Well, hello everybody and welcome to Redeemed Through His Blood.
In this podcast we discuss hope, healing and redemption through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ.
I'm Scott Durfey.
It's my pleasure to introduce my partner in this project, our teacher, David Durfey.
Thankful to be here.
Thank you.
Hi everybody.
And today we're so excited to be able to get into kind of the meat and potatoes of repentance
and what it is and so much of what we've done has been all pointed to this, I think.
Yeah, it is.
Before we get started, Dave, let's just thank everybody for their emails.
We've got a lot of great emails over the last week or a week or two, some good questions,
some good comments, some good feedback and we are incorporating those comments and those
questions as we go.
We'll probably be able to take one or two of those at some future point and maybe even
spend a whole podcast or large portions of the podcast on those.
But we thank you for your participation.
We thank you for spreading the good word and sharing this podcast with your friends.
We've seen some big growth in terms of our listeners.
We appreciate that from you.
And the reason we appreciate that is because we are just grateful that people are being
able to understand and have this vision or this perspective of repentance and the forgiveness
process all in the effort to bring us closer to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
If you have questions, if you have comments, we invite you to send those to us.
Here's our email address.
It is, heredeemsusatgmail.com.
He redeems us at gmail.com.
So send us those questions, send us those comments.
We get back to them.
I try to respond to every single one.
If we miss you, though, be patient.
We'll be making efforts to make sure that that happens.
So before we get into this week's topic, just a couple of things.
I had an experience yesterday I'd like to share.
We're recording this on a Monday, which is not typical for us.
We typically record on Tuesday, but because of circumstances in both of our lives, we're
recording this on a Monday.
It'll still be released on a Tuesday.
But having said that, yesterday, Dave is part of my Sabbath worship.
I was able to attend missionary farewell.
For those of you who aren't familiar, maybe not members of our church or what not, surely
you're familiar with the missionary program as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
I'm sure everybody is.
White shirts, bicycles, all of that.
In your neighborhoods, in your cities, if you're seeing them, wave to them, stop and talk to
them, invite them in.
But I have an FU who is leaving to go on a mission.
He's been called to leave for South Africa, the Johannesburg mission, and he's going
to leave in a week or two from now.
But I wanted to just share an experience that I had in sacrament meeting yesterday after
we had partaken of the emblems of the Last Supper, the sacrament and renewed covenants
and experienced that spiritual connection.
Again, my nephew, who is going on a mission, was talking about, now just a little bit about
him.
He's a really good football player, a star athlete in the state, a top recruit.
He'll be playing college football when he comes home from his mission at a major university
here.
And on a scholarship, he was recruited by many, many, many big teams and colleges around.
But he shared about, he told the story, Dave, he said that when he was in the early years
of his football career in high school, that there were a lot of guys on the team that
kind of took him under their wing, mentor team, kind of helped him along.
You can imagine, you know, as a young boy, I remember when I was a little kid, a younger
guy looking up to the juniors and seniors, when I was a freshman in sophomore, just thinking
they were absolutely adults.
Well, I'm sure that was his experience too.
But one of the things that really stood out to me that he shared, and this is the message,
he said, before his first varsity game, he got a phone call from one of his, one of these
guys, and they said, Kay Luke, before each of our games, we go to the temple.
And it looks okay.
He says, so early in the morning on Fridays before their varsity football games, a good
core of this team would go to the temple.
And he said, he said, we wanted to go to the temple to help Heavenly Father, to help us
to know that Heavenly Father knows what's really important to us and to keep in perspective
for ourselves what's really important to us so that we don't get out of kilter, so we
don't get off balance in our approach to life thinking that this football thing is more
important than anything else because it's not.
And the lesson behind that for me was, you know, oftentimes we get to comments, we get
questions, how do we help our kids?
How do we help our kids stay on the path?
How do we help our kids experience the things that you guys, Scott and David, are talking
about?
What a great example of choosing the right friends and putting our lives in attunement
with our Heavenly Father so that we can attract and be attracted to those kinds of friends.
And so I think the message there for all of us perhaps is friends are a big deal and helping
our kids and even ourselves choose people in our lives that will enable us and inspire
us and encourage us to live according to our Heavenly Father's will is kind of an important
thing.
So I wanted to share that was an important experience I had yesterday, Dave.
Yeah, that's such a sweet experience.
And I think they were a pretty winning team.
I think how many state championships?
Two, yeah, I think two.
Two state championships and it's fun to watch Luke Pitt play occasionally.
