Home

Home is a strange concept. When you're there you know it. Seems like its not only familiar surroundings of walls and furniture but feelings of acceptance and love. The Gospel has a real unspoken acceptance and love for those within its reach. The Savior says that His sheep recognize the Shepherd's voice and follow. The Shepherd not only knows the way home but is home. Although we may wander and feel that we are beyond the reach of acceptance and love we are not, for the Lord waits for us like the father of the Prodigal Son, who ran with open arms to meet the son when the son returned. We're not that far from home if we merely look, as those that wandered with Moses in the desert looked at the raised snake. Look to the Savior and we'll feel the acceptance and love of something that feels familiar.

Repentance, Obedience, Agency, Faith, Hope, and Charity

Repentance is the only real thing that Christ and the prophets taught. All the information supplemental to keeping the commandments was probably only given to give us more reason to keep the commandments.

Obedience is the key to avoiding repentance, but as we are all sinners and weak, there is much to be learned and experience the hard way. Obedience is also the key to repentance, because if we are not obedient to the commandments then we haven't repented fully.

Agency is the key to obedience. If we choose to obey of our own free will and determination, then we are on a path of eternal progression. Not one minute of our lives is empty of decision. We have to decide what to do with our time and talents. Our desires are to be given to the Lord for Him to make them come to fruition, as He is our Gardner.

Faith is the key to using agency correctly. Believing in His will over ours, frees us of the weight of the world and gives us the power to overcome. We must realize that it is His grace by which we keep breathing. He can let us go of this burden of breathing at any time. He lets us live on so that we might learn faith in Him and repent. By our relinquishing our wills to Him, He can give us what we righteously desire. But, if our desires are His desires then vice versa and that is the way to happiness, as He knows whats best for us.

Hope in a better world is often lost when we look at all the injustice, lack of charity, and lack of obedience to God. We find it hard to see the world as anything but hostile in such a state. But, the Savior did come to earth and did show us the way out of all of the turmoil and despair. Hope in Him and His resurrection gives us a motivation to do good, as it is possible to overcome all things as He has done. Hope that humanity can change and be better. Hope that virtue and integrity are not vain but eternal. Hope that there is purpose to love.

Charity is the key to our success. Without it, we are nothing. Charity is the purpose of all that we do in the church. It is the "pure love of Christ" and those that serve Christ are those that serve others. Its neither convenient, nor easy but is the only thing that counts. Blogs, tweets, pictures, possessions, foods, electronics, buildings, all are subject to annihilation by force but Charity withstands any force as the Savior proved in His agonizing atonement, where He withstood all the combined force of the world because He loved us.

Is there room for doubt?

You know, it is a special kind of belief that can exist despite one's logic or complete understanding. There is a faith that is so strong that great opposition and sacrifice does not effect the determination to choose to follow it.
Many assume that faith is not logical or unreasonable as it requires us to walk a bit in the dark. Scientists would rather call this act, a hypothesis or in layman's terms, a hunch. But, it is faith to believe in something without all the evidence.
For me, the act of faith means that sometimes my mind isn't smart enough to keep up with what is right and wrong. I can easily summon thoughts of justifying or reasoning my way out of anything. But, I know that as long as I believe in God, there is an accountability of my deeds and thoughts.
So, is there room for doubt? Always. There is always somewhere we can doubt. Should we? Maybe, a little doubt is good in that we must seek to get rid of this doubt by working to dissolve it. Doubt is like dust, its always going to accumulate with time if we aren't constantly seeking to clean it up.
Two ways to get rid of doubt are to clean it up or simply ignore it. I'm afraid there are times when I think ignoring it is the best solution, and what I mean is to have patience with this concern but move on in what you do know. Many times those little moles of doubt can eventually destroy our mountains of faith. Vice versa, as well.
If we can then, there are times we must seek to rid ourselves of doubt. This requires diligence in obedience to the commandments, fasting, and sincere prayer. The Lord promises us His grace "after all we can do."

