"Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations.
And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord."
Ezekiel 7:3-4
The scriptures say sometimes that we should preach "nothing but repentance" (see D&C 6:9, Mosiah 18:20), which has always been a little frustrating to me. Yes, repentance... good, but there is so much more, and I want to know all of it. :) Then I read verses like these, and it suddenly makes a LOT more sense. Even if we know the basics of repentance: confess, forsake... and we are working to make ourselves into those new people who don't do those things that we used to do... even then, we can't just assume we've mastered the principle. :)
See how in these verses it talks about "thy ways," and "thine abominations"? God's judgement just returns to us what we do, and whatever evil we've done, we're going to see it again. This makes repentance that much more real. I don't think that repentance is something that we can afford to become complacent about... or doing bad stuff in the first place, of course, because that makes everything harder, but let's face it... we all screw things up sometimes and make mistakes with regard to the way we treat others that we assuredly don't want thrown back in our faces. And the way to avoid that judgment is to repent, which allows us to access Christ's atonement and not have to suffer for our own sins. Christ takes that upon himself instead. Repentance is the key here, though. We don't just get a free pass and get to torture other people all we want. We have to feel sorry about what we've done, sincerely ask forgiveness, and then we have to never do it again. That's changing ourselves into people who don't even WANT to do those things anymore. And I'm not saying it is easy. Changing ourselves into the people that we want to be is going to be hard. But that is what life is for. This is where we get to make those choices and get God's help molding ourselves into who we truly desire to be. Repentance is a key part of that... the way we escape the past. The way we figure out what parts of ourselves we really want to keep. And in the end, whatever comes back to us will be what we chose to be each day.
Today, let's reboot our repentance. Every day there are things that we do wrong. Let's repent now, while it is fresh, and a lot easier to just apologize. Let's really take a look at our lives and see if we're moving in the direction of who we want to be. If not, let's... yes, repent. :) Let's avoid the boomerang effect of all of our sticky acidic evilness coming back and hitting us in the face. Let's be better people, and really talk to God seriously about what we regret and who we want to be.
And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am the Lord."
Ezekiel 7:3-4
The scriptures say sometimes that we should preach "nothing but repentance" (see D&C 6:9, Mosiah 18:20), which has always been a little frustrating to me. Yes, repentance... good, but there is so much more, and I want to know all of it. :) Then I read verses like these, and it suddenly makes a LOT more sense. Even if we know the basics of repentance: confess, forsake... and we are working to make ourselves into those new people who don't do those things that we used to do... even then, we can't just assume we've mastered the principle. :)
See how in these verses it talks about "thy ways," and "thine abominations"? God's judgement just returns to us what we do, and whatever evil we've done, we're going to see it again. This makes repentance that much more real. I don't think that repentance is something that we can afford to become complacent about... or doing bad stuff in the first place, of course, because that makes everything harder, but let's face it... we all screw things up sometimes and make mistakes with regard to the way we treat others that we assuredly don't want thrown back in our faces. And the way to avoid that judgment is to repent, which allows us to access Christ's atonement and not have to suffer for our own sins. Christ takes that upon himself instead. Repentance is the key here, though. We don't just get a free pass and get to torture other people all we want. We have to feel sorry about what we've done, sincerely ask forgiveness, and then we have to never do it again. That's changing ourselves into people who don't even WANT to do those things anymore. And I'm not saying it is easy. Changing ourselves into the people that we want to be is going to be hard. But that is what life is for. This is where we get to make those choices and get God's help molding ourselves into who we truly desire to be. Repentance is a key part of that... the way we escape the past. The way we figure out what parts of ourselves we really want to keep. And in the end, whatever comes back to us will be what we chose to be each day.
Today, let's reboot our repentance. Every day there are things that we do wrong. Let's repent now, while it is fresh, and a lot easier to just apologize. Let's really take a look at our lives and see if we're moving in the direction of who we want to be. If not, let's... yes, repent. :) Let's avoid the boomerang effect of all of our sticky acidic evilness coming back and hitting us in the face. Let's be better people, and really talk to God seriously about what we regret and who we want to be.
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