And anyway, what a sweet thing that those young men, you know, sometimes you watch them play
football and you have no idea what's really going on or the foundation that they're really
based their lives on.
And I think it all comes down again to relationships and they went not so that they would be better
football players.
They went so that they would be better individuals and that they could show their Heavenly Father
what was important to them.
And what a what an amazing way to live your life.
And now he's going on a mission because he knows what's important and he's putting his
relationship with his Heavenly Father and with Jesus Christ above everything else in
his life.
And what a great way to start your life.
Yeah, we can all learn from that, do better and pray that all of us will make the temple
more of a part of our life.
Yeah, it's actually just a natural progression of where we are now, right?
I mean, everything that we're trying to do and talk about and encourage us all to consider
and participate in is more of a more pure and complete coming unto our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
And the pinnacle of that here on this planet is the temple.
And we're grateful to know that.
Well today, Dave, over the last couple of episodes we've talked about what repentance
is not.
And then we talked about pride and fear and help.
What keeps us from repenting?
The roadblocks, the stumbling blocks, you know, all of those things, well today we dive into
what it is and why it's important.
Yeah, I'm excited about this.
This is where, you know, I think it's really important to understand what repentance is
not.
I think it's really important to understand what keeps us from repenting.
But now we really get a touch on the positive and the blessings and the joy, even though
it's not easy.
It is simple, Scott.
I want to begin maybe today in our discussion by quoting one of my favorite quotes from
Hugh Nibley who in this quote he begins by asking the question, who is righteous?
And his answer is anyone who is repenting.
And then the quote goes on, no matter how bad he has been, if he is repenting, he is
a righteous man.
There is hope for him.
And no matter how good he has been all his life, if he or she is not repenting, he is
a wicked man.
The difference is which way you are facing.
The man on the top of the stairs facing down is much worse off than the man at the bottom
of the stairs facing up.
When the direction we are facing is towards Jesus Christ, that is repentance.
And that is what determines whether we are good or bad.
I just, I love that because it's kind of the essence.
There's another quote that I love that talks about from Elder Maxwell that we need to live
in a posture of repentance.
We need to be, not just repenting every day, we need to live in a state of repentance,
overcoming our pride and our fears through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ
is what really repentance is all about.
So as we jump into it, we should begin to maybe to describe what are the conditions
of repentance.
These conditions of repentance I think are really kind of the beginning point.
If we want to kind of go through the process of repentance, I think this is where it really
begins.
We've talked about faith in Christ of course.
There's no power in repentance without faith in Jesus Christ.
So maybe that's where it really truly begins.
But now as we have the adequate faith to begin the process, one must begin to understand
the importance of what I call the conditions of repentance, which are, and in Elder Anderson's
book they're called the, I think the three friends of repentance, three beloved friends,
that's the chapter in Elder Anderson's book.
They are a broken heart and a contrite spirit and godly sorrow.
So maybe I can begin by trying to describe what repentance is by sharing an experience
with a missionary I had at the missionary training center.
This is also an Elder Anderson's book.
I'll maybe give a little more detail.
When serving as a branch president there at the MTC, of course there's no other place
on the face of this earth, Scott, as Luke's going to find out in every other missionary
that goes there.
There is no place on earth where there's more repentance taking place in one place than
at the missionary training center.
And that's why it's so spiritual.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so spiritual there because there's so much repentance taking place there.
Anyway, I had a missionary come in and repent on the first Sunday that he was there.
I was told about all the things that he had done wrong and it kind of went something like
this.
He began to confess to me by saying, well, let's just make this really short.
I've done everything.
Well, there you go.
I've done everything.
I said, okay, Elder, let's kind of back up just a little bit and tell me what.
I told you I've done everything.
And it was a kind of a long session with him because he had just about done everything.
And it was obvious from the things that he had not repented of, not confessed or not
taken care of with priesthood leaders before he came into mission.
And because of his attitude and where he was at, it was obvious to me that he was going
to be sent home.
The brother would send him home.
I know he was from out of state.
I think he was from Missouri, happened to be from Missouri.
When the brother did finally, well, only a day or two later, the announcement was given
to me that he would be sent home.
So I called him in and gave him the news and he was really mad about that, really upset
and understand.
I told him that I'd come back the next day and help him to part.
And I went back the next day to give him an exit interview and I remember he came down
on his Levi's and a golf shirt and put his earring back in his ear and he was upset about
the whole situation.
I asked him a question, do you even want to come back here?
Is there even a chance you want to come back here?
