A Key

This is a Key that has helped me in my life. It is a little formula that helps me out. It doesn't matter who you are or in what situation you are in, it applies to everyone.

The reality is that there is no person on earth so strong or righteous that it is impossible for them to fall. We all can fall if we choose to. The formula I give you will help you to avoid falling into sin.

SIN = TEMPTATION + TIME

The simple fact. YOU WILL SIN, if you let yourself be tempted for too long.

We all have things that tempt us, some of them we have control over and some we don't. Simple example, you can control if you go to a party or club where you know alcohol will be served. You can't control it if you didn't know before hand that there would be alcohol at a party you are at, HOWEVER you can now choose to stay at the party or leave it.

To keep yourself from sinning you must remove the temptations you encounter from you as soon as possible. If you don't you will sin, regardless of who you are or what the temptation is. IT IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME!!!

Sin

You know, When I was younger, about high school age, I remember learning a lesson about the worst sins and how the worst sin is to deny the Holy Ghost and after that to murder and coming in third place was adultery (See Alma 39). The way this lesson was taught to me I seem to remember thinking that sin came in different degrees or levels of severity.

As I grew older I heard saying like "The worst sin is the one you are struggling with right now," or I read passages in the scriptures that say, "...He that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin." (D&C 64:9). As you can see this isn't exactly in line with how I understood it from before.

I remember reading about God in the following passage, "...no unclean thing can dwell with God; wherefore, ye must be cast off forever." (1 Ne. 10:21) and it helped me to change my perspective a little. I imagine God's house and kingdom to be immaculately clean. I think we are either clean or unclean. We can't dwell with God even if we only have the least severe sin on our heads. EVERY and ANY SIN make us ineligible for his kingdom. I think that each sin is different and has it's own process to remove. Some processes take longer and require more effort but all sin requires a broken heart given to the Lord.

For those of you who read this my message for today is simple, please realize that we are all sinners. We are all spotted and unclean in God's eyes.

"But behold, ye cannot hide your crimes from God; and except ye repent they will stand as a testimony against you at the last day." (Alma 39:8)

Not one of us can return to live with God on our own.

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot." (Moroni 10:32-33)

Two Eyes are Better than ONE

I hear that when you cover one of your eyes you drastically lower your depth perception. Basically what that means is as you close one of your eyes it becomes harder to tell how far away or close things are. The way I understand it is each eye is a reference point and the brain coordinates what each eye is seeing. Since the brain puts together the two references we can tell how far away things actually are. Basically you make a triangle and the corners are the thing you are looking at, and your two eyes. So we can't really say that one eye is more important than the other, because if you don't have a point of view from each eye you don't make the triangle. It would be like trying to make a triangle with only two corners which is simply a line.

I think the relationship between a husband a wife is something like the relationship between eyes. They each see the world from there own perspective. If they want to grow together and see clearly what they need to do to be closer to God and perfection they have to coordinate with each other. They have to communicate with each other and then they will see with depth what they need to do to progress.

This means, men and women, you need to listen to your husbands and wifes. You need to understand there points of view, where they are coming from and why they have the attitude they have. Together you will be able to see what your family needs to do to grow and improve. Don't try to manipulate each other. Don't try to control each other. Don't try to scare or intimidate each other. Listen, Speak, and be sincere. You won't always agree, and when you don't, and it's something important, pray about it. If it isn't something important to you, but important to your spouse give in, it won't hurt you. If it is something important to you but your spouse doesn't find it so explain why it's so important.

The biggest thing is to listen with humility and to try and understand each others point of views. Remember,

Harmony is the product of being different together.