On focusing on negative consequences: maybe we do that because it's so much easier to consider ourselves candidates for hell than for heaven. Sometimes promised blessings are almost ignored because they sound out of our league: establishing peace, becoming sanctified, understanding the Lord's revelations, entering into His rest: that's only for the people who are unusually incredible and fore-ordained to do those amazing things, right? No! That's one of Alma's major points in this sermon: that these are all things that we can achieve through faith and repentance. Believe that it's possible for you, and envision yourself receiving them.

“In many cookbooks there are pictures of the perfect dishes that recipes make—the fulness of the joy of cooking. These pictures are important because they help us envision the outcome if we strictly follow the directions as given in the recipe. It is important to begin with the end in mind, but the end represented by pictures in cookbooks is an end that is only possible if everything is done right. If directions are not followed or an ingredient is left out or miscalculated, the desired taste and appearance are seldom attained. The picture of a perfect dish, however, can serve as motivation to try again to create something that is both delicious and beautiful.

When we think of eternal life, what is the picture that comes to mind?” (link)

Alma 13: 30

And may the Lord grant unto you repentance, This is the desire that feeds Alma’s preaching: that he wants his people to receive forgiveness!

that ye may not bring down his wrath upon you, Remember that God’s wrath (at it’s worst) is only justice: He never spitefully punishes.

that ye may not be bound down by the chains of hell,

that ye may not suffer the second death.

I always have a hard time when I come to a verse like this that sounds kind of threatening: “Do this or else…” because I think that understanding this as a threat is so automatic and so wrong. Threatening has never been a godly way to motivate: in fact, we were recently counseled that playing upon guilt is not an appropriate way to motivate in the Church (link).

So if that’s a blatant misunderstanding, what is really being said here? If it’s not a threat, what is it? Some possibilities:

1) A threat in a godly way that we (by our mortal nature) can’t carry out righteously

a. It’s true that we shouldn’t think of God threatening the way that we threaten: filled with hate, wishing nothing but the worst for our foes, almost hoping that the threat will be carried out. God is reticent to punish His children. He says that it “repented” (Gen. 6: 6 footnote a says “The Heb. root means ‘to be sorry,’ ‘moved to pity,’ ‘have compassion.’”) him that he had to use the flood in Noah’s day. Jonah desired that the Lord would destroy Nineveh: after all, he had traveled long and hard to pass on to them the message of their impending doom. But when the Lord forgave the city, He was happy to preserve them (Jonah 3: 10), and Jonah shows his mortality in holding the grudge against them (Jonah 4).

2) A reminder of consequences

a. This may be the case, but there are a million and one consequences in the world that are so wonderful and worth-while. If we were to focus on the negative consequences that we are trying to avoid, would we ever have the positive drive sufficient to “anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [our] own free will” (D&C 58: 27)? But we should note that this whole sermon has been dedicated to telling the people about the happy consequences of repenting: the ability to direct others “in what manner to look forward to his [God’s] Son for redemption”(v2), entering into the rest of God and helping others to enter into His rest (v6), becoming “high priests forever, after the order of the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father” (v9), “being sanctified by the Holy Ghost” (v12), “being pure and spotless before God” (v12), gaining the ability to “establish peace” (v18), revelations becoming understandable (v23), ministering of angels (v24). Alma is definitely not focusing on only the negative consequences: that was me. I need to be careful not to focus on these verses above all of the promised blessings!

3) An earnest face-off with Alma’s own worst fears

a. Usually, you have to be really close to a person before you are able to talk with them honestly about your fears. In fact, I think most of the time I have a hard time talking with myself honestly about my own fears! Maybe this is a mark of Alma’s consuming desire to help these people that he tells them his fears about what would happen to them if they continue in their current course.

4) The lack of a better way in English to say that Heavenly Father expects full obedience

a. Maybe the Lord felt like this was the only way to convey to us that He wants to be strictly obeyed: see, even I have a hard time conveying that without using negative connotations (like the word ‘strict’). Maybe the Lord decided that we would come through other scriptures to understand His mercy, but that where we have a hard time marrying His desire for obedience with His desire for mercy in our descriptions of Him, having one description reflecting each component, each with the statement that they were intended to represent the same God to us would be more effective than creating a new concept, making a new word, and trying to work from there. This is consistent with the scriptural comment that God speaks to us according to our own language, not His own language: it is so we can understand (2 Ne. 31: 3). It’s also important to note that Christ Himself told the Pharisees that mercy is the more important (Matt. 9: 13) and then told the disciples who wanted to see strict pharisaical obedience trounced upon that their level of obedience is required for entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5: 20). I think it tells us a little bit about the tendencies in our times that we rarely hear that verse, even though it’s a part of the Sermon on the Mount!

