Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Alma 5:18 -- On Guilt, Repentance, and Change

"Or otherwise, can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?"
Alma 5:18


The thing that strikes me about this verse today is the idea of us having a "perfect remembrance," which is awesome in some ways, because a perfect memory is super useful, and awful in others, because as Alma (the Younger) notes here, our sins will come back to us with perfect clarity.

I think the trick here is repentance and change, because the Lord knows that we can't be immediately perfect, and that we need to learn and grow, but to avoid guilt and shame we need to become people who leave those sins behind and people who would not make those same poor choices again.

Today, let's apply Christ's atonement to our lives and take advantage of the fact that he granted us space to repent and change before we are "brought before the tribunal of God." Let's work on purging that guilt from our souls by becoming better people. As we trust in God, learn of him, obey his commandments, and walk his path, that guilt can be lifted from our souls and we can learn to stand before God with confidence and trust in his mercy, so that in the end we will be clean before him because he has made us so, with our active cooperation. :)

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