Genealogy

Today I read Genesis 5 which is the Genealogy of Adam and his righteous posterity down to Noah. It is interesting that this recorded here and makes everyone who does genealogy's life just a little bit easier since if you can trace your line back to Noah, you can get to Adam as well since it's all mapped out for us. And because of the flood, this quite literally is the genealogical line of the entire human race.

All societies in the world seem to have a reverence of some kind for their ancestors. I really do believe this is because of the spirit of Elijah. Even before he brought back the keys that allows us to do the work for our ancestors, the desire to be connected to them was present. Children, and even adults, love to hear tales about those who have come before and their lives. As a culture we love to hear stories and to hear tales of those who influenced our lives.

Today in our modern age, we have a responsibility to not only seek out those ancestors, but to make sure they have an opportunity to accept or reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the saving ordinances that all mankind is required to perform if they would live with Him again some day. It is an awesome task that we will be held accountable for if we do not do it. Some of those we might be able to help have been waiting thousands of years to accept the work, and it's up to us to do it.

Genealogy is that important. In fact it is one of the most important thing we can do in this life. It ranks up there with teaching our children the Gospel of Jesus Christ and performing our own saving ordinances. We owe it to those who have come before to give them the opportunity to have eternal life, especially those who lived during the time when the Gospel was not on the earth in any form. It's the least we can do for them. Until tomorrow.