Generations Linked in Love

This is from a talk I gave in May of 2010 which started with my post from September 2009 Why Do We Need a Body? I then linked that with the General Conference talk Generations Linked in Love by Elder Russel M Nelson an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God, the Creator of all things, was so brilliant in the creation that we can look at anything that He created and be taught of Him what we must do. We are created in His image so I like to look to the body as one of the most magnificent teachers.

I would say that our body has three purposes: One is to digest food, another is to unify the spirit with the body and the last is to improve its function or skill. In other words our body has a three-fold mission. To integrate a lower form of life into the greater form of the body. To do for the spirit what it could not do for itself, to be unified with the spirit in preparation for the day of its redemption by Jesus Christ. And to perfect the body in function, structure and ability.

I'm going to spend the rest of my talk discussing the central mission of the body.

I stated earlier that our body is symbolic of the atonement and Jesus Christ. It is also symbolic of the family, the Church of Jesus Christ and the Temple.

The purpose of the Temple is to unify the family of Adam, living and dead, and a mission of the church is to redeem the living and the dead.

Through “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims, promotes, and protects the truth that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children ... this Church brings hope and help to the sacred institution of the family."

We may ask - what can we do that our ancestors can no longer do? We know that they are still alive, only without a bodies. Specifically, what can we do on earth sealed in families in a large family order, that they cannot do as spirits in the Spirit world? Why is it so beneficial for all of us to be sealed, in families, to them in our progression?

This leads to the question: What can our ancestors do in the Spirit world that we cannot do on earth? Again, we know the answer - Almost nothing. They are the same people they once were when they lived on earth ... So what can they do?

They can think, they can learn, they can repent and they can associate with other people, this did not end with death. But God knew that they could not progress doing these things, so He clothed us with a body - the body of the church. And, as we are His children, He clothed us with a church organization patterned after Him.

Elder Nelson said "He also provided a way for them to be part of an eternal family ... When our hearts turn to our ancestors, something changes inside us. We feel part of something greater than ourselves. Our inborn yearnings for family connections are fulfilled when we are linked to our ancestors through sacred ordinances of the temple."

As I stated earlier - We are enabled by the grace of God, then we are commanded to use that grace. The body of the church and the temple are symbolic of Christ and His Atonement. They both enable our ancestors, through us, to do what they did not have the opportunity to do for themselves during their lives. The Church and the Temple are the grace of God. Then comes the commandment by invitation:

The Lord showed Isaiah our day and showed him the invitation:

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." (2 Nephi 12:2-3)

Nothing in this invitation can be done by those who do not have a physical body or by those who are not in the body of this church. So we are asked to do it for them.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught with clarity the importance of this work: “The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead.”

Again he stated its importance in D&C 128:15: "And now, my dearly beloved brethren and sisters, let me assure you that these are principles in relation to the dead and the living that cannot be lightly passed over, as pertaining to our salvation. For their salvation is necessary and essential to our salvation, as Paul says concerning the fathers—that they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect."

Elder Nelson invites us: "No matter your situation, you can make family history a part of your life right now. Primary children can draw a family tree. Youth can participate in proxy baptisms. They can also help the older generation work with computers. Parents can relate stories of their lives to their posterity. Worthy adult members can hold a temple recommend and perform temple ordinances for their own kin."