The Mind of a Faith-Filled Disciple

This is another of my education week classes. Notes as follows: (please remember that I have to cut my notes to the bone to post them-there simply isn't room. And of course the instructor says 3 times what I get down on paper.)
(day 1)Overcoming the World and Our Weaknesses by Faith:
A disciple is more than a 'believer' or a 'hearer'. A disciple is one who entertains a field of discipline, a field of instruction, of schooling or training, of a system of conduct. (see D&C 76:50-54)
A story was told of a school for thoroughbred horses. All are trained to come to a clap and call. Food is then withheld for 3 days. Placed within sight is fresh water and hay, and all the horses are let out. Just before they reach the food comes the clap and call. 80 % go on to the food, only those few who forgo the food and turn to the masters call are allowed to breed to be the sires of champions. They alone will obey and delay gratification. Can we see the final reward clearly enough to ignore the world and obey the master? (see Heb. 11:24-27)
Unless you do what you say you believe in, you don't know if you truly believe.
Brigham Young in the Journal of Discourses: . . . it is a masterwork to school our minds so as at all times to exercise complete power over them.
Joseph Smith: Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time. . .
Henry Van Dyke: Thoughts are things. We build our futures thought by thought and so the universe was wrought.
A story told of a young athlete who was in a bad accident which changed her life and abilities completely. She saw that she was still in a position of choice. She could choose self pity, anger and bitterness, or she could go forward with her life. Only her body had changed. She said that she had a body, but she was not her body, she has feelings but she is not her feelings, she has emotions but she is not her emotions. She is a thinker of thoughts, and she chooses the thoughts.
We can think about our thinking right in the process of thinking it and we can change our thinking. We can choose to be positive.
We label ourselves, such as "I'm just not a morning person" like God made us that way. We have no fixed personality. We can change it. We do it all the time. We go to answer the door. We have one personality if the person at the door is an IRS agent coming to discuss our taxes and another personality if the person at the door is Cindy Crawford (Brad Pitt)(someone else we think is hot!) It all depends on our attitude, belief, perspective and character - all things we choose.
At judgment day we will be accountable for our thoughts because when life is completed you will be the sum of, the product of, your thoughts. We alter our destiny by altering our thoughts.
(day2)Cultivating Righteous Desires:
Some of Joseph's visions came as a flow of pure intelligence into his mind. Then he had to find a way to communicate them to us in a way we could understand - into the English language. ( I have said this myself, sometimes the revelation given to the prophet was as simple as, for instance, a strong feeling that we need to find a way to reach the youth. Create a MIA and over the years try to improve how it works. Does the fact that now we have Young Women and Young Men instead mean the church isn't true because it changed and God is supposed to be unchanging? Of course not!)(sorry, sidetracked!) Joseph progressively called the essence of our being; the soul, the mind of man, the immortal spirit, the mind (again), intelligence and then intelligence of Spirits. Our teacher called it "the thinker of thoughts". That part of us responsible for everything we think.
Satan can and does insert inappropriate, untrue, self-denigrating thoughts into our minds, but we can choose to delete them.
Remember the adage "If you make a mess you clean it up"? Well how about "If you don't make a mess you don't have to clean it up"? We don't have to choose to retain improper thoughts. Nobody makes us mad. We allow ourselves to become mad. Happiness is a creation in the corridors of our minds.
David O. McKay: "Man is the creator of his own happiness."
Abraham Lincoln (after losing a senatorial race, losing his mother, losing his first wife) said he was the most miserable man alive and couldn't remain that way. Then he said: "I have come to the understanding that people are about as happy in life as they make up their minds to be."
Helen Keller: "I seldom think of my limitations and they never make me sad."
Stop murmuring, stop doubting, stop complaining, stop finding fault with others and with self. (oh, whoops, that was in my notes, so he said it, but was starred specifically for me).
Do you think you need a reason to be happy? No! Decide to be happy!!! Be an owner, not a victim.
(day3) Choosing Life over Death, One Thought at a Time:
The greatest mystery a man will ever learn is how to master his own mind.
The degree to which we take from what is "there" depends much on the mindset we bring to it. (whatever "there" may be, church, a seminar, FHE etc.)
We receive according to the seeds that we sow. Do we go to a seminar with a mocking attitude, or a desire to learn whatever we can?
2 Nephi 2:27 choose! (here in my notes there is stuff impossible to type Pictures and arrows etc. If you are really interested call me and I'll tell you about it.)
Joseph Smith's cheery disposition was a choice. He had plenty to by depressed about.
When Norman Vincent Peale first said that the happy would live longer, the medical community censured him. Now all believe it. (Power of Positive Thinking)
He told a story about a motorcycle ride. His friend who loves to ride, sees the passing scenery, feels the air flowing past and his interlukin - a chemical in the brain which raises your immune system, is elevated. He, on the other hand is scared of motorcycles, sees the passing scenery, feels the air flowing past and his cortisol - a chemical in the brain which suppresses the immune system, is elevated. Most heart attacks happen on monday. Why? We have a bad attitude about monday. 31% of those who die of heart attacks have no plaque, no high cholesteral. They have a bad reaction to a letter from the homeowners association. (Or the IRS, or the kids.) We can kill ourselves with our thoughts.
Begin where you are and start practicing thinking more positively. We all have bad habits, but they are only habits. When we start thinking differently, things are different.
Look for good. The eye sees what the mind looks for. Look at the life Christ lived, and yet some saw Him as a devil.
(day 4)Internalizing Traits of a Faith-Filled Disciple:
Read the Lectures on Faith. this was the curriculum of the school of the prophets. Used to be in the D&C as the doctrine part.
Don't pray in generalities. If we ask "help us to have a good day" how will we ever know when our prayer is answered? Remember, nothing is foolishness to a child. They are very specific in what they ask. We are told to become as little children. God always answers prayer, and he always answers yes, but he sometimes says I will give you what you ask for or something better. All prayers and answers are based on Faith. Faith, to be faith, must center around something not known. If you know, there is no need for faith.
There are two kinds of faith. Faith born of experience, and faith in things that are scheduled to happen. (such as, if I continue to go to school I will graduate at such and such a time) Faith can cause things to happen.
He told the parable of the grey envelope. A struggling family in a third world country is told by a young man with a badge that if they will give 10% to the Lord he will bless them. They give, and the Lords crazy math comes into play. They are still able to pay their bills. They act- He blesses. They repeat it again next month. They act- He blesses. Their experience is that it works so they begin to look on it as an investment. But God is trying to build faith filled disciples. so a month comes with no blessings. Can we continue to pay? (or attend, or serve or . . . ) We must exercise faith. Grace sometimes has to do with attention and devotion. Keep paying and eventually the Lord backs up a truck full of blessings to our door. Read the Bread of Life discourses in the New Testament.
Remember that the Lord has much more to give us than physical blessings.
Even in trials he is blessing us. He blesses us to grow.
A Faith Filled Disciple: Strives to increase obedience.
A FFD: Strives for mental purity. (see A beautiful Mind. "They aren't gone, and maybe they never will be, but I've gotten good at ignoring them.")
A FFD: Strives to be submissive in Trials
A FFD: Strives to keep covenants meticulously
A FFD: Strives to be faithful to the end.