Lesson: The Law of Chastity

Married or not, teaching kids or keeping your own covenants, the law of chastity is for all of us.

This video shows young adults from different religions talking about their choice to stay sexually pure.



The Law of Chastity, taught by Connie Thornloe.

Here are just a few excerpts. We encourage you to read the full text.

What is the Law of Chastity?

We are to have sexual relations only with our spouse to whom we are legally married. No one, male or female, is to have sexual relations before marriage. After marriage, sexual relations are permitted only with our spouse.

A note to Parents

Children are naturally curious. They want to know how their bodies work. They want to know where babies come from. If parents answer all such questions immediately and clearly so children can understand, children will continue to take their questions to their parents. However, if parents answer questions so that children feel embarrassed, rejected, or dissatisfied, they will probably go to someone else with their questions and perhaps get incorrect ideas and improper attitudes.

It is not wise or necessary, however, to tell children everything at once. Parents need only give them the information they have asked for and can understand. While answering these questions, parents can teach children the importance of respecting their bodies and the bodies of others. Parents should teach children to dress modestly. They should correct the false ideas and vulgar language that children learn from others.

Consider watching this video with your teenagers: Chastity: What are the limits?

Satan wants us to break the law of chastity

Satan sometimes tempts us through our emotions. He knows when we are lonely, confused, or depressed. He chooses this time of weakness to tempt us to break the law of chastity. Our Heavenly Father can give us the strength to pass through these trials unharmed.

Breaking the law is extremely serious

It is extremely important to our Heavenly Father that His children obey the law of chastity. Members of the Church who break this law or influence others to do so are subject to Church discipline.

Forgiveness can come to those who truly repent

Peace can come to those who have broken the law of chastity. The Lord tells us, “If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, … all his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him” (Ezekiel 18:21–22). Peace comes only through forgiveness.

Blessings come to those who keep the law

When we obey the law of chastity, we can live without guilt or shame. Our lives and our children’s lives are blessed when we keep ourselves pure and spotless before the Lord. Children can look to our example and follow in our footsteps.

Read the full text here: The Law of Chastity

Video: Chastity, What are the limits?

Share this with your children and discuss...

Latter-day Saint teens are counseled to stay sexually pure, but what exactly are the limits? Using teachings of modern prophets, this presentation shows why that's the wrong question to ask, as well as how we can find happiness and peace through staying chaste.



Nicely done.

Related (Christian) references:
The 10 Worst Mistakes You Can Make When Talking to Your Kids About S*x (2 parts)
How Far Can I Go?

e

10 Commandments for Kids Online: Keep Them Safe!

Found this great "contract" you should consider signing with your kids...read it carefully because it will help you know what you should be monitoring and to what extent.

My manager the other day was telling a story about an e-mail his 13 yo daughter had received. My coworkers were appalled that he and his wife read her e-mail...coworkers who did not have children and are not aware of the sometimes heavy responsibility it is to raise children in this digital age.

My bottom line to you...be present in your children's lives, know what they are doing online!

Kim Komando's 10 Commandments for Kids Online 

Example:

#10: I give my parents’ permission to look on the computer and my phone to see where I have gone on the Internet, the e-mail and text messages I have sent and received, the things I downloaded or what I do. If my parents installed programs that track what I do on the computer or limit where I go online or on my cell phone, I promise not to turn those programs off.

e

Orson Scott Card Address

Coming up in Book Discussion we are reading and discussing Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

Recently he spoke at a dinner in Washington:

“America has been a remarkably good and strong culture,” Orson Scott Card said at the 26th Annual Gala dinner of the Washington DC Chapter of the BYU Management Society this weekend, “but the Goodness of the culture has already been so damaged that it can barely be said to exist. And the Strength of the Culture is eating itself up from within.

 He goes on to talk about some of the destructive stories we've told ourselves over the years and how they affect society. He ends with a plea for us to speak up for what is good:

I think that for America to survive as a Culture Strong and Good, we must stop telling the stories that are destroying both our Strength and our Goodness, and work to combine the best parts of what’s old and what’s new into stories that will remake us, into not only a society that can last, but also one which should last.

The stakes are so high that it’s worth making the attempt, even if it turns out that it’s already too late to keep this culture from self-destruction. Even then, there would still be the hope of building something Good and Strong among the ashes.

Orson Scott Card on the Dismantling of America

Good article. It made me think. Thanks for the tip Devon.

e

Lesson Recap: Stand for Truth and Righteousness

December 6, 2009
Today's lesson was taught by Jill Fairchild.

The story of Esther illustrates a woman who stood for truth and righteousness in her time. It says in Esther 4:14:

Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

We are all made for this time. How will we stand? Have you or someone you know stood for truth?

Shellie remembers a time when President Kimball emphasized to the youth their importance and the work they had to do. She has since wondered what thing it is that she was to do and has come to the conclusion that raising her children to be good examples and missionaries is one important task. Our "standing" can be in quiet, unforeseen ways.

