This Is Life Eternal

Most Christians know about the intercessory prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane recorded in John 17. In it Jesus says,

[T]his is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Families And Freedom to Choose — Otherwise Called Moral Agency

Families are forever!

I watched a movie (beside the point which one) where a guy says, “if a man doesn’t have family, he doesn’t have sh*t.” (excuse my french here… I usually don’t use that kind of language) I couldn’t help agreeing with that. Even Hollywood can hit a homer at times…

Who Am I — Who Are We in the Eyes of Others

I know that I might get burned — in a number of ways — by letting this out in the open here, but here goes: My great grandmother was not a “white” person; rather, she was what her peers considered a “person of color” although she hardly really stood out of the crowd. She was of the Roma people — the most widespread European indigenous people AFAIK.

Commandments; The Why, Part 3

Well, I find it hard not to come back to this idea again. Why has God given us commandments? Let’s reiterate:

• He wants to protect us. Some may be trying to convince you that the commandments are holding you down, keeping you from reaching your full potential. Let’s look at this proposition.

  In my 30 years as a Mormon, I have never once regretted not having a drink. I have done so after taking one. Not everyone who uncaps a beer bottle becomes an alcoholic, but then we don’t play too loosely with sticks of dynamite either. God makes no mistakes; He knows we have challenges, afflictions etc. and he has prepared for us a way to overcome and to be healed. Keeping his commandments helps us humble ourselves and become healed, both spritually — receiving a forgiveness of sins, and with it peace to our souls — and physically. We may have to wait for the latter till the Resurrection, but can somebody offer something better?

• He wants to help us learn new things.

  We learn new things when we try to do something we haven’t known how to do before. Every gym member can tell you, “no pain — no gain” is true. Your muscles will only grow if you work them to exhaustion. Same is true for our spiritual powers.

God’s most important commandment is to love Him. Some would say that this is an indication of a sophomoric, angsty teen of a God, who needs your adoration somehow. That is not how it is. He is our loving Father, so of course he wants to have a relationship with us. He is poorer in a way that a spurned parent is, if we do not want a relationship with him; however, if we do not, we can not grow spiritually in this life. And if we willfully rebel against God, we may not have the opportunity to grow in the worlds to come.

Is it that I am cynical when Pascal’s Wager seems a good offering to me? If I am happy and have peace in my heart in this world — and can feel myself a successful human being, my economic circumstances notwithstanding — there are only downsides to other ways of life in my view.

In closing, let me assure that I do not try to follow Jesus Christ out of a fear of punishment or some such. I do it, especially these days, when I have “proved him in days that are past” (quote from LDS hymns #), out of a deep love and gratitude, because he has made me whole.

Finally, pared down to under 500 words, there it is. I hope it makes sense.

Commandments, the Whys Part 2

Okay, so I didn’t talk much about the whys of the commandments. Why do we need them? There are a few ways to look at it. Commandments protect us from our own follies, for example. Like, if we want to steal something, and don’t have any other reason (fear of getting caught etc.) not to, we have a commandment.

Now, you can see that the same commandment protects the one I would steal from. Moreover, I would say that there is another side to the commandments. A spiritual side, that is. The Lord states quite clearly, for example, that the law of tithing will prepare us for the law of consecration. We get used to the idea, that what we have is not necessarily all ours.

Commandments; What And Why?

I watched the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with a question in my mind. I wanted to understand the role of commandments better. And what, specifically, our commandments are. Let’s start with the “what”, because that seems a bit easier.

Weaknesses, Temptations And Succor

I have tried to make a habit of reading the scriptures daily. There are days, when I have trouble getting up, and only do so when I have to go somewhere, so my study becomes superficial at times. Well, this morning was one of those, when I had trouble not so much getting up as being able to sleep longer than 5 hours.

On Giving Thanks

I guess our family is among a very small minority of Europeans, who celebrate thanksgiving. For my wife and me it was one of the things that we decided to bring back with us from our forays into the wider world. We both felt that it is a good thing to have something to remind you of thankfulness.

Testimony Or Certainty

In October General Conference this year, Elder Carlos Godoy’s talk was titled Testimony As A Process. I really loved it. It was important for me, because it highlighted the fact that powerful spiritual experiences are not necessary for a strong testimony.

Understanding Strangeness

I did not start to blog in order to react to news. This week there’s some news that I want to comment. This AP article on CNN’s web site tells about how the honorary chair of American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors is not happy with how the Church has implemented the 1995 agreement to limit proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims.