I had a hard time falling asleep last night and I still woke up with this heavy heart and something more than a desire - a need - to share my testimony (I wrote this a week ago). Maybe it is because I'm leaving and I hate myself for leaving family, friends and a community where I didn't share what being Mormon truly means. The Bible belt we live in has long ago enlisted unwarranted anti-mormon propaganda that has made our way of life unaccepted and awkward to explain, even to close family. I have appreciated living in a God- fearing community with people who love Christ, but people talk when you aren't around and it isn't always easy to bring up the Plan of Salvation or dive into the Restoration, but now I ask myself how come? Nothing is more important to me than sharing what I know to be true with my family. So why have I failed them?
I've heard the world say we are not Christians. Apparently being members of The Church of Jesus Christ means we worship a different Christ than them [because that seems pretty straight forward to me]. I simply feel if they knew more "lds" members instead if hearing from the biased and those who were led astray, many people would begin to doubt the propaganda and see that we have more similarities than differences and that our differences will start to make sense too. How can something so supposedly "evil" teach such wonderful principles?
Our clergymen are not paid. All the service within His church worldwide is just that, service. We talk of Christ, we find hope and forgiveness through His Atonement, we value family and our focus is sealing our families together for eternity. We talk of prayer, personal study & revelation, obedience to His commandments, which consist of things beyond The Ten such as serve God by serving your neighbors, love them, refrain from harmful addictions, be virtuous, pay tithing, have daily family prayer and scripture study, be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, get married in the temple by the sealing power that binds families to the eternities so that death does not part us. These are the things we teach and you see them as inherently evil? You think my goal is to trick you? That I am brainwashed and can only think by the hand of my parents?
I know without a shadow of a doubt that the foundational principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ are true and the restored truth and Priesthood power can be found no where else. We have living prophets and apostles on the earth today to be the mouthpiece of the Lord in these latter days. It matters; the whole truth matters.
And if we have the chance to receive and live it in this life, how great our reward here and how much further ahead we can go in the next. We lived before this life as spirit children of God, this is our time for experience in mortal bodies and eventually we will all be resurrected through the grace of our Savior, but we cannot be exalted in sin. What we do here matters and if we want to live in the highest glory and truly become all we can be, as a family and with the potential to grow, we must live in strict obedience to the gospel of Christ. Christ gave us all potential… so much potential rests within us all. But we cannot be exalted on His grace alone. We have to be willing to sacrifice too, not to justify a debt but to become like Him. Christ suffered so that we will all live again and so that we can have hope in a happily ever after in the highest kingdom of God, but we must be confident enough to stand before Him unshaken by our living testimony built upon a life of charity.
From a logical stand point, when family members fear about whether or not I am saved, I guess I have to ask the question what does it mean to be saved? If it is to simply accept Christ as the Savior, then yes. But do I think that will save me? And do you think that will truly save me? If we can all be saved now, then why is there judgment day? It might be good to ponder over whether or not there is only one heaven and one hell. That lesson I've already discussed on my blog. I'm just not sure I've heard anything that sounds more satisfying and logical than the Plan of Salvation and degrees of glory. I just can't think that innocent children unbaptized are damned or that good, God-fearing people who haven't had the chance to accept the gospel will suffer the same.
Dallin H Oaks explains the "Have I Been Saved?" questions really well here
Here is a popular BYU devotional on GRACE for those who want to understand a little bit more.
"Then I ask them a question that perhaps they have not fully considered: “Have you been changed by grace?” They are so excited about being saved that maybe they are not thinking enough about what comes next. They are so happy the debt is paid that they may not have considered why the debt existed in the first place. Latter-day Saints know not only what Jesus has saved us from but also what He has saved us for. As my friend Brett Sanders puts it, “A life impacted by grace eventually begins to look like Christ’s life.” As my friend Omar Canals puts it, “While many Christians view Christ’s suffering as only a huge favor He did for us, Latter-day Saints also recognize it as a huge investment He made in us.” As Moroni puts it, grace isn’t just about being saved. It is also about becoming like the Savior"
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