And he thought about it for a minute and he said, well, I don't know.
And to try to make a point, I firmly said, Elder, you can never come back here.
You will never come back here until you have a broken heart and contrite spirit and you
obviously don't.
And that kind of got his attention and he looked at me with kind of a quizzical look
on his face and searching and he said, well, tell me, President, how could I break my
own heart?
I'd never been asked that question.
I talked a lot about a contrite spirit and broken heart in the MTC and nobody had ever
asked me that question.
And I thought, what a great question.
And I could tell that it was sincere.
He was asking me a sincere question.
And I knew by the power of the Holy Ghost the answer, Scott.
And I think this is what it takes to fulfill the conditions of repentance.
And so I answered this missionary.
I said, well, Elder, when you come to a point in your repentance, when you know the pain
and the suffering that you cost a God, even Jesus Christ, when you come to see him in
Gethsemane and on the cross and you begin to feel even a small portion of his pain and
his suffering, which he suffered for you that you might not suffer.
When you feel that, when you see that with an eye of faith, your heart will be very broken
in your spirit contrite.
And I could tell he got it.
Then he went home.
And I called him, I think every week on Sunday for several weeks.
Scott, when he came back and he did come back and he was a totally different person, and
I could tell he had been to Gethsemane and back.
I asked him.
So, Elder, please tell me, tell me, what's the change?
And he shared with me his experience and the essence of it was that he had tried to read
the Book of Mormon hours a day and had read the Book of Mormon while he had been home
in less than he had been home for six months.
And when he came back, he said he had read the Book of Mormon, I think four or five times,
but it was the reading of the Book of Mormon when he finally got a glimpse and a vision
of what Christ had done for him and what his sins had done to Christ.
He knew and experienced what Godly sorrow was, what it meant to have a broken heart,
contrite spirit, and after that, Scott, after meeting those conditions of repentance with
faith and those conditions, repentance went really quickly.
You know, Dave, a lot of us, and when I say us, I do mean us, me included in this, I think
that there's times in my life when there have been repentance that's been necessary.
There's times in all of our lives when repentance is necessary.
That's every day.
But some big sins, little sins, we've talked about that, we've alluded to that.
And I think that as he went home and as he had that experience and contemplated the experience
of until you can understand what you caused Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane,
you will never be able to fully repent.
I think that goes for all of us.
That's absolutely true for all of us.
I know that as I have tried to compartmentalize my sins and repent of this or repent of that,
and I'll get to those other things as time allows or when I get courageous enough or
when they become problematic enough that I need to deal with them up front.
But you know, when we go to Gethsemane, when we go to the cross, when we go to back in
those early episodes, and I think that, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, right in those episodes right
in there as we talk about those things, and we talk about, and you've said this multiple
times in various episodes of these podcasts, Dave, is that when Jesus says, come unto me,
where does He want us to come?
Well, that's where He wants us to come.
You've said that.
I think we even approached that again in our last, most recent podcast prior to this one.
But that's where He asks us to come.
As we go there, as that young missionary went there, and as we all go there, the promises
can be sure that we will fill His Spirit.
We will fill our sins, our troubles, our pains, and all things in our life that is not like
Him.
We will fill those things being paid for.
We will fill those things being reconciled.
We will fill a cleansing and a wholeness come into us that can't come into us in any other
way.
And that's what this young missionary felt, Dave.
Well, what we really feel when we go to Gethsemane and we stand at the foot of the cross and
we see the pain and the suffering of Jesus Christ for my sins, for your sins, knowing
He would do all of that just for you.
We know He did it for all of the world, but that He would do it just for me.
I am filled with such gratitude for Him and such love for Him, and I feel His love for
me.
That is the motivating power that every individual must have to truly repent of their sins, to
repent of sinning.
I think we've said before, Scott, that one of the real misconceptions that keeps us from
feeling forgiven of sin is that people try to repent of a sin instead of repenting of
sinning.
We need to repent of sinning.
It's ludicrous to think that I can repent of fornication, yet committing all of these
other sins of omission, not reading my scriptures, not saying my prayers, not keeping this habit
day holy, not paying my tithing, not magnifying.
I mean, repentance has to be seen as laying all of our sins on the altar.
Last week we talked about fear and pride, and I should have read this scripture then,
but I think it kind of, in essence, ties together what we said last week with what we want to
say this week.
It talks about fearing not.
Fear is such a stumbling block, roadblock to our repentance, and Alma just said it's
so beautifully here.
I remember using this scripture several times on my mission to prepare people to receive
the invitation to be baptized.