Life is in the Doing

The problem I see for myself on the Internet is this false sense of accomplishment. Inside our minds we can look back on our actions and that inspires us to do something that will make a difference. Online, its a false sense because online its this world that is created, like a video game where you think by posting something you have somehow accomplished something but back in real life, the day to day daily grind, you haven't accomplished it. There are exceptions of course. But, in the blogosphere, the twitterverse, the facebook world, we are diminished in our participation. Not that participating makes us worse but when we start to really believe in the persona we're creating online is something more than it is. If I have a million hits, or book deals, or people that I am connecting with then that is something but updating statuses, giving a new tweet for nobody, and generally blogging about crap doesn't equal a life.

Life is in the doing. We act, therefore we are. To not be is to not do. So, as we are doing great things we must remember that in a video game or online the chances of life being lived is greatly diminished.

Right now, I feel I've accomplished something. Its a personal breakthrough, but nonetheless will be vain, if I do not have a greater resolute to walk the walk. I feel like the difference here is similar to the difference that is between the pundit and the politician. One is just a critic and one is actually striving to practice what they believe. The critic although may be giving a performance or artistic showing in their critique, they pale in comparison to what they actually contribute to the world. The performer actually is the one who puts themselves out there, who acts. Without acting or doing we are just a shallow two dimensional image of what we want people to see. As thin as our computer monitors.

The narrative in our minds shouldn't be the updates on Facebook, the Tweets, the blogs, but the achievements of being the real person we want so desperately for others to believe we are online. We have to balance our ideal selves with reality and strive to live up to this great challenge that is living our lives.

The Lord has counseled us many times through prophets that we must live for Him and we will have a life. An eternal life. Its a very rigorous time for us to deal with identity as we have a seemingly endless amount of outlets for affirmations today. Our need for validation and expression is a not completely centered around narcissism but definitely can lead to it, as we start believing the images of ourselves we create online.

Many experts are convinced though that this generation is somehow all about ourselves and entitlements. I believe its not our fault if it is true. We have a bombardment of advertisements trying to make us align our identities with our the capacities of our checking accounts. We have constant huge personalities thrown at us that have no substance behind them; reality T.V. stars, Donald Trumps, Lady Gagas, and whoever the press want to milk for headlines that week or whatever we decide we want to look at. In this atmosphere we all want to have our opinions heard as much as others opinions are thrusted upon us by the media and advertisements. Ads tell us to be happy we should do this, while those that are seemingly happy do nothing but model in front of us with their status symbols on their clothes and faces. Its a world where status is everything, a world where this amount of pressure from society leaves us innocuous toward what will truly help others and ourselves feel happy.

We are going through a phase of experimenting with our emotions and technology and there is still so much humanity world. To sum up some of my emotions on this concept-

Retired pastor knows why people don’t like Christians any more
Uncategorized — posted by jeff kunerth on May, 25 2011 12:16 PM

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Retired pastor Kirk Minor remembers a time when working with his church was centered around people, and not rhetoric – and he’s wondering where those days went.

“We’re finding more and more that there are a lot of people out there doing a lot of talking and protesting and bellyaching, but fewer people actually walking the walk,” said Minor, author of Journey Across The Tiber: My Many Rooms. “We have extremists protesting funerals of gay soldiers, pundits decrying the use of abbreviations for the word Christmas and activists campaigning for prayer in public schools. These are all very divisive issues, and have little to do with the good works the Bible wants the faithful to perform.”

Minor bemoans that the Bible has become a book with which to bludgeon people.

“Too many people are using religion as a sword to fight those with whom they disagree, instead of as a plowshare to help their fellow neighbors tend the land and form a community,” said Minor, who retired as a United Methodist Church pastor after 23 years.

The key to reversing the trend, according to Minor, is to use actions more than words, and for people of faith to quietly go about the good works and charity that is at the essence of the Bible’s teachings.

“Shouting louder than the other guys only results in more shouting, which never gets anything done,” he said. “The key is to go about your life, as one of the faithful, and to make sure you actually do at least one thing each day that reflects the faith in which you believe.”

A Life with God

So, lets get a few things straight as to our purpose-

God's purpose as stated in Moses 1:39 is: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
In John 17:3 it states that life eternal is to know God. Which is echoed by Doctrine and Covenants 132:24

A few other definitions, along with that of eternal life is:

to be spiritually minded 2 Nephi 9:39
believe in him, and to endure to the end 2 Nephi 33:4

We can draw more conclusions on what eternal life means by the constant reference to it by the prophets and the Savior. Basically, its heaven. A life with God.

