The Worst Kind of Sin

One final thought from Elder Cornish before I move on. While warning us against sin in general, he took a moment to say specifically what the worst kind of sin was:

And the worst kind of sin is premeditated sin, where one says, “I can sin now and repent later.” I believe that this is a solemn mockery of the sacrifice and sufferings of Jesus Christ.

While we talk about the power of the Atonement and God's willingness to forgive sin, we should be careful not to think that we can get away with abusing that power. God gave us the Atonement so we could have a chance to become better, not so we could perpetually live in sin. God wants to save us from our sins, but even He can't do that unless we forsake them, or at least try to forsake them.

Willingly committing sin with the understanding that we can just repent of that sin later is counterproductive. Repentance means change. If we truly want to change, why not try and start today? Why persist in the sort of behavior that you'll want to change later? Most sinful behavior is habit-forming (Heck, most behavior of any kind is habit-forming), so it is foolish to reinforce the habit of sinful behavior just before trying to break that habit.

Also, it doesn't work. God's not interested in lip service. Saying "Please forgive me" is not enough to constitute true repentance. We have to actually want and try to change. We have to actually want to try to stop engaging in sinful behavior. Actions speak louder than words.

I understand that some people struggle with sin. Some people want to repent, but are already caught in the habit of sinful behavior. I believe that as long as a person genuinely wants to repent and are trying to repent, then they are actually repenting. There is a big difference between slipping up and giving in. It's a matter of heart. Trying to forsake sin and failing is very different from trying to sin and get away with it.

We are not going to get away with sin. God is not so easily fooled and God's Atonement will not be mocked. The Atonement covers all true repentance, not the phony repentance of premeditated sin. It is always possible to repent, but for repentance to be effective, it must be sincere and genuine. We must not make the mistake of thinking that we can sin and repent later. That doesn't work, and it certainly isn't going to work out very well for us.

Sin Always Has Consequences

One of the scriptures we read in family scripture reading tonight mentioned the consequences of sin, which reminded me another quote/concept/concession that I wanted to share from Elder Cornish's talk. Elder Cornish's talk was mostly a hopeful message about our fairly good prospects of being "good enough" to enter heaven, no matter what we've done, but he added this word of caution:

This does not mean in any way that sin is OK. Sin always has consequences. Sin always harms and hurts both the sinner and those affected by his or her sins. And true repentance is never easy. Moreover, please understand that even though God takes away the guilt and stain of our sins when we sincerely repent, He may not immediately take away all of the consequences of our sins. Sometimes they remain with us for the rest of our lives.

In short, don't do it. Sin always has consequences. Some of those consequences are the natural consequences of trying to break absolute moral laws, just as injuries are sustained as natural consequences of trying to break the law of gravity. Sometimes, the consequences of sin are designed to persuade us not to repeat the sin. Sometimes, the consequences of our sins take the form of the difficulty of repenting from the sinful behavior. And sometimes, the consequences of our sins take the form of the painful memories of the mistakes we've made and the effects those mistakes have had on others.

Even after repentance, and even with the infinite power of the Atonement doing all the good it can in our lives and in the lives of others, there are still consequences for sin. So don't do it. Resist the temptation. Save yourself and your loved ones and The One Who Loves You the pain of having to deal with the consequences. Because when we sin, there are always consequences. Let's try to avoid them by refraining from sin.

Healing Over Time

I have a few more points from Elder Cornish's talk that I could blog about, but I feel like I've spent enough time on him, and I should probably move on for now. I also have other things on my mind right now, which things I definitely do not want to blog about. So, for tonight, I'm going to blog about something easy: Magic. Specifically, healing magic.

Most games that involve taking damage also include ways to heal that damage. Often, that healing is instantaneous. You drink a potion or cast a healing spell, and your health is restored immediately. But in the real world, healing isn't like that. Real healing takes time. Whether our wounds are physical, emotional, or psychological, it will take time to recover from them. Even spiritual healing takes time.

Granted, some forms of spiritual healing can take place rather quickly. For instance, when God forgives our sins, that forgiveness takes place instantaneously, though changing our sinful behavior may take months or years. Also, some games have abilities that allow players to heal gradually, but even with Healing over Time abilities, the healing that takes place in games happens much faster than healing in real life.