I love this scripture.
It's really Alma 7, 14 and 15, but I'm just going to read 15.
Ye, I say unto you, come and fear not, and lay aside every sin which easily doth beset
you, which doth bind you down to destruction.
Ye, come and go forth and show unto your God that you're willing to repent of your sins
– plural sins – every sin, and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments,
and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.
So repentance is truly not trying to be forgiven of asian.
I know so many of my students would come in and they couldn't figure out why they didn't
feel forgiven.
They had done everything they could to repent of some sin of immorality, often was the case,
and they would ask me why they don't feel forgiven.
They've confessed, they've been clean, they've stopped dating, whatever, and they
would say, and I still don't feel forgiven.
And I would ask, are you reading the scriptures every day?
Are you praying every day, every night?
Are you paying your tithing?
Tell me about what you do on the Sabbath.
And as we really went into what it takes to live the Gospel, which I think is part of
the posture of repentance that we should all be in, it became pretty clear why many individuals
that confided in me didn't feel forgiven.
Well let's go back to your opening quote by Brother Hugh Nibley, where he says, the man
at the top of the stairs facing down is much worse off than the man at the bottom of the
stairs who's facing up.
The direction we are facing, that's repentance, and that's what determines whether we are
good or bad.
So it's an entire posture.
It's not.
It's not where you face and the direction.
It's not where you're at.
It's the direction you face.
And that's true repentance.
As Deb and I teach this class in our YSA, a young single adult institute class at BYU
for BYU students and University of Utah Valley University students, that's one of the things
that we really tried to drive home, is that repentance is really about turning away from
everything that is not like him and fully facing him, regardless of where we are.
It doesn't matter if we're at the bottom of the stairs, halfway up the stairs or at the
top of the proverbial staircase.
It's where we're facing.
Prodigal son.
Right.
You know, here's the prodigal son wanting to come home was facing his father while the
other self-righteous brother was living at home and had his back to his father, probably.
Probably.
Well, at least complaining that he wasn't getting what his brother was going to get.
So yeah.
I know it's true.
It's not where you're at.
It's which direction you face.
The Hebrew word for repentance, Scott, if I'm pronouncing it right, is shubh.
And it literally means in the Hebrew to turn back, to return to God, to turn around, to
restore, refresh, repair.
And in the Greek, metnaio means to change one's mind for the better.
It means to change, to experience a change of perspective, how you see things even, not
just change of behavior, but even how you see yourself and to see things as they really
are, and metnaio also literally means to heartily amend and to change one's sinful past.
However, I think it's really important that we have this perspective of repentance, Scott.
So many people think that repentance is changing themselves.
I don't think that's repentance.
Consider this.
I'll ask you a question, I'll have you respond.
What is the difference between these two perspectives?
Seeing repentance as changing myself or seeing repentance as being changed by a higher power?
Yeah.
So therein, I believe, lies the difference in how we approach and whether it will be
effective or not.
If I am up to me to change me, if it's up to me to change me, that just ain't never
going to happen.
Because here's the problem.
It's been made for a minute.
Well, yeah, but I'm talking about change that last long time.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I talked about last week, you know, being a recovering alcoholic again, you know,
in recovery and having 20 plus years of sobriety that I work on daily to continue to achieve.
I can't put that on the shelf.
I work on that daily.
But here's the problem with that, David.
I was only able to do that because I did embrace the help of Heavenly Father in recovery.
We call it my higher power.
But I did embrace that and that was the only way it could.
I think last week I even said this or the week prior that quitting was not a problem
for me.
I could change.
Yeah.
I could make changes on the daily.
How many times do you quit?
Five or six times a day sometimes.
And so I could make the change on the daily sometimes on the hourly, but that change was
not lasting and that and it was hollow.
And it was a ton of work on my part and it was exhausting and it created a lot of discouragement
for me and others that go through the same process.
There's a lot of discouragement there because me of myself, I'm inadequate to affect those
kinds of changes.
And it was never intended for me to be effective in those kinds of changes.
The intention here is for me to learn to wholly rely on the merits of Christ who is mighty
to save.
And that's it.
And so once that changed from, okay, Scott, just, you know, and people tell you this, right?
People will say, Scott, just stop Scott or whoever, just stop doing whatever it is that
you're doing a little more willpower, a little more effort, a little more grit, you know,
and we talk about and there's nothing wrong with it.
And there's nothing wrong with willpower and there's nothing wrong with resolve unless
it's attached to ourselves in and of ourselves.
