What if today really was the day?

   There's a story told sometimes at church, sometimes in young women's,  about a shoe cobbler who was visited by an angel one night and told that the next day he would be visited by the Lord. So of course the man cleaned his shop, trimmed his hair and positioned a chair in front of the window. Through the course of the day people in need cross his path and he moves from his chair to help each one. At the end of the day, having never seen Christ he kneels by his bed and asked how he had missed the Lord. As those who know the story can tell the Lord then appears and tells him he was there. In each act of the least of these his brethren the shoe maker served the Lord.  This of course is a parable to remind us to serve all who come into our path, but what if an angel, a holy messenger came to you and said Christ will visit you on the morrow, would you believe it? Would you believe Christ could and would visit you the next day? Or would you knowing your faults and shortcomings think you weren't good enough and ask for more time.
   My dear brothers and sisters I think we do this everyday, we see our shortcomings and think I could never see the Lord I am too fallen, too human and too far from his goodness and his grace. We see our limited self and limit the Lord,  we think because we see our short comingstories that the Lord doesn't or he would change his mind.  But He always sees us, he already knows own our limitations, he can heal us, he can 'fix' us, he would see us whole, but first we must believe him. In the Neworld Testament when the father bringsaid his ailing son to Christ, Christ asks if he has faith, the father says yes he does, but then says, Lord help thou mine unbelief. We have faith we will see Christ someday, we have faith he will heal us one day, somewhere in the future. But how wouled your life be different if you had the belief Christ will visit you tomorrow?  Would you trust a little more when life got dark because it is just one more opportunity to show faith in the God who loves you, would you love more because now you see how God extends love and mercy to we wee mortals? Would you trust His word and hold to his promises because you want to be just as ready as you can to see him again? What if today really is the day when you see him again? Would we seek after his presence more often in our lives so when the day comes we recognize him the minute he enters the room because we've been striving to become like him, in whatever way we could...

Christ Alone Reigns Here

All week long I've been wishing that we could have fast and testimony meeting on Christmas. Wouldn't that be such a powerful way to celebrate the birth of Jesus christ is to bear testimony of Him? So today I bear testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ, I know He lives and I know He very literally bore our burdens and that He still seeks to aid us, to bear our sorrows and become acquainted with us in our grief. Even now he stands at the door and knocks asking to be let into our lives, it requires a very conscious effort on our part. But once we make that effort we will have a constant friend and ally. Life not inherently become easier, in fact with all that added light added into your life it might even get a bit harder, but you will now have someone's shoulders who is infinitely able to bear you and your pain.

Isaiah 53:-5

 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 4 ¶Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

I know we are known and we are loved and by no one more than Christ for he truly knows us so He can truly love us. In a coming day I hope each of us can truly say Christ Alone Reigns Here. Because in the end it is who we desire to serve and be near to that will make all the difference in the world.

He will move heaven and earth for you

Last week I ended with the idea that we should be who God intends us to be, at the time I knew that involved letting go of the past and stepping into the present knowing God has a plan for us and trusting Him no matter what He asks, our path doesn't look like anyone else's. God's chosen people have always covenanted to be a peculiar people, that means we will look different, act differently and expect miraculous things in our lives. We promised God that we would take His Son's name upon us, that we would stand as a witness of Jesus Christ at all times, in all things and in all places. That means we expect to be different and act differently than we did before, as Emma Smith said "we expect extraordinary occasions and pressing calls..." We live in a day and age when we must expect of ourselves extraordinary opportunities to call down the powers of heaven to assist and aid us in doing the work of the Lord.

As children of God we have a divine nature and with that divine nature comes blessings that Heavenly Father wants to give to us. Many times as we read in the scriptures we think that the miraculous experiences came only to prophets, to men called of God to be special witnesses of Jesus Christ, but in Jacob 4:6 Jacob says " Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all these witnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea." Jacob was a prophet, but the people he spoke of were not, they were average Saints who read the words of the prophets, sought for faith in Jesus Christ, sought to follow his example and received power from heaven.

