Reverence

Last week, I walked up to the Bishop, and asked him if I could give a talk in sacrament meeting. I think it must have taken him a while to get through the shock of a youth actually ASKING to give a talk, because it wasn't until late that night when he finally called me and gave me the topic, reverence.

As I was thinking about his topic, I tried to search through all the Especially for Youth talks that I had heard a month ago, in hopes of finding one that fit right in with this topic. Unfortunatly, I couldn't find one, so I had to go back to the old faithfuls, the standard works. Unfortunatly, the topical guide didn't have anything that related directly to the state of being reverent, therefore, I had to do some actual work in coming up with this talk.

To start with, I'd like to quote a portion of my favorite scripture, Doctrine Covenants 88:124, "...Cease to Sleep longer than is needful; retire to they bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated" What does this have to do with being reverent? A lot. Our Father in Heaven created the church meetings as a time to learn, and grow spiritually, not to catch up on lost sleep. It also starts to become difficult to grow spiritually when the person sitting next to you starts snoring loudly.

In Leviticus 19:30 it says, "Ye shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuaries..." The Lord has thus commanded us to be reverent. Yet, what is reverence? Since I couldn't locate my Webster's, I'm going with the Funk & Wagnals definition, which states that reverence is "A feeling of profound respect often mingled with awe and and affection." That is quite a mouthful. I prefer the definition given by Elder Howard W. Hunter: reverence is "the atmosphere of heaven". Therefore, one way to test your reverence is to think to yourself, "If Heavenly Father was standing right next to me today, would he approve of my behavior?" .....

Your location also dictates what degree of reverence should be expected. At church social, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt is acceptable, and talking all the time is accepted behavior, but during sacrament meeting, which is held in the same church building, the dress standard is upped, and talking during the meetings should be phazed out. Why is this so? At sacrament meeting, we are supposed to be listening to the lord...

asked bishop

reverence

Leviticus 19:30 - "Ye shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuaries"

Funk & Wagnals - "A feeling of profound respect often mingled with awe and affection"

Elder Howard W. Hunter - "atmosphere of heaven"

social/sacrament meeting