My assigned topic today is "How do we know when we are truly converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ?" This is a pertinent question to those who already have a desire to become more converted to Christ. However, today, and hopefully under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I have chosen to speak about a question that I believe is more poignant (for myself and where I am in life, as well as) for people who are not in the Church, or not even Christian, or who don’t even believe in God; or, for those who are in the Church but are struggling with the question of whether following Christ is what they want to do with the rest of their lives.
It seems to me that in the Church we spend a lot of time
talking about how we each have the huge responsibility of gaining a personal
testimony and being converted to the Lord, and how this is really what we
should do and is really important, but we don’t talk much about WHY. I for one
took this question very much for granted at the beginning of my mission, and I
think many of you can relate. There I was, a Utah Mormon boy thinking I’m off
to conquer the world, and when an atheist asks me why in the world he would ever want to consider believing in God, I
have no idea how to answer. I think it’s a hard question to address, especially
when you’re on the spot. My goal today is to try to answer this question, at least,
as much as I can in 10 minutes with my limited knowledge and experience.
The
first reason that I can think of for WHY it is valuable to follow Jesus Christ
and strive to be converted to His Gospel is that there are certain laws and principles found in the Gospel that if we
follow them we’ll avoid pain and suffering. I’d like to illustrate this
principle using a story:
Once upon a time, there was a village of people that lived
happily in the middle of the mountains. (Let’s say, Hurricane, UT.) This
village was near a very large cliff, and the children from the village loved to
play outside near the edge of the cliff. Every once in a while, a kid would get
too close to the cliff and fall down. Sometimes they died, sometimes they
survived, but always with major injuries. After a while, the village council
got together and decided they needed to do something about the situation. They
decided to have a morgue car and an ambulance always stationed at the bottom of
this cliff, so that whether the falling child was dead or injured, they would
be ready with the correct response.
*The end*
The point of this story is to provoke in each of your minds
the question, “Why on earth didn’t they just build a fence?!”
I like this story because at times we all view fences as
restrictive of our freedom, but this story helps us see a situation when a
fence is obviously beneficial. The Gospel of Jesus Christ puts up fences, or
commandments, things we should and shouldn’t do, -- there’s the symbolism you
were all waiting for -- and I, like any good missionary, would like to argue
that these restrictions are for our
benefit, in that they keep us from making short-sighted, destructive decisions.
Here are a few examples of said decisions that I can think of off the top
of my head:
- Premarital sexual relations, which undermine Stability of Marriage and Family Life. In the culture of the world today, or at least the United States and Europe, it is culturally acceptable to have sexual relations with … anyone, as long as you’re both okay with it. Essentially all of us have these strong sexual desires that at times admittedly can be hard to control. However, scientific research plainly shows that people who, fulfilling their sexual desires, have premarital sexual relations with people other than the one they end up marrying, are significantly more likely to break off their first marriage. I know my dad’s parents divorced when he was pretty young, and it’s not an easy thing. I think it’s probably safe to claim that any given person would rather have one happy marriage throughout their lives rather than multiple marriages that are good for a while, and then end in divorce. So in this way, the law of chastity is a safeguard.
- Addictions. One thing I learned, when discovering the “real world” on my mission, living outside of Happy Valley for essentially the first time, was that not everyone who drinks alcohol or smokes tobacco, is hopelessly addicted and a terrible person. [That was the impression I’d gotten while growing up from hearing over and over in Church the evils of substance abuse, and simultaneously living in Utah Valley and not actually having any close friends that smoked or drank or that weren’t, to my knowledge, active in the Church.] In fact, there are lots of people in the world that occasionally smoke or occasionally drink alcohol, and apparently suffer no long-term ill consequences. However there are also many people whose lives are significantly worse as a result. In the extreme, substance abuse can totally ruin a person’s life and split apart their family and possibly send them to jail, or the hospital, or death.
These are just 2 instances where the rules are obviously,
scientifically beneficial. I’m sure there are many more, and in addition to
that, the Lord has said “34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things
unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which
was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your
father, whom I created.” Therefore we know that in addition to these visible temporal benefits we also receive
spiritual benefits, for example, having the Spirit with us, as a good,
comforting feeling; guidance in our daily lives; confidence that God is guiding
us; satisfaction and the feeling that God is pleased with the course of our
lives; as well as power to resist further temptation.
So I think the first
reason why it’s so valuable to strive to be converted to the Lord is that
following His commandments, we reap great temporal and spiritual benefits.
Another reason why to be converted, or a second way we can
benefit from it, is taken from an essay I recently read called “Confessions of
an Ex-Mormon.” When I saw this title I braced myself for jeering about the
church, but The “confessions” are actually basically the ex-mormon’s
confessions of how he actually really likes the Church, and in fact misses it.
This essay was written during Mitt Romney’s campaign for president when tons of
people were bashing Mormons all the time – the author had all but forgotten his
Mormon roots but when people started such intense mockery, he started getting a
little worked up and realized that it was important to him after all.
Anyways,
he talks in his essay about how in the Mormon Church he felt a sense of
belonging, which can be often elusive to children growing up, or teenagers, or college
students, or, I suspect, anybody else. I personally remember that when I was a
deacon first passing the sacrament, I felt like I was a part of something,
something big and important. I felt much the same when I was a missionary, and even
now when I serve in my calling, or participate in class, or give a talk in
church.
PMG explains it thus: “We are all brothers and sisters in the family of
God. This knowledge gives us a sense of identity and belonging. It gives us
reason to hope for eternal life in God’s presence,” And this eternal life will
be kind of like a big family reunion if you think about it. That’s kind of the
ultimate sense of belonging we can feel. So the second reason
why we should strive to be converted to the Lord is that it helps us feel a
deep sense of identity and belonging.
The last major
blessing I can think of is that God gives us strength and inspiration to do
things we otherwise couldn’t accomplish. I certainly wouldn’t have lasted 2
years following incredibly strict rules and learning a completely foreign
language, Latvian, if I didn’t truly believe that’s what God wanted me to do,
and if I didn’t believe that He believed that I could do it. I think whether
we’re outside or inside the church, there’s a temptation to beat ourselves up
for our mistakes and think we’re never going to change, but the Gospel teaches
us that we can change, and faith in God and Christ gives us the power to do so.
And as much as I dislike hearing about the pioneers and how they died horrible
deaths on their impossibly long journey through snow without shoes, it does
prove that people with great faith can surmount seemingly insurmountable
obstacles.
I’d also like to note that if we want to really retain our
faith, it’s important to act on it and to follow the commandments. When we let
the commandments slide, we lose little by little our confidence and our
conviction that we actually still believe in the entity that gave us those
commandments. I believe that’s one reason why God seems more distant when we let
more commandments slip. So I would urge all of you to remember that when you
decide to trust God’s commandments, your mind will automatically trust Him more
in general; His promptings will seem clearer, the scriptures will seem truer,
and you’ll be more able to keep a hopeful, eternal perspective.
I’d like to end with my testimony that I believe that
everything I’ve said to you is true. I know a lot of the time we who have grown
up in the Church kind of take our lives in the Church for granted; especially
when we’re surrounded by other members. Therefore I’d like to invite you to
consider in your own lives what concrete differences the Gospel makes; what
effect your trust in God has on your well-being; and why you live the Gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