In real life, as in some games, we must be patient and wise as we heal. We must be careful to make sure we don't continually reopen wounds that are trying to heal or take on more than we can handle while we're healing.  You may have a healing spell that will eventually restore you to full health, but in the meantime, you'll still be low on Health Points for a while, so you should still be cautious.

Likewise, we should be careful to not re-damage healing relationships, to be wary of the temptation to commit the sins of which we are currently repenting, and to be patient as we wait for our various wounds to heal.

However, the good news is that even though most healing takes time, healing also comes in time. As time passes from the moment the injury took place, to the future, the wounds that we've received will heal, as long as we don't continually reopen them. You may be hurt now, but, in time, you will grow strong again. And when you do, you will become stronger from the experience.

It is somewhat unfortunate that healing usually takes time, but it is wonderful that with time comes healing. No matter how badly hurt we are, we won't stay hurt forever. God is working His magic, and we will heal over time.

How the Balance Between Grace and Works Works

Another profound quote from Elder Cornish's talk:

None of us can do this on our own power. None of us will ever be “good enough,” save through the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ, but because God respects our agency, we also cannot be saved without our trying. That is how the balance between grace and works works.

Because none of us can become perfectly righteous on our own, we need grace.

Because God won't carry any of us down the path of righteousness unless we choose to follow it, we need works.

Grace is not enough on its own because God will not force salvation onto those who don't choose it by their actions.

Works are not enough on their own because we cannot earn our own salvation after we've sinned.

And all of us have sinned.

We all have fallen short of the ideal of perfection, and we need the Lord's grace to intercede for us and forgive our sins, but to satisfy the terms of the Atonement, we must strive to repent and keep the commandments of the Lord. We need both grace and works. By our works, we can show the Lord that we are worthy of His grace which, in turn, makes up for the imperfections in our works. Without works, we cannot obtain grace, and without grace, no amount of works would suffice.

Thankfully, God is willing to grant us all the grace we need, provided that we bring forth our share of good works.

Repentance, Rationalization, and Rebellion

One of the most profound things Elder Cornish said during his talk Am I Good Enough? Will I Make It? is a formula which, he said, would guarantee that we would qualify for the Celestial Kingdom: "Yes, you are going to make it as long as you keep repenting and do not rationalize or rebel."

At the end of his talk, he reiterated this affirmation:

I witness to you that if you will really try and will not rationalize or rebel—repenting often and pleading for the grace, or help, of Christ—you positively are going to be “good enough,” that is, acceptable before the Lord; you are going to make it to the celestial kingdom, being perfect in Christ; and you are going to receive the blessings and glory and joy that God desires for each of His precious children—including specifically you and me.

This is an amazing promise, but what, exactly, does it mean?

I think we understand what repentance means, since we hear a lesson on it at least two or three times every year, but it wouldn't hurt to refresh our memory. Repentance means change, or, more specifically, trying to change. It means recognizing that some of the things we're doing are bad and trying to stop doing those things. To make it to the Celestial Kingdom, we must repent (apologize for and try to abstain from) all our sins, including sins of omission. James wrote, "to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Thus, we must really try to do good and to stop doing bad.

Of course, we are not perfect, and we are not going to become perfect in this lifetime. We may wish to do good things and to not do bad things, but we will slip up and fall short from time to time. That is why repentance is more accurately defined as trying to change, and it's also why it's important to avoid those other two actions that Elder Cornish mentioned.

He warned us against rationalization:

What we cannot do is rationalize rather than repent. It will not work to justify ourselves in our sins by saying, “God knows it’s just too hard for me, so He accepts me like I am.”

Some people, upon discovering how difficult it is to repent, and having accepted that they will never become perfect in this life, take that as an excuse to stop trying. This will not do. Because repentance means trying to change, we only fail at it when we stop trying. But that is exactly what rationalization tempts us to do. When we attempt to rationalize our sins, we stop trying to overcome them. This causes us to become unrepentant and halts our progress, and it can even lead to the other action Elder Cornish warned us against: rebellion.

The other thing that will surely keep us out of heaven and separate us from the help we need now is rebellion. From the book of Moses, we learn that Satan was cast out of heaven for rebellion. We are in rebellion any time we say in our hearts, “I don’t need God, and I don’t have to repent.”

