Book of Mormon: Day 53: How Great the Goodness of Our God

Today’s Reading: 2 Nephi 9: 8-26

10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.

As I sat watching our Elders Quorum play a game of soccer several years ago, I must admit to some boredom when I remembered counsel from our bishop.  He said his wife would actively look for beauty all around her and would, if in a desert, find pure delight in the smallest flower.  I decided to cure my boredom and look for things of beauty.  The barren area lacked small flowers, which I sought for first, but I did begin to notice specs of color in the ground.  As I looked closer I found small rocks of various colors.  I quickly became captivated as they were beautiful rocks of greens, browns and blues and my pockets became heavy as I filled them with the smooth stones.  A few feet away from me I saw one of amber color that I knew I wanted right away.  It glistened, was transparent and was a little larger than the others.  I hurried over to it but it was buried a bit so I used a stick to dig the edges out and when I did I remember some dismay as I found that my precious stone was a fraud.  In my hand I held a jagged edged, broken piece of a beer bottle.

Satan is like that.  He gives us some truths or part truths, makes things look stunning (often unrealistically so), and fairly soon we realize we have handled something dangerous that can cause spiritual damage.  At some time we fall for the destroyer’s broken glass and much to our dismay, at some point all “fall short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23)  Being subject to the fall, we also fall short of being in God’s presence again because we need an exalted body to do so.  “To become like God and return to His presence, we too must have a perfect, immortal body of flesh and bones.”  (Preach My Gospel: Lesson 2: Our Life On Earth) Thus death and sin keep us from that great God who gave us breath.  What a bleak outlook!

The joy is that there IS hope.  There IS a way prepared so that we can overcome sin and death and the answer to both obstacles is found in one sacred being who prepared our escape from such a scenario even before His birth, even from the foundation of the world.  Jacob declares in 2 Nephi Chapter 9:

10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit.

11 And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave.

12 And this death of which I have spoken, which is the spiritual death, shall deliver up its dead; which spiritual death is hell; wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel.

Hopefully we don’t pick up that broken glass to begin with but there are innumerable ways we can sin.  From infidelity, pornography, and addiction to gossip, dishonesty, and impatience, you name it, the adversary will place great and small obstacles in front of us with the intent of having us follow him.  When we find ourselves in the chains of the adversary we can “shake” them off as Nephi tells us.  Like Jacob, we too can glory in the great goodness of our God and that He has provided a way to overcome absolutely everything, which way is through His very own son.  Yes!  The atonement is the answer.

(The) Atonement would achieve complete victory over physical death, unconditionally granting resurrection to every person who has been born or ever will be born into this world. Mercifully it would also provide forgiveness for the personal sins of all, from Adam to the end of the world, conditioned upon repentance and obedience to divine commandments.  –Jeffrey R. Holland

The Atonement Would Achieve Quote -Jeffrey R. Holland

May we use this great gift to repent here and now and that we not fall for the lies told by that old serpent.  May we see repentance as a gift and a joy that is worth the journey.  May our hearts and hands become pure that when we have the opportunity to be resurrected, we will have been cleansed from iniquity and will stand in the presence of the Most High God with a clear conscience.  Oh how great the goodness of our God!!

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