I am here to say tonight that as we live faithful to the covenants we have made and as we seek for the spirit in our lives and desire to be taught and tutored by that spirit the Holy Ghost can teach us to use the power of Jesus Christ in our lives, we can command in the name of Jesus Christ and if it be according to the will of Heavenly Father we will see results. Heavenly Father will put extraordinary experiences in our path to teach us to do extra-ordinary things. He doesn't mean to crush us or discourage us, but as His children He wants us to learn to use His power. In Moroni 7 he says that when a generation no longer sees miracles it is because of unbelief. Now unbelief and faithlessness are two different things. Faithlessness means you don't believe in Christ or don't believe he'll do what he's said he will do. Unbelief is that he can do it and he will do it, but only for everyone else not for you. Moroni says that God never changes, he wants to give the same blessings to us today that he has given to his children throughout the ages, but first we must believe that He will show us the miracles He has shown in ages past. Heavenly Father wants us to do His work in the presence of angels, He wants us to have the help of heaven each day of our lives, but we have to seek it. We have to believe that it can and will happen for us.

This week I challenge you to take a problem to the Lord, a problem only the Lord can fix and ask Him to help and assist you, then, (this next step is important) expect Him to actually assist you. Expect that as a loved child of God He will bless and help you. It might not be in the manner you expect, but I promise you He will bless you and answer your prayer. Then your faith will grow and you can begin to believe that God can and will do wonders in your life. You are His loved child and He seeks to bless you, but because of agency He can only bless you with what you ask for. This Christmas please give Christ the gift of belief. Belief that not only can He help you, but that He will, He will heal your wounded heart, He will send angels to be round about you, He will enter into your life and assist you day to day. You are known, you are loved, and you are cared for by the very creator of the Universe when you seek by the Spirit He will move heaven and earth to assist you and in the process He might even teach you how to do the same thing.

Be exactly what God intends you to be

So a few weeks ago I talked about forgiving ourselves and allowing ourselves to put down the rope so that Satan can no longer torture us with past regret and guilt of things we've done wrong in the past, tonight after a weekend of confusion I'd like to talk a little bit about forgiving ourselves for things we didn't do and letting things go we aren't guilty of.

So about four years ago during the Christmas season one little sister missionary in Cambodia got sick for a few weeks, her head pounded, she felt weary and she and her companion couldn't go tracting for a few weeks. Then Christmas Eve came and it was a Christmas miracle she was able to sing at the mission conference, paint at the orphanage and felt like a missionary again. She also learned about being exact in her prayers, she prayed to be well for Christmas and she was, but things went haywire after that.

Soon she couldn't bike around her area as well as she used to, then she and her companion could only work three of the seven days and eventually one or two if she was lucky. At first she thought this was a passing thing, that it was a weird Cambodia bug or even a previous medical problem rearing its ugly head, but then it didn't go away. She was sent to Thailand for an MRI or at least that is what the doctors and mission president thought, she really went to Thailand because her companion needed someone to talk to and debrief about her experiences so far. The MRI came out beautifully and she was told she had a beautiful brain.

Soon this sister couldn't even ride around her area anymore and she and president had a talk.

I wanted so badly to stay, I hadn't had much conventional success up to that point in my mission, my whole mission I wanted to be obedient to the stated rules, but more importantly I wanted to follow the Spirit. It was following the Spirit that sent me to Cambodia and it was God's plan I wanted to follow for me. He asked me to do some unconventional things, but He is God and sees a bigger plan and I wanted to follow a plan even if I didn't see where it would lead. Eventually that plan led to Newton, Utah about nine months earlier than expected. I came home early at peace, but as Satan always does doubts crept in, fear that I wasn't a good enough missionary came in, fear that somehow I had done something wrong and this was my punishment. Satan will always lie, he'll often add a grain of truth to make it more convincing. We both knew my mission didn't look conventional, but the point was and still is, it wasn't supposed to.

When we do what God asks it won't look conventional, it won't look like what the world or other members of the church think that it will. It might look weird, it might even look messy in the here and now, but ultimately it will be exactly what Heavenly Father intended, not because we did it perfectly, but because Christ is enough and our desire to follow him and follow our God will get us where we need to go.