Alma 13: 27

And now, my brethren, There is so much love here that I need to gain in order to read this will all of the honest intensity with which it was written. How would I say it now? “I wish from a not quite completely superficial place in my heart, with some anxiety, but not usually enough to provoke me to action, that you would live out someone else’s words and throw your sins behind you through the power of Christ, and receive His salvation today: feel His love today, and be able to respect yourself—your new self, cleansed from iniquity and restored to purity.”

I wish from the inmost part of my heart, What methods do I have for letting things seep deep into my soul? Enos (Enos 1: 3) talked about being out hunting when things sank into his soul: there seems to be a kind of passive seepage that occurs with time and meditative actions. In that case, I should try to make more of my actions meditative. If Enos could have the truths of the Gospel sink deep into his soul while he was hunting, then I should be able to let these truths sink deep into my soul while vacuuming, while riding the bus, while studying, even while working. And there have been times when that has happened: how I wish that all of the time that I spend on all of these tasks could be, like my adversities, turned to my gain!

yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, Not that I want to feel pain, but I want to reach out to others with a compassion that allows me to share their pain. And there is a certain pain that comes with looking back on your life and considering those sinful actions as part of who you are and part of what you have done. The Lord allows us to jettison most of those unsightly memories and be made clean.

I wonder whether there is a kind of distributive property of suffering. The law of the fast (abstaining from food for 24 hrs, giving a donation greater or equal to the amount that you would have spent on that day’s food) can be understood in one way to be those who have sufficient means taking on some of the suffering of those who don’t. It’s as if we are trying to dilute the suffering and each take on our own shoulders our share rather than to shun suffering and leave it in concentrated pockets to weigh down (and sink) a small group of people.

that ye would hearken unto my words, I suppose that this step comes down to having words, or saying words, that are worth hearkening to. That disqualifies sarcastic, complaining or especially cynical words. These should be words of encouragement, words that will help people change. Some of the words that have helped me have been statements of patterns that I didn’t see. My Love talks about unrecognized sins as blind spots: weaknesses that we didn’t know we had. Sometimes those have been pointed out to me in a way that has helped me change. What is the proper way to do this, though? I think that in order to be most effective, love should permeate the comment, not just surround it. The comments are best if the Lord has already indicated them to you, and your friend is then confirming only what you already know, but hopefully adding strength to your determination to change. There is quiet stagnation in not being willing to make a comment for fear of hurting someone. Instead, we need to have a trusting relationship as the basis (you trust that even if you mis-speak and it hurts the recipient, that they will forgive you and try to learn from your comments. I believe that there are words of encouragement and words that will help people to repent that are not biting. And so I need to talk about these principles to those who may listen. I need to desire that change for them, not so that I will not be tempted to judge, but so that they can have problems resolved and find the sweet fruit of forgiveness realized in their lives.

and cast off your sins, Cast off: such strong connotation: I’m thinking of throwing things (or people in the case of Jonah) overboard, or into the garbage, or (in the allegory of the olive trees) into the fire. Lehi, a man who crossed many waters, appropriately uses the analogy of standing up after being covered with sand on the beach (2 Ne. 1: 23), but at the same time, recognizes the extreme debilitating weight of these sins before they are cast off. He encourages us to shake off our spiritual sleepiness, grogginess, and sometimes devout laziness, and let Christ-born freedom from sins grant us wings (2 Ne. 4: 25, Mal. 4: 2, John 8: 32).

and not procrastinate the day of your repentance; • • •

Mission Statement

The name for this Blog comes from the quote "The gospel of Jesus Christ can make bad men good and good men better, can alter human nature and change human lives." link

I am looking for ways to have good conversations about the scriptures. My daily scripture study consists of reading a few verses and then thinking of ways to look at it in a new light, hopefully in a way that will help me expand my heart (my goal is "wide as eternity"[Moses 7: 41]), change my heart, and improve my understanding of the Nature of God.

I'm LDS , so I'll use the LDS standard works to start discussions, but I hope that comments will include all scriptural traditions, including wise words or passages that have spoken to you, whatever the source.