How Do We Change The World?

The knowledge of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and coming to have faith in him could change the world. 

In Mosiah chapter 4, King Benjamin tells us three simple things that if we do them, will bring about life changing benefits:

•   Humble ourselves in humility
•   Call on the Lord daily
•   Be steadfast in faith

 “if [we] do this [we] shall always”

• Rejoice
• Be filled with the love of God
• Retain a remission of our sins
• Grow in knowledge of God and of what is just and true
• Have no thought to harm one another, but to live peaceably
• Care for our children
• Teach them to obey God’s laws and not fight and quarrel with each other
• Teach them to walk in the ways of truth
• Teach them to love one another
• Succor those in need of succor
• Give of our substance to those in need

It seems to me that if everyone would do those three simple things, just about every problem facing the world right now would end.

Be of Good Cheer

In Elder Oaks talk, He Heals the Heavy Laden, he references one of my very favorite scriptures:

 “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” 

John 16:33

This is one of the key truths we learn in Article of Faith #3: The Atonement of Christ. We know that if we are obedient to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel, through the Atonement, we can be saved because He did literally overcome the world.

The Lord knew that life would be hard. He tells us we will have “tribulation.” The dictionary defines tribulation as “a cause of great trouble or suffering.” He knows just how great our trouble and suffering are and will be, because He has felt them personally.

He tells us to “be of good cheer.” How is it possible to be of good cheer if we know that we will have great trouble and suffering? This is the amazing thing about the Atonement. Not only has it redeemed us from death and given us a way to be exalted and have eternal life, it has also blessed us with the enabling power of the Atonement.

I have experienced this power while going to school at BYU-Idaho. I work full time, have school, and serve in the temple on Saturdays. I have been blessed, and a witness to miracles, with a literal expansion of time. I have had my abilities increased to learn more quickly and get things done in a shorter amount of time.

Because of the Atonement we have all the reason in the world to be of good cheer.


Have any of you experienced the enabling power of the Atonement?

Born Again

In Moses 6: 59-60 there is a pattern that intrigues me. It speaks of being born by water, blood, and the spirit and those words are used three times.

The first time it says that we are “born into the world by water, and blood, and the spirit which I have made.” This all happens during the process of childbirth.

Then it tells us we must be “born again into the kingdom of heaven, of water, and of the Spirit, and be cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten.”

I really like the analogy of being “born again.” When we are baptized and have our sins washed away, it is as if we are a new born babe, fresh from the heavens and without sin. We can become again this way each Sabbath as we renew our baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.

Then it tells us why we must be born again by these three things and what part they play.

“For by the water ye keep the commandment; by the Spirit ye are justified, and by the blood ye are sanctified.”

We are baptized in water and by so doing keep the commandment. It is up to the Holy Ghost to justify the ordinance. In the class The Eternal Family we studied this and learned about what the justification of the Spirit means.

“We are “justified” by the Spirit as the Holy Spirit of Promise either ratifies or rejects each ordinance as being valid.”[1]

“[Justification] is the Lord’s way of assuring that no unauthorized acts or ordinances are binding in the hereafter.” [2]

These are pretty amazing responsibilities that the Holy Ghost has. This also reminds us that we can’t fool the Lord. If we enter covenants unworthily, they may look like they have been done, but the Spirit will not justify the ordinance as being valid.

And then after those two things have happened, we are able to be sanctified by the blood shed for us by our Savior Jesus Christ. The dictionary defines sanctified as to "set apart as or declare holy; consecrate; make legitimate or binding by religious sanctification; free from sin; purif[ed]."

All of this is how we are born again--by water, by the Spirit, and by blood.

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[1] Justification and Sanctification Transcript, The Eternal Family, BYU-Idaho, taken partially from Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Born of God, April 2008

[2] Elder Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 408

They Deny the Atonement of Jesus Christ

Reading the talk The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent, by Jeffrey R. Holland, I had an interesting thought.

He mentioned that some people believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to not be a Christian church because we don’t believe in the “post—New Testament Christian history [but] return to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself,” that of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost being separate, individual beings.

He mentioned the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds wherein they have “declared the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be abstract, absolute, transcendent, immanent, consubstantial, coeternal, and unknowable, without body, parts, or passions and dwelling outside space and time. In such creeds all three members are separate persons, but they are a single being, the oft-noted “mystery of the trinity.”

Some also question our Christianity because we believe in an “embodied—but certainly glorified—God.” He said: “Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ.”

Here is where my thought came.

If they deny the resurrected Christ, they deny the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is what it is all about. Without that we are all lost. What is the point of believing in a God who has given you absolutely no way to be saved?

Jesus was Terrified and Astonished

The suffering of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane is a story with which most everyone in the world is familiar. We know this is where he took upon him the sins and sorrows of the world. We know that three times he went to his apostles, whom he had asked to "watch with me," and found them sleeping. We know this is the place where Judas betrayed him.