So tonight I say to my previous self, my young, sad, scared self, let it go, you are forgiven of your past imperfections and you are loved for wanting to do Heavenly Father's will, it has not always taken you where you thought you needed to be,  but it has always taken you where God needed you to be. You wanted Him and that was and is enough.

I say to all of us tonight, let go of the past, say no to Satan's lies, you are forgiven of any past mistake, misstep or unsure footing. Because of your righteous desires you are forgiven and the Lord can make exactly of you what you are to be. When you follow Him you won't look like anybody else because He knows how to use you in His work, you are unique, you have individual gifts and talents, power and even authority that no one else has, stop expecting it to look like anybody else. When you do what He asks you may not understand it, but it will be good. Stop expecting to look like anybody else. They are they and you are you, be exactly what God intends you to be.

We Invite Him to Be

I was rather inspired by the talks during the Christmas Devotional tonight. It seems like in years past each member of the presidency would share a favorite Christmas memory or anecdote that was an example of the love and service we can share at Christmas time. I loved hearing their stories and getting know the brethren better. Yet tonight and in the devotional from last year I noticed a change. Most speakers focused on prophecies of Christ's birth and prophecies of His second coming. Pres Eyring mentioned how Christmas is a time to remember His time on earth and a reminder of the time He will come again. I loved the reminder that because of Easter we have Christmas and that because of the Holy Ghost we can see Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again.

I thought that was a rather interesting thing to think about at Christmas time, Christmas is about giving and receiving and the Holy Ghost is one of the greatest gifts, next to the Atonement and agency we have in this life. If we are seeking to become like Christ, to come to know Him, the Holy Ghost is the best tool at our disposal to do so. The Spirit enlightens our minds, imparts knowledge, increases our capacity to gain knowledge and can tutor us in how to become like Christ. Tonight I believe that Elder Christensen said that too often we are content to use this gift only occasionally, in times of danger or need. Yet in doing so we live below our privilege of children of God and as recipients of this gift. Tonight we were encouraged to feast upon the words of Christ, to be obedient and allow this first comforter to be an active and meaningful influence in our lives as we do so we prepare to meet our Savior Jesus Christ.

This Christmas season is a time for giving, for sharing, for serving and for loving, in essence this is the season especially created to help us become more like the Savior, the very reason for this Christmas time. I hope that each of us, myself included, will take time to give a little extra to cultivate a relationship with the Spirit. I realized today that tv is one of the adversary's most effective tools of distraction. We live in a day and time that we cannot afford to be distracted, to live in a world of oh tomorrow we'll do that. I hope we will use our agency to invite the Spirit and ask Heavenly Father for the Spirit to teach us today how we can become like our Savior and then be obedient when that tutoring comes for our Heavenly Father wants to be near us, but He can only come as near as we invite Him to be.

Bound No Longer

If you're at all familiar with the Book of Mormon you've probably heard (read) the phrase "bound down by the chains of hell" and "dragged down speedily to hell". Now as I read these verses I've always been very certain that I didn't want these verses to apply to me and hopefully this isn't prideful, but I sort of never figured that they did apply to me. My young women's teachers would give the lesson about flaxen cords and illustrate it by showing giving us each a thread and telling us to break it. I always struggled a bit, but I still knew one string was much easier to break than a bundle of them. The take away was that we needed to repent of the small things so we never got bound down by the big things that were much more difficult to break. This is so very true, the more quickly we repent of the small things the easier it is to keep the Spirit and be protected from the influence of the adversary and avoid the chains of hell.

But that isn't what I really wanted to talk about tonight, I really wanted to talk about the ropes of hell, those ropes that anchor us away from the Savior even though we have worked to repent and become clean again. So if you'll follow me in this analogy, chains of hell are those sins or addictions that we actively seek, that for whatever reason we still think we need or deserve in our lives. On the other hand ropes of hell are past regrets, acts or addictions that we have sought to leave behind that still haunt us and Satan uses to shame us and guilt us away from Christ.

