The scriptures mention a lot about a "natural man." What is the natural man? In the "Guide to the Scriptures" it states: "A person who chooses to be influenced by the passions, desires, appetites, and senses of the flesh rather than by the promptings of the Holy Spirit..." We also read that the "natural man is an enemy to God.." (Mosiah 3:19). So yielding to those desires of the natural man is contrary to God's will for us. As a missionary, I have experienced the natural man in a lot of ways, some I didn't expect. To me, the natural man is someone who wants to take the easy road. The "path with least resistance" as they say. The natural man will look for any way to get out of doing something hard. As missionaries, we have a pretty rigorous and strict schedule:
6:15am Arise and pray
6:30-7:00 exercise
7:00-7:55 shower, get dressed, eat breakfast
8:00-9:00 personal study
9:00-10:00 companionship study
10:00-11:00 language study (Spanish)
11:00-12:00 lunch
12:00-9:00pm work, work, work.
That is the schedule we keep, rain or shine, sick or healthy, sore or not, even on Christmas Day, Sunday or your birthday. There are a lot of things in this schedule the natural man doesn't want to do. The natural man doesn't want to wake up before the sun is up, kneel down and pray. He doesn't want to exercise for at least half an hour before 7am every single morning (except Sunday). He doesn't want to be all ready by 8:00 to study for 3 straight hours. He doesn't want to be on his feet non-stop for 9 hours, talking to people on the streets, getting yelled at, kicked out of apartment complexes and ridiculed. What he really wants to do is sleep in, eat whatever and whenever he wants. Sleep instead of study. Stay inside and play video games or watch TV instead of always being on the move, being productive. The natural man doesn't want to be productive and effective. So if the natural man is an enemy to God, we cannot afford to yield to those things that the natural man wants to do. Otherwise, it puts us in a sticky situation with God. In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 2:14 says "...the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit." We can't receive spiritual knowledge or progression if we continuously yield to the natural man. How can we overcome him? Studying the scriptures. Praying. Going to church every Sunday. Fulfilling our callings in the church. And much more.
Now, hear me out. I am not saying that I have completely overcome the natural man. I am far from saying that. Is it hard for me to get up EVERY morning between 6:15 and 6:30am? Yes. Absolutely. Is it hard for me to leave the apartment at noon, knowing it could be 92 degrees outside, and knowing I won't come back for 9 hours? Yes. I fight with the natural man every day. We all do, in our own ways. Do I yield to him sometimes? Yes I do. But I keep fighting. I ain't perfect. We may lose battles here and there. We just have to win the war.
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." Mosiah 3:19
Showing posts with label scriptures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scriptures. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Kickoff A New Life
God has given us so many gifts. I have mentioned several in my blogs thus far. One that has become more personal to me during my mission is the gift of repentance. We are so imperfect. Every single day it seems, we do something we regret. How come God loves us so much? Because we are His children. That is why. I may not be a parent yet but I can sure say that I have done a lot of stupid things in my life but my parents still love me. He is the same. Even more so, since He is perfect. Repentance truly is a gift:
"Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved." (3 Nephi 9:22)
We can all be saved if we come unto Him asking for forgiveness. We must "confess and forsake" our sins. Confessing means to tell the Lord what we did and ask for forgiveness and also, if necessary, going to a church leader for more serious sins so they can help us repent fully. Forsake simply means to stop doing the sin. If we go back to the same sin, we really have not repented at all. Repenting means to turn back. To start a new life, in line with God's will...
In light of the football season about to start (No I cannot watch it but the clock installed in me senses it is time for football), we must remember that we must seek to change our lives to be more in line with God's. We must kickoff a new life, a life for God and His will. In football, a kickoff starts everything over again. New opportunities arise for your team. No matter what happened, who scored or how they scored, a kickoff starts it over (everything but the score that is). Repentance gives us that opportunity. We can start over. We can become better and improve on our past mistakes. Let us all kickoff a new life, repenting of our shortcomings and mistakes and seek to be better people. People that follow Christ closely. I know that as we repent, and align our lives with the will of our Father in Heaven's, we will see blessings. And those blessings will increase exponentially as we seek every day to get better, to be a little better than yesterday.
"Therefore, whoso repenteth and cometh unto me as a little child, him will I receive, for of such is the kingdom of God. Behold, for such I have laid down my life, and have taken it up again; therefore repent, and come unto me ye ends of the earth, and be saved." (3 Nephi 9:22)
We can all be saved if we come unto Him asking for forgiveness. We must "confess and forsake" our sins. Confessing means to tell the Lord what we did and ask for forgiveness and also, if necessary, going to a church leader for more serious sins so they can help us repent fully. Forsake simply means to stop doing the sin. If we go back to the same sin, we really have not repented at all. Repenting means to turn back. To start a new life, in line with God's will...
In light of the football season about to start (No I cannot watch it but the clock installed in me senses it is time for football), we must remember that we must seek to change our lives to be more in line with God's. We must kickoff a new life, a life for God and His will. In football, a kickoff starts everything over again. New opportunities arise for your team. No matter what happened, who scored or how they scored, a kickoff starts it over (everything but the score that is). Repentance gives us that opportunity. We can start over. We can become better and improve on our past mistakes. Let us all kickoff a new life, repenting of our shortcomings and mistakes and seek to be better people. People that follow Christ closely. I know that as we repent, and align our lives with the will of our Father in Heaven's, we will see blessings. And those blessings will increase exponentially as we seek every day to get better, to be a little better than yesterday.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Thomas S. Monson: Our Head Coach
What makes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints so unique?