With all we know about this event, it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend what it all really entailed. I gained some profound insights into the experience Jesus had through my study this week.

Sin affects our whole being; mind, body, and spirit. Something I had never considered before when thinking about the Atonement, was that this was something Christ had never experienced. He was perfect and had never sinned.

“And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy.”

Mark 14:33

 Not only was he taking on the sins of everyone, he was partaking of the experience of sin for the first time.

 “The Greek word translated as “sore amazed” means “terrified surprise or astonishment.”[1]

Sin was such a new and unexpected thing for Jesus, a shock to his perfect body and spirit, it literally terrified him. 

Think about that!! 

Jesus Christ was terrified by the experience of sin.

What does this tell us about how we should react to sin? Why are we able to sin without being terrified?

I read some very interesting things in my study and wanted to share them with you; though a bit long, well worth the read.

“Being perfect, Jesus did not and could not know what sin felt like. He did not have the experience of feeling the effects of sin—neither physically, spiritually, mentally, nor emotionally. Not until Gethsemane, that is. Now, in an instant, he began to feel all the sensations and effects of sin, all the guilt, anguish, darkness, turmoil, depression, anger, and physical sickness that sin brings. All of this the Savior felt and much, much more.

“The shock to the Savior at this moment must have been overwhelming. Because he was perfect, he was also perfectly sensitive to all the effects and ramifications of sin on our mental, emotional, and physical makeup. His makeup was such that it could not tolerate sin or its effects, just as our systems cannot tolerate poison, disease, extreme heat, cold, dehydration, or a hundred other harmful substances and conditions. More significantly, as Mark describes for us, the experience Jesus had of finally comprehending sin as well as the feelings that issue from sin were absolutely surprising to him. He had never experienced these sensations. Not only did it surprise him but it terrified him. For the first time in his eternal existence, the God of heaven and earth was experiencing the terrifying feelings associated with sin. Jesus felt something in Gethsemane he had never known before.  Perhaps that is the full meaning of Alma’s words that the Son of God, the Messiah, would be born as a mortal so that ‘he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people’ (Alma 7:12; emphasis added).

“Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote: “Imagine, Jehovah, the Creator of this and other worlds, ‘astonished’! Jesus knew cognitively what He must do, but not experientially. He had never personally known the exquisite and exacting process of an atonement before. Thus, when the agony came in its fulness, it was so much, much worse than even He with his unique intellect had ever imagined!” (Ensign, May 1985, 72-73).” [2]

How much more do we now understand this plaintive plea: "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou will."(Mark 14:36)

Beautifully summed up by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

"In that most burdensome moment of all human history, with blood appearing at every pore and an anguished cry upon His lips, Christ sought Him whom He had always sought—His Father. “Abba,” He cried, “Papa,” or from the lips of a younger child, “Daddy.”

"This is such a personal moment it almost seems a sacrilege to cite it. A Son in unrelieved pain, a Father His only true source of strength, both of them staying the course, making it through the night—together."[3]

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[1] Verse by Verse The New Testament, Ogden and Skinner, pp 579-599, (emphasis added)

[2] ibid

[3] The Hands of the Fathers, Jeffrey R. Holland, April 1999 Conference, (emphasis added)

Hi, My Name is Linda

My class, The Eternal Family, is done in two-week units. Each unit has a Provident Living Plan assignment in which we are to set a goal in relation to the topic, and work on it for the two weeks. So far we have had Finance, Healthy Eating and Exercise, and Scripture Study. This week was about Media Management.

We are given several ideas for goals to choose from. Being in school, I don't really have a lot of time to watch TV, and since I have become a temple worker, my media management is pretty good. I try to listen to things that are uplifting, don't watch rated R movies, and mostly read school stuff and business or self-improvement books. The final suggestion was addictive behaviors. It specifically mentioned "compulsive eating disorders."

Well then.

Compulsive eating.

Welcome to my world.

It appears this is what I need to work on in my life. Healthy Eating a few weeks before wasn't sufficient.

So, I went to the Church's addiction recovery site and did a bit of reading. I found that there was a Women's Only General Addiction meeting here in town and put it on my calendar to attend.

This is a very scary thing to do. It is difficult enough to live with an addiction - something that you are ashamed of and can't control - but to go and speak it and bare the deepest darkest parts of your soul to others, words can't describe.

The effects of this addiction are more than just the extra weight on my body. There is extra weight on my soul. Living with shame is a burden. I avoid people I knew when I was thinner because I am embarrassed about the way I look. I almost think it would be more socially acceptable to be a recovering alcoholic than to have an eating disorder that makes you fat. I have often wished I was anorexic because then, at least I wouldn't be fat.

The hardest thing about this is knowing that because of my addiction, I have raised my girls to carry on similar behaviors. This is that last thing I would want my daughters to have deal with, yet that is exactly what has happened.

Addiction breeds addiction.

I know this is something my Heavenly Father wants me to work on right now and that through Him and the enabling power of the Atonement, I can face this.

As hard as it may be, I will face this.