We can't save ourselves.
Who can save us?
Only he can save us.
And so if my repentance is up to me, it won't happen.
If my repentance and my change is up to him, then it has to happen because that's why he
went through what he went through.
Well, in the real sense of the word repentance, Scott, I mean, repentance means to be redeemed.
I think that the redemption part of this is sometimes not as emphasized as it should
be or not as focused on as it should be.
There are so many people who can change their behaviors, right?
And some do it very well and some do it permanently.
I'm sure there's lots of, again, we've said this, I'm sure there's lots of agnostics
and even atheists who can, through their willpower and self mastery, that they can overcome
certain behaviors in their life, maybe even how they see things in their life.
And they can probably live pretty good lives.
Repentance has to be a relationship with Jesus Christ that our forgiveness, I mean,
you can change and still not be forgiven.
You can change by the Lord Jesus Christ or by our Heavenly Father.
You can change and still not be redeemed.
Repentance in the purest, holiest sense means that not only are we changed through the Atonement
of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, which administers the Atonement of
Christ and His power in our lives, but it means that we are redeemed.
It means that we are saved.
It means that we have a relationship.
It means that we are seeking to become more like Him, that we are seeking to become sanctified,
born again.
And, hopefully, that is the essence of repentance, not just changing a behavior.
I love this scripture that in Helaman it says, and also that you might know the coming of
Jesus Christ, and it says in verse 13, and if you believe on His name, ye will repent
of all your sins.
There it is again, plural, that thereby ye may have a remission of them through His merits.
Having a remission of sins is more than just stopping bad behaviors and adopting good behaviors.
Remission of sins means redemption through Jesus Christ and His merits, not through our
efforts.
That's Helaman chapter 14 verse 13.
Thank you.
So, I just think that we, to see repentance right, to see what it really is, gives us the
power and the motivation and will allow us to focus on the right things to be able to
go through the process, which isn't necessarily always an easy process.
I know it's simple, but it can be really hard to put your will on the altar.
In essence, repentance is having your will swallowed up in the will of Jesus Christ.
I wrote this down several years ago and would use it in my class when I would teach the
course.
This is the best I could do to try to define how I feel about repentance.
Reference is to turn around and face the Savior, Jesus Christ, to receive His atonement and
to give yourself holy and completely to Him.
It means to surrender your agency to Him and to have your will swallowed up in His will.
C.S. Lewis wrote, The Christian way is different.
It's harder and it's easier.
Christ says, Give me all your sins.
I don't want so much of your time and so much of your work.
I want all of you.
I have not come into your life to torment your natural self, but to kill it.
Hand over the natural self, all the desires which you think innocent, as well as the ones
you think wicked, the whole outfit.
I will give you a new self instead.
In fact, I will give you myself.
My own shall become yours.
That's what I think it means to have our will swallowed up in the will of Christ.
When we speak of a broken heart, Scott, it's not about Christ mending our heart.
In Ezekiel 33, he says, I will give you a new heart.
It's about getting a new heart, not having a mended heart.
That's the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that's how we should see repentance.
You know, Dave, as we talk about this, you know, we talk about broken heart.
We talk about contrite spirit.
We talk about godly sorrow and how those things are, how we come about and start putting
the conditions of repentance into our lives.
I like this little paragraph out of the book.
When I say the book, the Divine Gift of Forgiveness by Elder Neil L. Anderson.
It says here, the Lord has told us that if we come forward with a broken heart and a
contrite spirit, he will not just repair our heart and cleanse our spirit.
He will give us a new heart.
And that's what you're talking about.
I mean, we just, we become different.
We become new.
We become more like him.
And you know, you also mentioned earlier, made reference to another great quote by Elder
Neil L. A. Maxwell.
He said, if we choose the course of steady improvement, which is clearly the course of
discipleship, we will become more righteous and can move away from what may be initially
a mere acknowledgement of Jesus onto admiration of Jesus and then onto adoration of Jesus.
And finally, to the emulation of Jesus, we become like him.
Yeah.
So, ad, acknowledgement, admiration.
Think of the different levels here in your relationship with Jesus Christ, which Elder
Maxwell teaches us here.
And I know there's more.
You want to finish that.
But the thing of the different levels, acknowledgement, admiration.
Are you on that level?
Are you on the level of adoration?
Or are you on the higher level of emulation?
And so, you know, I do want to finish the quote, but just to continue on what your, what your
thought process is there as well.
You know, this is how it works.
