Day 4

Day 4: Am I a Daughter of Christ?

Read: Doctrine and Covenants 19:15-24

         Mosiah 4:2-3

         Mosiah 5:7-9

Ponder: How can I get rid of guilt?

            How can I put myself in a position to have the power of the atonement cover my sins?

            Do I understand what Christ did for me?

            Do I comprehend the great love He has for me?

     To those who may feel they have somehow forfeited their place at the table of the Lord, we say again with the Prophet Joseph Smith that God has "a forgiving disposition," that Christ is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, is long-suffering and full of goodness." I have always loved that when Matthew records Jesus' great injunction, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," Luke adds the Savior's additional commentary: "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful" - as if to suggest that mercy is at least a beginning synonym for the perfection God has and for which all of us must strive. Mercy, with its sister virtue forgiveness, is at the very heart of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the eternal plan of salvation. Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.

     Now, if you feel too spiritually maimed to come to the feast, please realize that the Church is not a monastery for perfect people, though all of us ought to be striving on the road to godliness. No, at least one aspect of the Church is more like a hospital or an aid station, provided for those who are ill and want to get well, where one can get an infusion of spiritual nutrition and a supply of sustaining water in order to keep on climbing.

     Those who will receive the Lord Jesus Christ as the source of their salvation will aslways lie down in green pastures, no matter how barren and bleak the winter has been. And the waters of their refreshment will always be still waters, no matter how turbulent the storms of life. In walking His path of righteousness, our souls will be forever restored; and though that path may for us, as it did for him, lead through the very valley of the shadow of death, yet we will fear no evil. The rod of His preisthood and the staff of his Spirit will always comfort us. And when we hunger and thirst in the effort, He will prepare a veritable feast before us, a table spread even in the presence of our enemies - contemporary enemies - which might include fear or family worries, sickness or personal sorrow of a hundred different kinds. In a crowning act of compassion at such a supper He anoints our head with oil and administers a blessing of strength to our soul. Our cup runneth over with his kindess, and our tears runneth over with joy. We weep to know that such goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of or life, and that we will, if we desire it, dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

From "He Hath filled the Hungry with Good Things"

Jeffery R. Holland

Sunday Morning Session, 5 Oct 1997