13 Mar 2017

Hey everybody!

This week has been good but nothing too exciting to report.

Something that just stood out to me this week as I was studying was Nephi in 2 Nephi Chapter 4. He asks the Lord that he may "shake at the appearance of sin." I thought about why he chose that wording. As I thought obviously to shake means to fear it but what was it that he feared. So to summarize the thought, Nephi was scared of sin its self but to commit sin, He wanted to be afraid of the Idea of committing sin because he knew that sin causes in some degree or another a separation from the spirit. Also him having an understanding that our purpose in life is to become like our savior, sin in any degree holds us back from being like Christ and having a fullness of joy. Nephi didn’t want to just be less sinful than Laman and Lemuel; he wanted to be exactly like Christ is. At least personally I've found times that I justify action by looking at others and thinking well im doing better than them. But that shouldn't be the case. I thought about when Christ says become like a child, and I thought about how a child can take even the smallest thing and feel the most guilt about it. Like they could take an extra cookie from the cookie jar and if they get caught they think mom and dad are going to kill them or banish them from the house forever. So I think also as we live through life, we become exposed to more serious transgressions and become a bit jaded towards guilt of smaller things that are still wrong. So to finally summarize this, we shouldn’t, judge how we are doing based off of others, expectations of the world or that we aren't as bad as we use to be. These are things Satan puts in our minds to block our spiritual progression. I'm not saying you need to beat yourself up every day because you weren't perfect, but we should evaluate ourselves frequently and think of ways that we can become more like Christ, and seek to not justify any wrong doing. We should indeed fear the inhibition that comes with giving in to temptation. I hope that this all made sense and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Scripture reference 2 Nephi 4:31