"And now, my son, I have told you this that ye may learn wisdom, that ye may learn of me that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. Behold, he is the life and the light of the world. Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness."
Alma 38:9
Sometimes I think that I try to find shortcuts in the gospel. Or, maybe it is that I try to pick and choose which commandments I'm going to work on this decade... things like that. :) I fall into the same trap that I encountered a lot on my mission... thinking that we can go through life doing things our way, and that God loves us enough that he'll understand and accept us that way. The scary part about that is that it is *almost* true. I think that those are the worst kind of lies. God does love us and accept us for who we are. However, accepting us and giving us blessings that we are unable to understand or appreciate are two different things. No matter how much my professors love me, they aren't going to give me a PhD for sitting on my butt and watching Twilight Zone episodes all day. To earn a PhD, I actually have to do the work, and learn the material. That is the only way through. And God is telling us the same thing here. Christ is the ONLY way through. We can't play Scrabble instead of going to church or read sci-fi novels instead of the scriptures, and expect to earn the Celestial Kingdom. We might gain exceptional vocabulary skills (especially with Q and Z words), and vicariously experience a plethora of possible and alternate futures, because those are some of the rewards of those activities. But to get to the Celestial Kingdom, we have to listen to Christ, who is the way. Today, let's stop trying to find shortcuts, and do what we know we should. :)
Alma 38:9
Sometimes I think that I try to find shortcuts in the gospel. Or, maybe it is that I try to pick and choose which commandments I'm going to work on this decade... things like that. :) I fall into the same trap that I encountered a lot on my mission... thinking that we can go through life doing things our way, and that God loves us enough that he'll understand and accept us that way. The scary part about that is that it is *almost* true. I think that those are the worst kind of lies. God does love us and accept us for who we are. However, accepting us and giving us blessings that we are unable to understand or appreciate are two different things. No matter how much my professors love me, they aren't going to give me a PhD for sitting on my butt and watching Twilight Zone episodes all day. To earn a PhD, I actually have to do the work, and learn the material. That is the only way through. And God is telling us the same thing here. Christ is the ONLY way through. We can't play Scrabble instead of going to church or read sci-fi novels instead of the scriptures, and expect to earn the Celestial Kingdom. We might gain exceptional vocabulary skills (especially with Q and Z words), and vicariously experience a plethora of possible and alternate futures, because those are some of the rewards of those activities. But to get to the Celestial Kingdom, we have to listen to Christ, who is the way. Today, let's stop trying to find shortcuts, and do what we know we should. :)
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