Gospel Message Day 305

Work and Personal Responsibility, Part 5

I feel haven't touched as much on personal responsibility, except for the occasional how it applies to work. The two are very interconnected, but I just don't feel I've said enough yet. To me, personal responsibility incorporates accountability. We have things we are responsible for in this life. All of those things could probably tie back to work some how. I'm responsible for my own salvation. I'm also responsible for my health, taking care of my body, helping my ancestors by working on family history, helping the dead by doing temple work, taking care of my finances, caring for my home, working on being the best I can be, trying to be more Christlike, searching for and preparing for my eternal companion, preparing to be a wife and a mother, for helping to take care of the Earth we've been blessed with. The list could go on and on.

To be Christlike and to be a member of His Church gives me many responsibilities:

"willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death" (Mosiah 18:8-9).

Each of us who have covenanted with the Lord through baptism has these responsibilities. And we are each responsible for how we will carry them out. They cannot be done by others and us not have to worry about them. No one else can take over our part, and no one else can make up for us if we don't do our part. We are accountable and personally responsible for how we fulfill our part of the covenant we have made. Taking care of ourselves helps us better take care of others. Having the Gospel in our lives gives us the responsibility to share it with as many as we can. With each added degree of knowledge, we are given more responsibility with what we will do with that knowledge. How we will use it, what we do with it, how we will let it affect and change us, and how we will use it to make the world better and build the Lord's kingdom.