Meurs - The Sacrament Can Help Us Become Holy - October 2016

Elder Peter F. Meurs speaks during conference on how to make the sacrament more meaningful.  He offers 5 suggestions that can enhance our experience and bring more spiritual insight into our lives.

1) Prepare in advance.

• We can begin our preparation for the sacrament well before sacrament meeting begins. Saturday may be a good time to contemplate our spiritual progress and preparation.
  

2) Arrive Early

• Our sacrament experience can be enhanced when we arrive well before the meeting and ponder as the prelude music is played.
  

3) Sing and Learn from the Words of the Sacrament Hymn

• The sacrament hymn is an especially important part of our sacrament experience. Music elevates our thoughts and feelings. The sacrament hymn has even greater influence when we focus on the words and the powerful doctrine taught. We learn much from words such as “Bruised, broken, torn for us,” “Let us remember and be sure our hearts and hands are clean and pure,” and “Where justice, love, and mercy meet in harmony divine!”
  

4) Spiritually Participate in the Sacrament Prayers

• Instead of tuning out the familiar words of the sacrament prayers, we can learn much and feel even more as we participate spiritually by considering the commitments and associated blessings included in these sacred prayers.
  
• The bread and water are blessed and sanctified to our souls. They remind us of the sacrifice of the Savior and that He can help us to become holy.
  
• The prayers explain that we partake of the bread in remembrance of the body of the Son, which He gave as a ransom to qualify all for resurrection, and we drink of the water in remembrance of the blood of the Son, which He freely shed so that we might be redeemed on condition of repentance.
  
• The prayers introduce the covenants with the phrase “that they are willing.” This phrase has so much potential power for us. Are we willing to serve and participate? Are we willing to change? Are we willing to address our weaknesses? Are we willing to reach out and bless others? Are we willing to trust the Savior?
  

5) Ponder and Remember Him as the Sacrament Emblems Are Passed

• As the bread is passed, we may contemplate that in the ultimate act of love for us, the Savior took “upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people.”
  
• We may remember the glorious blessing of the Resurrection that “shall come to all, … both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost; but every thing shall be restored to its perfect frame.”
  

Elder Meurs concludes with these final suggestions on how to gain more meaning into our sacrament worship.

• As we consider our sacrament experience, we might ask ourselves:
  
  • What will I do this week to better prepare for the sacrament?
    
  • Could I contribute more to the reverence and revelation that can accompany the beginning of sacrament meeting?
    
  • What doctrine was taught in the sacrament hymn?
    
  • What did I hear and feel as I listened to the sacrament prayers?
    
  • What did I think about as the sacrament was passed?
    

I have set a goal this year to find deeper meaning in my sacrament worship time.  I am making an effort to put way my iPad and spend more time listening to the words of the hymns, pondering the meaning of the words in the sacrament prayers, and trying to make the partaking of the bread and water a personal experience between me and the Savior.  I am grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who knows we personally and will send the Spirit to teach me, encourage me, and guide me through these personal experiences.