gain the knowledge you seek from the scriptures. It really is a powerful study tool, and I hope you give it a try! Like Abraham, who continued in faith and continued inviting the Lord into his life, you just might find the connections and the knowledge and the answers that you are seeking, and so much more! I am Cindy Young. Thanks for tuning in to Primarily Scripture. Thanks for tuning into primarily Scripture with Cindy Young. Don't forget you can subscribe to the newsletter and download free worksheets on the website, primarily scripture.com. And if you like the channel, be sure to subscribe, like, share, and leave a review. See you next time.