You know, when he says, come on to me and we, you know, there's a few things in scripture
that we're commanded to do, you know, we're commanded to love him and love others.
We're commanded to be like him and, you know, as we become like him, this is how it may
work for us.
You know, we come to know him.
And so, as we get to know him a little bit, first off, we acknowledge that he exists and
that he existed and that he was who he said he was to a degree.
And then we become admirers of Jesus in the admiration process.
And there's people in my life who I've admired over my life and that admiration leads me to
want to be a little bit more like them.
I mean, that's just naturally who I become.
And then we learn to love him.
That's what adoration means.
You know, we adore him.
And as we learn to adore Jesus Christ, finally, the emulation of Jesus is well in effect in
our lives.
Now that's something that requires constant nurturing, constant effort on our part.
And then he goes on in the process, in that process of striving to become more like him
through steady improvement.
And that's a key through steady improvement.
That's very important.
We must be in the posture of repentance, turning away and turning towards him, even if no major
transgression is involved.
You know, that takes work.
That takes so much faith and work.
Instead of relying on our own best efforts, we need to learn to rely on the merits of
Jesus Christ.
We've said this before.
Redemption is the goal, not assimilation.
So let's be clear here.
We want to emulate the life of Jesus Christ, which is so much more than just trying to
assimilate good habits.
It's becoming more holy.
It's becoming sanctified.
It's developing a relationship with our Heavenly Father and doing His will.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a system of assimilation of good habits.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a system of redemption through Jesus Christ and His atonement.
That's the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's how we should see it.
I love what President Kimball said many years ago and have used this quote so often.
I think this is from his book, The Miracle of Forgiveness.
But he said, in connection with repentance, the scriptures use the phrase with all his
heart.
In other words, we need to be repenting with all our heart, with all our soul, with all
of our being.
So many people, I think, just think it's a change of behavior.
It's so much more than that.
Obviously, this rules out any reservations.
Repentance must involve an all-out total surrender to the Lord.
That transgressor is not fully repentance, who neglects his tithing, misses his meetings,
breaks the Sabbath, fails in his prayers, does not sustain the prophet, breaks the word
of wisdom, does not love the Lord nor his fellow men.
Reforming adulterer who drinks or curses or does so many other wrong things is not repentant.
God cannot forgive unless the transgressor shows a true repentance, which spreads to
all the areas of his life.
So often, again, we have a tendency to focus on the big sins of commission while we neglect
the smaller sins, but sins nonetheless, of omission.
And it kind of goes back to James.
I know this is in St. James, in the scripture.
I don't have it right here in front of me, where he says, if you omit in one area, if
you fell in one area, if you sin in one area, you've sinned in them all.
And that's kind of the essence of what I think what President Kimball is saying here, Scott,
that it has to be a total surrender.
It has to be seeking to live all the commandments.
And I know we won't.
We can't.
We're mortal.
We're fallen.
We're sinners.
We'll sin every day.
But it's the effort.
It's what's in our heart.
It's the desires of our heart and the focus that we have in our minds that I think is so
important in this in this effort.
Yeah.
So the reference that you just made mention of is in James chapter two and it starts
verse nine.
But if you have respect to persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law of the transgressors.
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet
offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
You know, Dave, I've used that and I've heard other people actually use that scripture too.
And I think he's talking the law of gospel, not law of Moses there.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, you know, I've used that and I know other people have too is, you know, kind of
a shield.
You know, don't judge me.
You know, look at your own self.
Look, you know, I have you sinned today.
If you've sinned today, you're guilty of all of it.
Don't judge me.
Judge you.
You know.
But now my perspective on that's different today.
And it's not just today, but it's been this way for quite some time now that I see that
now as a mirror, not a shield.
I look at that scripture as a mirror for me.
You know, it's not for me to read to somebody else who might, I might be feeling like is
judging me for whatever reason.
But if I take verse 10, for whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point,
he's guilty of all.
And so I need to remember that too.
So I can't just repent of whatever a certain favorite sin or certain unfavorite sin and
hang on to others and still be repentant.
And until I'm repentant, I will, I have very little hope, no hope of having the entirety,
the full gift of the Holy Ghost that work in my life.
And I think we need to remind ourselves and our listeners, Scott, of this amazing scripture
where the Lord promises us, yea, as often as my people repent, will I forgive them their
trespasses against me?
I know that I don't know how it works for you or for others, but I know that I have
to repent of oftentimes the same sins repeatedly.
