Well, going to the topical guide reveals the subject of gratitude has ZERO scriptural references. So what else do the scriptures say about gratitude? It’s a matter of determining what is both expedient and desirous, explaining to the Lord why it’s needful, and being grateful he would bring that into our lives. Gratitude for what we have (“all things”) brings about more things that can be a blessing to us. He is essentially stating if you desire this thing, you will receive it through gratitude for the things you have. I, the Lord, am willing, if any among you desire to ride upon horses, or upon mules, or in chariots, he shall receive this blessing, if he receive it from the hand of the Lord, with a thankful heart in all things. Monson coined the phrase (or at least made it more well known) to have an “attitude of gratitude.”ħ. We receive what we desire (another law) and if we spiritually create those things in our mind and feel the gratitude for them as we seek inspiration on creating them, why would that not generate the guidance that will be helpful in physically manifesting those spiritual creations? My own opinion is there is something to this. They’ll even encourage having the feelings of gratitude BEFORE the blessing has arrived in order to generate the frequency of gratitude necessary to receive that blessing. Why is that? Depending on the source, they will explain it as God (or the universe for secularists), responds to the vibration gratitude generates by rewarding it with more of what you are grateful for. If you’ve ever heard of “law of attraction” type books or movies, you may be aware that a component of these things is to express gratitude or even create a gratitude journal. Asking is another law of heaven… Law of Attraction He is eager to do so and bestow on us everything we righteously seek and ask for. When we live those laws, it is his great pleasure to bless us. Laws and blessings are the irrevocable laws of heaven by which God trains us to become like him by learning to understand the limitations and bounds by which He Himself lives. These blessings teach us that submission to God is not captivation, but the ultimate liberty, freedom, and power to act as God does. The longer term blessings that come are a change of nature, spiritual endowments of power, and eternal life and exaltation. It comes in the form of peace and gratitude inside of us. The immediate blessing is a confirmation by the Spirit that we have followed an eternal law. Those blessings are both immediate, and extended. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever therefore, of what have ye to boast? Obedience to Law Brings BlessingsĮvery law of God that is obeyed, generates a blessing. And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you and therefore he hath paid you. And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.Ģ4. And behold, all that requires of you is to keep his commandments and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land and he never doth vary from that which he hath said therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.Ģ3. King Benjamin outlined some principles of laws and blessings in one of the greatest sermons in the Book of Mormon.Ģ2. The scriptures are full of laws and blessings with one obvious one in Doctrine & Covenants 89 on laws and blessings of health. Laws of God are designed to take us step by step through a process of thinning this veil until we reconcile to God through the atonement of Jesus Christ and are again brought into his presence. We have forgotten everything due to this separation wall that we willingly entered into. It’s to teach us how eternal attributes operate in our lives.Īs eternal and infinite beings, we are having a telestial moment, cocooned in a body veil that blocks our direct access to the spiritual realm. It’s not to control us or do some kind of Pavlovian behavioral science on us. Is it possible that being grateful for something preserves it? Is the opposite true that ingratitude is the thing that brings something to ruin? Eternal LawsĮternal laws are established for a reason. And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-Ģ1. Whenever someone uses the word law in a gospel context, my mind always reverts to these verses of scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants:Ģ0. He said, “gratitude is the law of preservation.” I had an interesting conversation with a friend this past week that sparked some study in the scriptures and some deep thinking about gratitude.
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