Do you see yourself—your day-to-day life, your joys, your troubles—in the parables of Christ? We may not separate wheat from tares or handle mustard seeds as often as the people of Jesus’s day, but His parables are still very much for us. They teach powerfully about ourselves and how we should treat others. In this week’s lesson in Matthew 13, Luke 8; 13, we will dive into why Jesus taught in parables and realize just how applicable they are to modern living.
What goes into making a winning team? First things first: you need to pick a team and sign up. And in today’s discussion of Matthew 11–12 and Luke 11, we talk all about the best team to sign up for. Because when you join Christ’s team, know the rule book, and put on His jersey—er, yoke—then you always come out on top. So let's study the game plan of what Jesus’s winning team looks like and accept the invitation He gives to come claim our spots.
In a burst of eagerness to help clean up, a young girl noticed that there were two jugs of milk in the fridge, but one of them was expired. Determining that the best thing to do was consolidate, she poured the remaining expired milk into the good jug, much to her mother’s chagrin. A lesson from that story might just come into play in this week’s lesson in Matthew 9–10, Mark 5, and Luke 9 as we study Christ’s teaching about old and new wine bottles and the special mission of His chosen Apostles.
The famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once penned the beautiful words, “Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the cloud is the sun still shining; Thy fate is a common fate of all, Into each life some rain must fall.” Longfellow is right—rain comes at different times to all of us. But his words also remind us that behind the clouds, the sun is always still shining. In this week’s lesson in Matthew 8, Mark 2–4, and Luke 7, we’ll read about when a tempest caught Jesus’s disciples unaware. And we’ll see that just as the physical sun always still shining, so too is the Son of God always there for us.
Did you know when Janice Kapp Perry wrote “A Child’s Prayer” she was waiting for an answer to prayer herself? She wanted to know if Heavenly Father was there and if He was listening. And do you remember the answer that question? In the second verse Perry writes, “He hears your prayer / He loves the children.” Those simple yet beautiful words remind us of Matthew, chapters 6–7, when Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount. In His message, He shares instruction on prayer and gives the same reassurance that we receive in that Primary song—that He knows and loves each one of us.
Here's a little lesson for your Come, Follow Me this week: in Latin, the word beatus means fortunate, blessed, or happy. This means that the Beatitudes in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount are the happy verses, because in Matthew 5 and Luke 6 you can substitute “blessed” with the word “happy” whenever you read it. Basically, these chapters have the recipe for a happy life—all you need is lots of light, a dash of salt, and a willing heart to follow the recipe as best as you can for a reward that won't disappoint.
For the 2023 Come, Follow Me study year, there's a brand-new resource for your home-centered gospel learning.
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Faith doesn’t have to fade in the face of uncertainty. Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, Mary the mother of Christ—they all held to their seed of faith even though they didn’t understand everything, and then they witnessed miracles. In this week’s lesson in John 2–4, we’ll dive into several accounts from the Savior’s early ministry and see how a precious bit of faith led to conversion. And along the way we’ll come to better appreciate the role that active and continuous belief has in our lives.
A new interactive map of the Holy Land allows for a truly unique Come, Follow Me experience where families can—almost literally—follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
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Both the new Come, Follow Me study manual and journal edition feature huge, beautiful art pieces on their covers, and the imagery that accompanies each week’s study material is no less inspiring.
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OK, here’s an idea: Wants and needs are two very different things. And let’s be honest—temptations are not something we would generally put in the “want” category. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need them. In fact, even Christ needed to be tempted. Before beginning His ministry and calling His disciples, Jesus went to the wilderness to fast and be closer with God. While He was there, He was tempted by the adversary. But why did Jesus need this experience and what can we learn from His example? Let’s study Matthew 4 and Luke 4–5 together to find out.
Think back to your baptism—who helped you prepare for that special day and who stood with you in the water? And even more importantly, why were you baptized and what covenants did you make? In this week’s lesson, we have the opportunity to remember this sacred ordinance by reflecting about the Savior's baptism. As we study Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3, we'll meet John the Baptist, who helped prepare the way for Christ's coming. We'll learn about how the Savior was baptized in the Jordan River. And we'll discover anew the beauty of Christ’s example of obedience and remember why we all follow Him into the water.
Do you know what your first spoken word was? How about the first spoken word of a child in your life? Whatever it was, there’s something powerful and exciting about those earliest moments when we first learned to communicate. This week as we study John, Chapter 1, we’re going to learn about the importance of a word. And not just any word—the Word. So let’s accept this invitation from the Savior to come and see the power of that Word and begin to understand Him in a whole new light.
If you’re like us, now that the new year has begun you might be experiencing holiday withdrawals. But what if we told you that Christmas can keep on going? Luckily, this week’s Come, Follow Me lets us revisit the story of the Savior’s birth in the second chapters of Luke and Matthew. In these verses, we learn of early witnesses of Christ from the shepherds to the wise men from afar who recognized that this baby boy was called to an important work. So let’s start out the new year by studying this miraculous story and bringing the Savior into the season and into our hearts once again.
What is your approach to a new year? Are you a “new year, new you” kind of person, or do you usually find yourself in survival mode, just trying to keep things together? Either way, we’ve been there. But what if we tweaked that New Year’s mantra and said, “new year, knew you”? What if this year we all focused on learning just how well God knows us? A goal like that has the potential for lasting change in everyone’s lives. So on this week’s episode, we’ll study the first chapter of Matthew and Luke and learn that God knows us so well that He even sent the Savior to “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79)—and we think that is a path we all want to walk in 2023.
The first Come, Follow Me lesson of 2023 takes a slightly different approach—and as scripture study lovers, we are totally here for it. Rather than providing a block of verses, the manual invites us to reflect on how we search the scriptures and reminds us of an important truth that this study group caught on to long ago: we are responsible for our own learning. Come join with us we prepare our hearts for a new year of drawing closer to the Savior.