"Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life."
3 Nephi 15:9
Endure to the end... how many times does it say that in the scriptures? (Hold on, let me check... okay, if you count "endure to the end" and "endureth to the end" it is 18. There would probably be more if I just ... oh, okay... so endure | endureth & end comes up with 28.) A lot of times. :)
Enduring seems difficult sometimes, because, at least to us, our lives seem pretty long. We can't ever be "finished" with living the gospel, and if we depersonalize it enough, that is what we're going for. I think that when God tell us to endure to the end, he's letting us know that the gospel is part of us... that we can't depersonalize it and succeed. It has to be part of us, and we part of it. In order to succeed in enduring to the end, we have to love the gospel, and have it be part of our thoughts and actions all the time. This isn't some hurdle to be jumped over... it is just a matter of including the gospel in the group of things that we think of as "ours." If we leave it outside that circle, then we start saying things like, "well, I was raised Mormon, but..." or "that's what the church teaches, however...." We might start seeing it as some foreign thing that we have to accommodate in our lives, rather than part of ourselves. The gospel is true... no question. So, let's embrace it as part of us, as part of our self-identity, rather than as some foreign requirements that are being forced upon us.
No comments:
Post a Comment