The word "restoration" is defined in the dictionary as "the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment." Our message is that the church that Christ himself organized has been restored, or renewed, or it has been revived and reestablished. This church IS that very church that Christ organized.
Why was this restoration necessary?
Christ established His church while He was on the earth. He called 12 apostles to run His church (see Luke 6:13). As we all know, eventually Christ was rejected and crucified. Also, all of his apostles were eventually rejected and killed one by one, until no one was alive that could run the Church of Christ. The people had rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father took the Church off the earth, including all the prophets and authority, because of wickedness. This time period is called the Great Apostasy. Let's look at it from a football point of view:
A football team has a lot of key components that helps the team run and win games. Not one piece can do it all himself. Imagine a big time coach of an SEC football team. Let's take Steve Spurrier of the South Carolina Gamecocks football team for example. Let's say for one game, he decides to not show up for the game against Alabama. And none of his coaches on his coaching staff show up either. The Gamecocks are without an entire coaching staff for the big game with Alabama. South Carolina takes the field with just the players, absolutely no coaches. The players are still going to try and play the game. They have practiced and they feel they can go on without help from the coaches. Let's throw in another wrench. Every play must be ran as such: before each play, the team opens it up to the crowd and the fans to decide what play to run. They take suggestions from the crowd of 60,000+ people every single play. That would be confusing right? People would be shouting random, different things all over the place. The team would have a hard time deciding what play to run, much less running it successfully. They would try their best to execute the suggested play but against such a fierce team in Alabama, they would be destroyed.
Here's the translation:
During this time of the "Great Apostasy," there was no prophet, no apostles, no authority and no real church of Christ. The people in the world at this time were left without coaches. Without leaders ordained of God. They were forced to try and make it on their own. They tried their best,but the world told them many different things about the Bible. They heard hundreds of interpretations of the Bible and they could never agree or decide which one was the right one to go with. They didn't know what play to run. They were confused. They were going off of the wrong source, the world. Because they didn't have any coaches, or a head coach...a prophet with that authority from God. The head coach and the coaching staff have that authority on the sidelines to interpret the playbook ("scriptures" for an offense) on a football team. Without that authority, the team would be crushed. Without prophets and apostles and other leaders with that authority from God, the church would crumble and the ultimate opposition, Satan, would win. The head coach directs his players (which represents people in the world) on what play to run to overcome the opposition. If we take advice from the crowd (interpretations of man), we will be confused and eventually lose. We have a prophet on earth today. He is our head coach standing on the sidelines in mortal life. His name is Thomas S. Monson, and he is our head coach today. If we pay attention to him, and the playbook (scriptures), we will not lose. The authority has been restored to the earth to run the Church of Christ, which is, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
The word "restoration" is defined in the dictionary as "the act of restoring; renewal, revival, or reestablishment." Our message is that the church that Christ himself organized has been restored, or renewed, or it has been revived and reestablished. This church IS that very church that Christ organized.
Why was this restoration necessary?
Christ established His church while He was on the earth. He called 12 apostles to run His church (see Luke 6:13). As we all know, eventually Christ was rejected and crucified. Also, all of his apostles were eventually rejected and killed one by one, until no one was alive that could run the Church of Christ. The people had rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father took the Church off the earth, including all the prophets and authority, because of wickedness. This time period is called the Great Apostasy. Let's look at it from a football point of view:
A football team has a lot of key components that helps the team run and win games. Not one piece can do it all himself. Imagine a big time coach of an SEC football team. Let's take Steve Spurrier of the South Carolina Gamecocks football team for example. Let's say for one game, he decides to not show up for the game against Alabama. And none of his coaches on his coaching staff show up either. The Gamecocks are without an entire coaching staff for the big game with Alabama. South Carolina takes the field with just the players, absolutely no coaches. The players are still going to try and play the game. They have practiced and they feel they can go on without help from the coaches. Let's throw in another wrench. Every play must be ran as such: before each play, the team opens it up to the crowd and the fans to decide what play to run. They take suggestions from the crowd of 60,000+ people every single play. That would be confusing right? People would be shouting random, different things all over the place. The team would have a hard time deciding what play to run, much less running it successfully. They would try their best to execute the suggested play but against such a fierce team in Alabama, they would be destroyed.
Here's the translation:
During this time of the "Great Apostasy," there was no prophet, no apostles, no authority and no real church of Christ. The people in the world at this time were left without coaches. Without leaders ordained of God. They were forced to try and make it on their own. They tried their best,but the world told them many different things about the Bible. They heard hundreds of interpretations of the Bible and they could never agree or decide which one was the right one to go with. They didn't know what play to run. They were confused. They were going off of the wrong source, the world. Because they didn't have any coaches, or a head coach...a prophet with that authority from God. The head coach and the coaching staff have that authority on the sidelines to interpret the playbook ("scriptures" for an offense) on a football team. Without that authority, the team would be crushed. Without prophets and apostles and other leaders with that authority from God, the church would crumble and the ultimate opposition, Satan, would win. The head coach directs his players (which represents people in the world) on what play to run to overcome the opposition. If we take advice from the crowd (interpretations of man), we will be confused and eventually lose. We have a prophet on earth today. He is our head coach standing on the sidelines in mortal life. His name is Thomas S. Monson, and he is our head coach today. If we pay attention to him, and the playbook (scriptures), we will not lose. The authority has been restored to the earth to run the Church of Christ, which is, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
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