"Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever."
Mosiah 2:38
This is kind of scary, but it struck me as a good contrast to the idea of awakening to God. This verse is about rebelling against God, and says that if we don't repent during our lives that we will basically awake to our own guilt. I think this is what happened to Alma the Younger and also to Zeezrom, just a little ahead of time. And this, rather than being a punishment from God, is actually a punishment from *ourselves* when we have to finally face the truth--we awaken to guilt because of a contrast within ourselves between who we are and who we think we should be.
That kind of awakening is a scary prospect, probably for all of us. I think that the way to ensure that we don't awaken to guilt rather than awaken to God is to live what we truly believe. It's so easy to get away from that, and to justify "small" transgressions, or to delay repentance further and further. Even during this life though, the more we reconcile what we believe and what we actually do, the more we will be at peace... and, ideally, if we deal with it now, we'll never have to awaken to our own guilt later. Today, let's work on that reconciliation.
Mosiah 2:38
This is kind of scary, but it struck me as a good contrast to the idea of awakening to God. This verse is about rebelling against God, and says that if we don't repent during our lives that we will basically awake to our own guilt. I think this is what happened to Alma the Younger and also to Zeezrom, just a little ahead of time. And this, rather than being a punishment from God, is actually a punishment from *ourselves* when we have to finally face the truth--we awaken to guilt because of a contrast within ourselves between who we are and who we think we should be.
That kind of awakening is a scary prospect, probably for all of us. I think that the way to ensure that we don't awaken to guilt rather than awaken to God is to live what we truly believe. It's so easy to get away from that, and to justify "small" transgressions, or to delay repentance further and further. Even during this life though, the more we reconcile what we believe and what we actually do, the more we will be at peace... and, ideally, if we deal with it now, we'll never have to awaken to our own guilt later. Today, let's work on that reconciliation.
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