"The pride of this nation"

I recently read an article that has touched my heart.  It is called "Beware of Pride"  By Ezra Taft Benson.  Somethings stood out to me that I feel like I should share and some things that I have been pondering over to help me not to get caught in the cycle of pride. 

1. There is NO such thing and righteous pride.  It does not exist. 

2. Central to all pride is Enmity.  Enmity is "hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition."  If you feel this in anyway, I would ask that you would repent, as I have done, so that we can become better people.

Pride comes out in being:
Competitive
faultfinding
gossip
backbiting
murmuring disobedient
selfish
CONTENTION
do not receive correctness well
envying
coveting
withholding from another person or God

Now I know this is a long list, but these are some characteristics of people that have pride in their hearts.  The hard part is seeing that we are being prideful and needing to repent of this and become better.  I would challenge all who read this to honestly evaluate and consider things that you can work on.  This is not to make you feel bad, I am sharing this because I want all of us to become better people and followers of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Because he taught that pride is what holds us back from progressing.  God doesn't want us to be the same, or to never change. 


We can get rid of pride by:
Choosing to be humble
getting rid of enmity
receiving counsel and chastisement with a softened heart
forgiving others and ourselves
preaching, or sharing the word of God
Going to the temple
REPENTING
loving God and putting him first in our lives.

As we strive to overcome pride, I know that God will help us.  He wants us to overcome this weakness we all have and become better people. 

Why Be Obedient?

"If ye love me keep my commandments" 

was the words of Christ himself. 

A reason we are on the earth is to show our willingness to obey our loving Heavenly Father. 
Commandments and obedience are not here to hold us back from experienceing the world.  Heavenly Father knows us better than we do.  His commandments help us to live in the happiest state we can here and now. 

Mosiah 2:41

"And moreover, I would desire that ye

should consider on the blessed and ^ahappy state

of those that keep the commandments of God.

For behold, they are blessed in all things,

both temporal and spiritual..."

But, "There is a law..., upon which ALL blessings are predicated-
When we obtain any blessing from God,
it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."  D&C 130:22

So any and all blessings we recieve are given because we were obedient to our loving Heavenly Father.  Heavenly Father wants to bless us.  It brings him great joy and happiness to provide us with blessings.  He is waiting for us to be obedient to the things he has asked so he can bless us. 

Obedience should never look like a hold up or something that is not fun.  Obedience is not something we owe to God, or he makes us.  It is how we show our appreciation to Him for all that he has given and done for us! 

John 8:32

"And ye shall ^aknow the ^btruth, and the ^ctruth shall make you FREE"

"Grace Shall be as your day"

There are many things in this life that are going to be hard.  But it is through the Grace of the Atonement of Jesus Christ that will help us to make it through the trials.  The pioneers were helped greatly through the Grace of the Atonement.  One of my favorite paintings is this one.  The pioneers had help to over come all the things that they were asked to go through. 

"The task ahead of them was never as great as the power behind them."  Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Just like it is through our lives, the task ahead of us in life is never greater than the power that is behind us.  That power comes through the Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

The pioneers wrote a song titled "Come, Come ye saints."  One of the versus says

"Come, Come ye saints,

No toil nor labor fear;

But with joy, wend your way.

Though hard to you this journey may appear,

Grace shall be as your day"

Bro. Brad Wilcox stated:

"Grace shall be AS your day. 

No matter how dark our trials,

sins, or struggles get, Grace is like your day. 

The light to help you through the dark tunnel."

It is through the grace of God that we can be strengthened through any trial that we are faced with in this life.  The grace of God can become a light to us through dark times in our lives.  We can call upon the strength of God when we need to be lifted and encouraged to move on through the power and blessing of prayer!

New heart

So I was thinking of why our bodies do what they do.  We get hurt, they automatically start to heal.  When we break something, we get help, put it back in the correct place, and it heals with time, and pain killers of course.  When people have heart attacks or have bad hearts in general, we willingly go through pain and surgery to get it to feel better.  We are willing to do that because we know it will be better in the long run.  That the pain is for a small moment, and then it is gone and we are better and can do more. 

Ezekiel 36:26

"A new heart also will I give you,

and a new spirit will I put within you:

and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,

and I will give you an heart of flesh."

Now, this sounds a little harsh, but if you look at the foot note for "stony heart"  it has the word conversion.  That when we are willing to go through the "spiritual surgery" of getting a new heart, we can become more converted.  When we except God's will over ours, we ourselves can run faster, learn quicker, be better examples of our Lord and savior. 

Ultimately we are suppose to become like the Savior, but we cannot do it on our own and with our old hearts.  We have to be willing to go through the pain and grow to become strong.  Because we know the pain is only for a small moment, we endure it and allow the 'new' heart to take its place and grow strong within us. 

Trials, struggles, and hard times are all for our benefit.  For God would not allow something to happen to us that was not for our benefit.  He loves us with infinite love and wants us to be able to overcome the natural man and return to the presence of God and we can only do that if we allow the master surgeon to put a new heart inside of us. 

Healing

I read a talk recently that is called "He heals the Heavy Laden"  by Dallin H. Oaks.  Here is the link if you want to read the whole thing.
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/10/he-heals-the-heavy-laden?lang=eng&query="he+heals+the+heavy+laden"

But a couple of things that really stood out to me that I want to share with those that read this blog. 

"As Jesus declared that He was come to fulfill that prophecy, He expressly affirmed that He would heal those with physical ailments and He would also deliver the captive, liberate the bruised, and heal the broken hearted."

The atonement is for everyone and EVERY hardship with go through in this life.  He knows how we feel, he knows what we feel, and he can help up overcome those feelings and help us to heal and be better.  Because of this we need to be glad and happy when we face hardships and tribulations, why?

"The savior teaches that we will have tribulation in the world, but we should 'be of good cheer' because he has 'overcome the world.'  His atonement reaches and is powerful enough not only to pay the price for sin but also to heal every mortal affliction."

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real and  is for EVERY person that has will and does walk on this earth!  I testify that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is for all those that come unto Him and as for his help and love, and "he will heal you!"