August 31, 2013

Repentance

"Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in His presence; for, in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge, who shall come in the meridian of time." - Moses 6: 57

Repent and you will be able to live with Heavenly Father after death. Our body and our Spirit will reunite and our body will become perfected but if our soul is unclean, then we cannot live with Him in Heaven. You will live forever in torment. 

Bruce R. McConkie said, "...There was no man ever born into this world that could have stood under the weight of the load that was upon the Son of God, when he was carrying my sins and yours and making it possible that we might escape from our sins." 

Jesus Christ suffered for our sins too. He knows EXACTLY what we're going through because He went through with it and He WANTS to help you. He really does. Repentance wouldn't be possible if Jesus Christ never atone for our sins. We all should be grateful for the opportunity to repent for our sins. Repentance is a wonderful thing because we can become clean once more after baptism. All of us makes mistakes in our lives, even after baptism. We all are not perfect, we are always bound to make a mistakes. After all, we're humans. Jesus Christ knew that so He atoned for our sins! 

Now, some of you who may be reading this might want to go through the repentance process. It will make you happy and will help you find the peace and serenity in your lives. You will be forever grateful for what Jesus Christ did for us. 

Steps to repentance:

1) We must recognize our sins

We have to recognize that we are doing something wrong in order to fix it. If you don't know that if you're sinning, then you can't really repent.

2) We must feel sorrow for our sins

In order to really repent, we have to feel sorrow for our sins. If we don't feel remorse for our sins then we will keep doing it. In order to have a change of heart and to sin no more, we have to feel remorse and sorrow.

3) We must forsake our sins.

Forsake means to STOP. Dieter Uchtdorf once said in General Conference, "STOP IT!". We can't keep sinning and repenting. We have to stop doing the sin in order to really repent. 

4) We must confess our sins

We have to pray and CONFESS to our loving Father in Heaven. By confessing, we show God that we acknowledge our sins and that we have a desire to change ourselves for the better.

5) We must make restitution.

Restitution means to make amends or to right a wrong. Every action has a consequence and in some circumstances, we are able to make amends. For example, if we steal $5 from a store then we make restitution by returning that $5. By making restitution, we show to Heavenly Father that we are willing to change our actions. 

6) We must forgive others.

This is one of the most important parts of repentance. The Lord will not forgive us unless our hearts are fully cleansed of hatred. 

7) We must keep the commandments of God

The purpose of repentance is to become clean AND to learn from our mistakes. If we learn from our mistakes, then we wouldn't do that action. Heavenly Father gave us commandments and if we follow it 100% then we would not have a problem with sin. Jesus Christ knows that we make mistakes so He atoned for our sins so we can repent and become a better person. 

I can promise each one of you reading this that by repenting, we can become free from our sins and begin to experience joy and happiness in our lives once again. Heavenly Father really does love us and wants us to be successful!

Peace out! Tremonton is absolutely beautiful and I'm glad that I get to serve here!

Elder McGrath