Week 47- Know, Do, Be 

Scriptures:

D&C 88:118-119                               

2 Ne 28: 30

2 Ne 2:14

2 Ne 2:27

3 Ne 27:21

D&C 131:6

D&C 68:25-26

General Conference Address:  

“Converted Unto the Lord” Elder David A Bednar CR 10/2012

Thought:

The process of becoming follows a very consistent pattern. First, we must learn and acquire knowledge.  We must know things. Next, we have to do things in order to get certain results. Finally, what we consistently do becomes who we are. We become a new creature. We must know, then do, then be(come). This pattern helps us understand how faith works and then benefit from exercising it. We don’t just learn things and become converted. Once we learn things, then we act on that knowledge and then, over time, we will become more than we were before. This pattern is instructive when we think about teaching in the church or at home or anywhere else. If someone isn’t doing the right things or at least not correctly, we must begin by asking what they know. Have we taught them enough? Can we provide more information to clarify the way? After that, we invite action. Knowing that a seed can bring forth fruit won’t make it so. We must prepare the ground, bury the seed and tend to it. Then, it can become something amazing. It won’t happen overnight. One must continually tend to it. If you neglect it, it will die. But if you nourish and tend to it with consistency and care, it will become a fruit giver. What we learn, and then do, influences who we become. There are no shortcuts! 

Misc:

"Knowledge is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"To know and not to do is really not to know."

— Stephen R. Covey

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

— Aristotle (Philosophical paraphrase by Will Durant)

Invitation: 

Get a blank sheet of paper and make a list of parts of your testimony that are most prone to being neglected. Places where you don’t regularly nourish it or exercise faith in it. Then choose 2 and decide how you can exercise faith in it in the next few days. Summarize what you learn at the bottom of the page.