And they often come back to haunt me and I've often cried to know why that is, why I have
certain tendencies or propensities or why that's such a weakness for me that I keep
praying and will become a strength someday.
But I just think it's really comforting and well, comforting to know that the Lord will
forgive us even if the natural man keeps kicking in over and over and over again committing
the same sins.
What was the reference on that?
That's Mosiah 26, verse 30.
So yea.
And it's repeated in other places in the scriptures.
And I think that as we remember that, it certainly helps us to lay hold on and to maintain grip
of the iron rod, the Word of God, to help us to have the happiness and to partake of
the fruit of the tree of Lehi's vision, right?
And as we do that, I think that we begin to fill him more closely and more fully in our
lives at all times.
I know many priesthood leaders right now, having been a bishop, branch president of
MTC and stake presidencies, I know this scripture is often used.
I've used it so many times to try to get the attention of members who are sinning and who
are not quite where they ought to be or haven't quite met the conditions of repentance.
And I've often tried to use this to help them.
And yet sometimes I think it's used by members of the church or priesthood leaders, maybe,
others as kind of a little bit of a club.
But it's in Doctrine and Covenants section 82 verse 7 and it reads, And now verily I
say unto you, I the Lord will not lay any sin to your charge.
This is after they've repented.
And he's forgiven them in verse 1.
He says, as you have forgiven one another, your trespasses, even so, I the Lord forgive
you.
So he's forgiven them and then he says, Go your ways and sin no more.
Here it is.
But unto the soul who sineth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God.
Well I used to use that a lot and I think in probably a negative way to kind of help
someone understand how important it was to not repeat the same sin over and over again.
And I know that's true.
We're not really truly repented if we keep going back to former sins.
But I do not believe, as I think I used to believe, that sins stack up.
If you sin and you repent and then you go back and you commit it, it's twice as bad.
Or you go back and commit it again and now it's three times worse.
And I just don't believe this model.
I don't think that's what this verse is saying.
That the sins stack up and it just gets worse and worse and worse and it can get so big
and so bad that you can never repent of it.
That's I'm sure that's not what the Lord meant by this.
He's saying that sin is a wholesale approach.
He's saying, but unto the soul who sineth shall the former sins return, meaning he can't
forgive us of a sin.
We have to repent of all our sins.
We can't try to repent of a sin while we're committing other sins of omission or commission.
That's what I believe that verse means.
And I think that's a easier approach, honestly.
Well I think it's a more simple approach from an offering of a loving Heavenly Father to
us for sure.
Absolutely.
Yeah, because if I'm struggling with a favorite sin, and we'll just call it sin A, sin A,
sin B, sin C.
So if I'm struggling with a sin A, but my sin B and sin C are still there and I get sin
A squared away, well sin B and sin C still have the same effect in that they keep me
separated from the spirit of the Holy Ghost.
That's the key.
Yeah, and so then I get sin B squared away and sin A slips back in a little bit, but
then sin B's gone.
Sin A still keeps me separated from the spirit of the Holy Ghost.
I know every day we need to be in the posture of repentance, Scott, and that means that
we just, we face the Lord.
We don't give up on Him and that in those bad moments of our everyday life when we do,
that we quickly turn around, that we speedily repent and we turn around again and again
and again, that we don't take any shortcuts.
Sometimes I'll have to share with you a parable about that, that we don't take any shortcuts
in this process and that we strive to face Him longer and longer and longer in our everyday
life.
I think that's kind of how we have to see it.
And I know that the closer, the more we face Him and the closer we get to Him, Scott, the
further our sins move away from us.
The less frequently we'll commit those same sins.
The less we will feel inclined to commit those sins.
I know that's true.
I believe for me in my sins that as I face Him, as I think of Him, as I try to, as He
has encouraged us to do, I think commanded us to do, look unto me in every thought.
Doubt not, fear not, behold the wounds and the Prince.
Anyway, Dr. and Co. in Section 6 again, I know that as we strive to keep that commandment
to look unto Him in every thought, that our sins move further and further away from us.
I think really, Dave, that's the essence of repentance.
Look unto me in every thought.
Doubt not, there's faith.
Fear not, there's faith and hope.
Right?
Right.
Yeah.
And it's all based on, as you said, behold the wounds which pierced my side and also
the Prince of the nails.
In my hands and feet, be faithful, keep my commandments, and you shall inherit the kingdom
of heaven.
We can inherit that portion of that kingdom of heaven right here as we daily repent and
as we constantly enter in a constant attitude and posture of repentance, that just means
we're turning more to Him and we're not focusing.