When we sin, going contrary to the commandments of God or simply a sin of omission we are bound to that sinful act with a flaxen cord, if we choose to repent Christ can sever that cord that goes to the sin through forgiveness, but we can still choose to hold on to that cord, we can use it to beat ourselves up and to keep going back thinking we aren't really clean and whole. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ means that once we have completed the repentance process and felt a confirmation from the Spirit we Need to let it go, we must release the rope and trust that Jesus Christ has made us clean and that we once more can stand before our Father and feel His love in our lives. When we doubt and hold on to that rope we allow Satan to tug on that rope, to keep taking us back to that sin or regret and living in that moment. We are anchored back to regret and pain and remove ourselves from the peace the Atonement brings into our lives.

Now this principle does not only apply to sin, it also applies to pain and sadness in our lives. Heavenly Father understands that this life can be painful, that even doing our very best won't always mean the sun shines, that things will go as planned and that we won't feel disappointment or sorrow. All of these emotions can bind us to a certain moment in time and can stop our development and growth. As we give these things to Christ and give him the rope we can move forward, we find peace and realize those moments were important for helping us become who Heavenly Father wants us to be. Sure the moment wasn't pleasant, but it was needed and we have become better for it. However if we keep hold of that rope the other end is flying loose and allows Satan the opportunity to yank the rope and anchor us to pain and haunting sadness. Please choose to forgive yourself, please give Christ the rope so that you can find peace and purpose in the life God has given us here in this mortal sphere.

He Employs No Other Gatekeeper There

When I was younger and Christmas time would roll around invariably there would be a lesson asking us what gift we would give to the baby Jesus. Now as a child in primary I loved writing it down and putting it in a box to place under the Christmas tree, but as I got older I didn't quite see why the baby Jesus would need something from me, He already received frankincense, gold and myrrh so being nice to my siblings didn't really seem like that big of a deal, or saying I'd be obedient to my parents seemed like a small given thing.

So now I want to ask an updated question, a question the spirit whispered to me yesterday as I thought of Christ as the gatekeeper to the thinness of the veil. At the end of our lives we will face the gate to the next life and as scripture tells us Christ is the gatekeeper and employs no other watcher at the gate. So when we reach the end of this life we will face Him as we enter the next. But I would possit the idea that He is also the gate keeper to the veil. Our access to the spirit world is as thick or thin as we choose for it to be. The more we invite Christ to walk our journey with us the thinner the veil becomes and the more familiar the gatekeeper becomes to us. There may even come the point we will walk to that gate together and He will simply take one step ahead, turn to face us and say "well done my good and faithful friend, having walked with you I know you are ready to enter the presence of my Father." But this is dependent on our request of His presence in our lives. We do this two ways, first by actually requesting for Him to walk with us daily, to tutor us in His way, to live His example in our own lives and second to live according to the direction He gives us, to be obedient to the Spirit and to seek to make the Spirit the priority in our lives.

So now you have the background here is the question: What would you give the adult, post Gethsemane Christ? If you were to enter a room one day and see Christ there, what would you offer to Him? As I've asked this question I've received many good answers, tears and a hug, ice cream (which makes total sense, we are asked to be child like, as a child we want to give him our favorite thing and I know I love ice cream) and us, we want to give Him us. All of these things are our offerings from the heart and show our love for Christ's offering to us. As I have pondered this question I related it to the gate keeper thought and knew I did want to give Him me, I want to walk with Him and have His presence in my life as we walk together. I also wondered what fears could I offer Him, what forgiveness could I offer to myself that I have been withholding because somehow I didn't think the Atonement could extend so far, what pain, confusion or anger could I give to Him that I just haven't given up yet because I wasn't ready to. Our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ walks each day with us, in the Garden He saw us and walked with us and still walks with us, but we have to acknowledge Him and we must prepare ourselves to walk in concert with Him. Laying those fears, concerns, hurt and anger at His feet free us, they allow us to remove the veil of sin and selfishness from before our face and allows the Spirit of the Lord to enter in.

What offering can you give Christ this day and every day? What gift can you offer Him for His gift to you and that will keep Him always near by?