Despite having a few problems with the concept of obedience, I'll admit that it is dangerously foolish to rebel against God, and not just because He has the capacity to be vengeful. God's commandments warn us of danger and help us to live a happier and more successful life. Furthermore, obeying God and not rebelling against Him are essential to our salvation. As Elder Cornish put it, "when we rebel against God, we reject our only help and hope, who is Jesus Christ, which leads to spiritual death."

However, on the brighter side, rationalization and rebellion are quite possibly the only two things that could keep us from qualifying for the Celestial Kingdom. As long as we keep repenting and don't try to rationalize our sins or rebel against God, we will make it. We will eventually become like God and spend eternity in heaven, as long as we keep trying to get there and don't let rationalization or rebellion hold us back. We don't often hear promises this powerful or this direct, but Elder Cornish has made his point very clearly: "Yes, you are going to make it as long as you keep repenting and do not rationalize or rebel." I hope that we can resist the occasional urge to rationalize and rebel, so we can maintain our motivation to repent so we will eventually "make it." The way I see it, there are only a few things that could possibly hold us back, and now that we know what they are, we will be better prepared to avoid them.

Really Trying to Blog

In his talk, Elder Cornish quoted President Hinckley as having said that "all the Lord expects of us is to try, but you have to really try!"

Elder Cornish went on to explain that "'Really trying' means doing the best we can, recognizing where we need to improve, and then trying again."

By this definition, I haven't been "really trying" to blog every day. Yes, I get a blog post posted each night before I go to bed, but it frequently happens that a given day's blog post isn't posted until after midnight, which is technically the next day.

I have decided that this is a problem for a few reasons. First, it means that I am technically not living up to my commitment to blog each day. Second, it means that I frequently end up stay up way too late because I know that I can't go to bed until I've blogged.

The solution, as I've said here several times before, is to blog earlier. If I blog earlier in the day, I can actually post it on the day it's due, and then I can go to bed at a reasonable hour.

But I haven't been doing that. I know what I need to do; I just haven't started doing it yet. I'm not "really trying" to blog daily because even though I "recogniz[e] where [I] need to improve," I haven't yet started "trying again."

I'm not going to make any empty promises. Not tonight, anyway. I'm not going to make some New-Year's-like resolution to blog earlier again from now on. I think I've learned better than to make a promise that I lack the willpower to keep.

But what I will promise is that when I shut down the computer a few minutes from now, I'm going to leave either this tab, or the tab with Elder Cornish's talk on it, open, so the first thing I'll see when I open up my web browser tomorrow is either my blog or the talk I'll want to blog about.

And I will try, really try, to blog earlier tomorrow.

Better Than We Know Ourselves

Several times recently, I've mentioned that God knows us better than we know ourselves, and that got me thinking as to why that might be true. The easy answer is that God is omniscient and we are not. The reason God knows us better than we do may be because God knows everything, including everything there is to know about us, and we don't.

Another easy answer is that God has known us longer than we have known ourselves. The longer you know a person, the better you get to know them, and God has known us since before we were born. Meanwhile, the veil of forgetfulness has made us forget everything from before we were born, including everything we may have learned about ourselves up to that point, and our earliest childhood memories take place probably long after we were born, and our memory is probably patchy, at best, so there are tremendous gaps in our knowledge about ourselves.

But God isn't the only being who has known us since before we passed through the veil. Satan also, for that reason alone, knows us better than we know ourselves, but I don't think he knows us as well as God knows us, and there are a number of possible reasons for that as well. For example, I'm sure Satan knew us before we were born, but I'm not sure how much attention he was paying to us. As I understand it, he had bigger fish to fry. God, on the other hand, would have taken the time to get to know each and every one of His children before sending them to Earth. And that's assuming that He didn't already know us perfectly through his omniscience, which Satan doesn't have. Satan may know us better than we know ourselves, but I'm sure that God knows us even better than that.

So, if you have a question about yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, your gifts, or your role in the universe, God would be the right person to ask about all that. God knows thing about us that we don't yet know about ourselves, but He is willing to teach us as long as we are willing to ask and listen. It's slightly unsettling to know that there are beings in the universe who know me better than I know myself, but when He who knows me best is willing to share His information with me, I guess I can't complain. God knowing me better than I know myself is a temporary truth. As I come to know myself, and as the veil is removed, I can eventually know myself about as well as God knows me, which is far better than I know myself now. For one reason or another, God currently knows us better than we know ourselves, but as we get to know ourselves, we can eventually come to know ourselves just as well as God does.