Shoba reminded us that there is a big difference between the women of the church and outside the church, that we give great gifts to our children by raising them in the gospel.

M. Russell Ballard in a 2001 BYU devotional titled Women of Righteousness said, 

My deep desire is to clarify how we in the presiding councils of the Church feel about the sisters of this Church, how our Heavenly Father feels about His daughters, and what He expects of them.

My dear sisters, we believe in you.

We believe in and are counting on your goodness and your strength, your propensity for virtue and valor, your kindness and courage, your strength and resilience.

We believe in your mission as women of God.

We realize that you are the emotional (and sometimes spiritual) glue that holds families and often ward families together.

We believe that the Church simply will not accomplish what it must without your faith and faithfulness, your innate tendency to put the well-being of others ahead of your own, and your spiritual strength and tenacity.

And we believe that God’s plan is for you to become queens and to receive the highest blessings any woman can receive in time or eternity.

On the other hand, Satan’s plan is to get you so preoccupied with the world’s glitzy lies about women that you completely miss what you have come here to do and to become. Remember, Satan wants us to “be miserable like unto himself” (2 Ne. 2:27). Never lose your precious identity by doing anything that would jeopardize the promised eternal future your Heavenly Father has provided for you.

  Our Savior stood up in the premortal councils in heaven and said "Here am I. Send me." We too can stand and say the same. We can raise righteous children, we can be modest, clean, honest, faithful and steadfast. That's our mission.

It's not always easy, though. Sometimes it's easier because we have testimonies that the gospel plan is true. How do you do it? How can we stand for truth and righteousness?

Devon told of a time when she was in school and involved in a book discussion with a class of mostly non-Mormon college students. The book was about timid brain-washed Mormon women and as the discussion went on she felt a need for another point of view to be presented. Though she doesn't like confrontation she spoke up and had words given to her through the Spirit.

Owenna thinks often of being the "leaven in the lump" by small comments and daily acts of living that show what we value.

Charity's son spoke up in school to a group of boys about dating and only found out later that there seemed to be a new respect among his friends. He had presented another option when the others in the crowd were silent.

Margie thinks of being the "handmaiden of the Lord". Another mother of her son's school mate pointed out that Margie was not the frazzled mother of four that this woman was struggling with. Let's show the joy we feel in motherhood and families and service.

Cheyl told of a delivery driver at the restaurant where she worked who had had foul language at first, but through a series of brief conversations, with his questions answered by her and her sister, he decided to get his life together, get active in the church again and eventually go to the temple to be sealed to his family.

We can stand for truth and righteousness in small and sometimes big ways, sometimes just in living with joy our daily lives, sometimes by being unafraid to speak up, and also through raising our children in the gospel.

What other ways can you think of? Please leave a comment.

Ellen

A Return to Virtue, Lesson Summary

Elaine S. Dalton, October Conference 2008 - A Return to Virtue

Taught by Elizabeth Latey

You must never under estimate the power of your righteous influence.

Sister Dalton asks us, "Could it be that we have been slowly desensitized into thinking that high moral standards are old-fashioned and not relevant or important in today's society?

"Could it be that first we tolerate, then accept, and eventually embrace the vice that surrounds us?

"Could it be that we have been deceived by false role models and persuasive media messages that cause us to forget our divine identity?

"What could be more deceptive than to entice the youth of this noble generation to do nothing or to be busy ever-texting but never coming to a knowledge of the truth?

"What could be more deceptive than to entice women, young and old, you and me, to be so involved in ourselves, our looks, our clothes, our body shape and size that we lose sight of our divine identity and our ability to change the world through our virtuous influence?"

What has desensitized us? Influences such as the media, magazine images on the grocery shelves, dolls on the market, even Disney heroines.

A virtuous women's price is far above rubies. ~Proverbs 31: 10-31.

Let's return to these virtuous ways found in the scripture above. A woman of virtue is dependable, trustworthy, selfless, industrious, charitable, clean, knowledgeable, strong (as in girding our loins with the armor of righteousness), kind, a wise steward, and repentent.

Sister Dalton: "Virtue is a prerequisite to entering the Lord’s holy temples and to receiving the Spirit’s guidance. Virtue 'is a pattern of thought and behavior based on high moral standards.' It encompasses chastity and moral purity. Virtue begins in the heart and in the mind. It is nurtured in the home. It is the accumulation of thousands of small decisions and actions."

Elizabeth shared with us symbols that remind her to be virtuous...a beautiful painting of a woman in white—at peace with herself, a small oil lamp that's filled by many small drops over time, a statue of a woman kneeling with a child in her arms to remind us of what's important, and an orchid–beautiful, fragile-looking, but able to grow and thrive anywhere.

Thanks Elizabeth for sharing your testimony and your love of the gospel with us.