So, from God's purpose we can deduce our purpose. If He is working to bring us back, then we must also be working, to return back to our heavenly home.

Very simple, really, but very demanding in execution. We must keep the commandments, and there by doing, repent of our wrong doings. To repent we must value eternal life more than our burdensome sins.

The invitation is clear, that we are invited to "the feast" with the Father, in His many mansions. We are only to arrive if by the sacrificing of ourselves, for His will. By giving up our will for His, we give up the reward of our actions, for His reward. Whether we do good openly as a beacon of light or secretly under dark of night, we are rewarded openly.

I've never regretted keeping the commandments. The Holy Ghost doesn't ever give you a feeling of regret. By we are keeping the commandments, we are entitled to the fruits of the Spirit, as mentioned in Galatians 5:22. None of these fruits are bitter but are as Lehi accounts in his dream of partaking of the fruit- I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit. (1 Nephi 8:11-12).

Keeping the commandments with real intent gives you this joy. Keeping the commandments with an absence of sincerity, gives you an absence of great joy. Not keeping the commandments separates you further from God, as Adam and Eve fell, so we all have fallen from God.

The way back to God is Jesus Christ as we all have sinned, He redeems us of our mistakes, as we follow His example. I know that God lives, and that the way to happiness and eternal life is through the following of Jesus Christ.

Why are we here?

We left the throne of God for this. A planet thats heating up with not only pollution but corruption. A place so evil that altruism is crucified, power steps on the meek, and lust for gratification rapes purity and innocense. Why did we leave? Why did we choose this path? It was probably the smartest thing we did up to that point. We chose to come to the Earth to be endowed with a knowledge and power that could only come through this experience, this trial of faith, this refiner's fire, this probation.

Its pretty bleak but the good far outweigh the bad. The bands of death were broken by the Savior. The good news is preached from prophet to prophet of the glorious day of the Lord. We have so much to shout hallelujahs for as we are given a chance at eternal life and at-one-ment with God. "And this is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

As the prodigal son left home and came to himself after adventuring the bleakness of the world, we too must come to ourselves and return to our Father in Heaven. We are in the same state of that prodigal son. As we return to God we are forgiven for our sins and blessed with a great joy and peaceful state, away from the dark and dreary world. As the parable shows, the family is the brightest part of this dark world.

The heart of everything we do is to promote the happiness and betterment of our souls. "Men are that they might have joy" said Lehi. President Packer recently said in a talk that the "ultimate end of all activity in the church is that a man and his wife and his children can be happy at home." So, we get to keep the commandments as they are precious to our happiness and betterment.

There are many doctrines that distinguish us from other churches. But, one that is great is the idea that we take very seriously the linking of family relationships. We build great temples that are marvelous in design but the inner part is the most impressive as it deals solely with spirits. We don't go to the temple for any physical benefits, only to use our physical presence for a spiritual purpose of linking families together from generation to generation. It is the whole purpose of an atonement being needed by the one and only God to bring us into His presence. Christ was one with His Father at all times. From birth to death to resurrection, He was not one of us but we can be linked to His greatness through our faith and love for Him and the great family that is mankind.

David O. McKay said that no amount of success outside the home can compensate for a failure inside the home. Our great reason for working and all these activities in our lives should be centered around building a strong bond with God and His children. Those that carry these relationships have many waiting beyond the veil to meet them. Just as temple would be vain without the inner beauty of spiritual ordinances, so would we without these connections to God and our families.

Jacob 5 is a huge allegory of an olive tree field. When it is growing righteously it yields great fruit and when it is growing wild it yields wild fruit. It is an example of keeping the righteousness in our lives from generation to generation, showing signs of fruit and increase over time. This is the work and glory of God, to bring to pass the immortality of men. God is not one to judge us by our possessions but by our priorities. We need to see those in view as not property but our priority. We can't let this time of probation and preparation go to waste on fruitless endeavors that prove vain with time. The Lord is the way to happiness and eternal life.