“Saying it like it is”.......by Sherry Dew
Noble and great. Courageous and determined. Faithful and fearless. That is who you are and who you have always been. And understanding it can change your life, because this knowledge carries a confidence that cannot be duplicated any other way.
It is actually easier to motivate someone to do something difficult than something easy. That’s because the status quo is uninspiring. Our spirits crave to progress, and if we aren’t moving forward, we’re not happy.
We may not be the first generation of people to be influenced by the world, but we need to be the last. We’ve just got to be the last. It is high time for us to arise and have the influence God intended us to have. It is high time for us to lead the people of the world. It is high time for us to model the distinctiveness and happiness that set true followers of Jesus Christ apart.
Those who think of life as a personal ministry tend to be less lonely, less likely to feel that life has spun out of control, more inclined to have a gentle heart, more filled with purpose.
Holiness means walking away from the philosophies of man. It means looking to prophets for spiritual counsel, not celebrities or experts, who may be appealing but who all come packing personal motives and an arsenal of half-truths. It is deadly to take counsel from anyone whose primary motive is to build his or her own kingdom.
There are some who make living the gospel seem like a sentence to life on the rock pile. It’s not living the gospel that’s hard. It’s life that’s hard. It’s picking up the pieces when covenants have been compromised or values violated that’s hard. The gospel is the Good News that provides us the tools to cope with the mistakes, the heartaches, the disappointments we can expect to experience here.
The doctrine of the Atonement is a doctrine of healing. The Savior heals us from the effects of sin, when we repent. He heals our weaknesses and mistakes. He heals broken promises, broken lives, broken hearts. When we demonstrate the faith to seek after Him, and try our best to follow Him, He will heal us.
Being steadfast and immovable on the Lord’s side of the line is the only strategy that works long-term against Lucifer. If the adversary can’t get us to succumb to blatant evil, he tries to wear us down, weaken our resolve, and dim our memory of who we are. He promotes the Sin Now, Pay Later Plan. He feeds our vanity with promises of popularity and power. He tells us that life is supposed to be easy and that if we experience undeserved pain the gospel must not be true. He always promises shortcuts, though there are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going. But he cannot duplicate joy or peace. That is why there is such safety on the Lord’s side of the line, where the power of the priesthood and the Holy Ghost protect us.
The Holy Ghost is always the Teacher anytime, anywhere pure truth is taught. That is His privilege; that is His stewardship.
A half-hearted effort to keep the Sabbath Day holy or to be morally clean is really no effort at all. Eight percent of your increase isn’t tithing, it’s a donation. The Lord didn’t declare, “Thou shalt not steal—unless you’re in a real bind.” He said, “Thou shalt not,” clearly delineating the lines we are not to cross—lines that represent breaches in integrity or morality or virtue so serious that they drive the Spirit away and lead ultimately to the destruction of our souls.
Living as Latter-day Saints is not easy. But it is easier than the alternative. The cost of discipleship, as high as it may be, is less than the price of sin—less costly than having the Holy Ghost withdraw or losing self-respect or jeopardizing eternal life.
The gift of the Holy Ghost is a gift of power. The Holy Ghost inspires and heals, guides and warns, enhances our natural capacities, inspires charity and humility, makes us smarter than we are, strengthens us during trials, testifies of the Father and the Son, and shows us “all things” that we should do. He helps us do more and become more than we could ever do or become on our own......This is true! Tom Bassett
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