And we talked several weeks ago, a couple of months maybe even ago, several episodes
for sure about where's our focus.
And that's really all it is.
Our focus on being repentant rather than repenting of a sin is really what draws us
closer to Him.
Loving Him, Scott, includes loving His laws and loving His commandments.
Right.
And striving to keep all of His commandments.
And I don't think any of us do that on a daily basis, but it's in the striving.
It's hoping.
You know, there's the question in the new temple interview worthiness question is, are
you striving to be morally clean?
I love that.
I love it.
It's in the striving.
It's not in the throwing of in the towel, giving up what's the use?
That's just who I am.
That's not repentance.
Repentance is looking to the Savior, seeking to emulate Him because we adore Him, wanting
to have a relationship with Him.
And having that become the essence of our hearts and the essence of our lives.
Oh, man, Scott, life would be so much easier.
We would have so much more joy.
We will have so much more peace as we live daily in a posture of repentance, looking to
the sun, remembering as we make it, as we made a covenant yesterday for taking it to
heaven.
Remembering Him always, remembering Him where, remembering what He did for us, remembering
what He suffered for us, remembering His love for us.
That's repentance.
And I can't even talk about it right now without feeling that.
I mean, I want to do better.
I want to be better.
I want to strive harder to keep commandments in ways that I maybe wouldn't have if we weren't
talking about this today.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, and we go back just to the tail end of that quote again from Elder Maxwell, in
the process of striving to become more like Him, striving, you know, use that word, in
that process of striving to become more like Him through steady improvement, repentance.
We must be in the posture of repentance, even if no major transaggression is involved.
So important for each one of us to just egressively hold to these principles that are eternal,
that are saving, that add salvation and hope to our lives, because, you know, each of us
will and do face things in this life that beset us, that set us back, that are troubling,
we struggle with.
And some of that involves sin, where we make bad choices, where the choices we make drive
us away or drive the spirit away, rather, from our lives.
And I think that as we focus on a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
in so doing, we are in the process of striving to become more like Him through steady improvement,
we need to remember that at that point, we will be in the posture of repentance, even
if there is no major transgression involved.
And in doing that, we have peace, we have His love, and all other things in our life
just seem to kind of line up, even when they're not lined up, maybe even when there's trials,
even when there's struggles.
We talked to friends recently who, in their crying out and in their trying to become more
like Him through repentance, through turning and facing up the stairs, rather than facing
down the stairs, that that's where we embrace and feel His embrace more fully as well.
Well last week, we left with an invitation, my hope, by the way, that some of you have
taken that invitation seriously and that you're experimenting in your life with identifying
your fears, and that you are not just accepting those fears, that you become more sensitized
by your fears, and that we all pray with all energy of heart when we feel fear, and we've
been promised that He will give us His love, not just our love for others, but He will
actually bless us through the gift of the Spirit, with the gift of charity, which is
the pure love of Christ, which is how Christ sees others and the love of Christ.
And when we see others in the situations that we're in through His eyes, and we have that
gift of charity, that perfect love casteth out all fear, I hope you're experimenting
with that, and I hope you'll continue to do so.
As we do that, I pray that we'll be able to overcome our fear to repent, and I want to
leave another invitation today to all of us, that we start seeing repentance not as changing
ourselves, but that we see repentance through the perspective of the Lord and again through
His eyes, that He wants to change us, that repentance is being changed, not just making
changes in our behaviors, that it's through His merits, that it's through our faith and
learning to rely on Him.
And I invite you to consider that perspective and to focus on that.
And one more invitation is that we stop repenting of a sin and that we start to repent of sinning,
that we as King Lomonai's father prayed that I would give away all my sins to know thee.
That's my hope and prayer for myself, for you, Scott, for our families and for all our
listeners.
Thanks, Dave.
Another great episode as we talk.
I just want to reiterate, I hope too, that we can start to see repentance as our being
changed instead of us making changes, changed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, changed
through His love, through His sacrifice and through His power because it requires His
power to make that change as well.
That's repentance.
That is repentance.
Thanks so much for being with us.
We do appreciate your involvement and again ask that you, if you're so inclined to participate
in David's invitation, I know I'm going to and maybe next week we can kind of recap on
that as well.
Thanks for being with us, everybody.
Have a great week.
Make sure that you're doing the things in your life that will allow the Spirit to be
imminent in your life that you may be able to fill His Spirit and fill the Atonement
of Jesus Christ at work in your life.
And remember that He has redeemed you through His blood.
Thanks for being with us.