No One Is Forbidden

This week's Come, Follow Me lesson includes an important lesson: "Jesus Christ invites all to come unto Him."

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that Heavenly Father is more “boundless in his mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive” (The Joseph Smith Papers, “History, 1838–1856, volume D-1,” p. 4 [addenda], josephsmithpapers.org).

This lesson is almost alarming because it applies to everyone. Everyone can repent. Everyone is invited to come unto Christ. While that's good news for us, we should remember that that "good news" extends to even the worst sinners who ever lived. That may be why Joseph Smith said that we aren't quite ready to fully believe or receive this teaching. We understand and accept that we can repent and become pure, but so can those who have wronged us, those who have hurt the innocent, and those who have deliberately led others astray. We may not be willing to accept their repentance and forgive them, but God is. 2 Nephi 26 spent four verses in a row driving this point home by rhetorically asking whether the Lord turns anyone away, and the answer is always "No." No one is commanded to depart. No one is commanded not to partake of the Lord's goodness and salvation. No one is forbidden. (See 2 Nephi 26: 25-28.) God's door is open to everyone who takes the steps necessary to walk through it. No one is locked out, no matter who they are or what they've done. As long as they repented, nothing else matters.

It's astonishing to think that even the most famously and infamously evil people can repent and be welcomed into heaven, but even the worst sinners are still God's children, and He still loves them and wants them to change their ways and come home. God has an incomprehensibly enormous amount of love for even the worst of His children, and, as unbelievable as it sounds, we should try to develop that kind of love as well. God doesn't cut anyone off from the possibility of repentance and forgiveness, and neither should we.