It's All About Jesus

I just came across a Bible passage that got me thinking about how I used to view salvation and how I used to think that I was supposed to channel everything (my relationship with God, my obedience to Him, my love to Him and others, my guidance and direction, and my authority to act in His name) through the LDS church. I would read scriptures that said that the only name under heaven whereby men could be saved was Jesus Christ, and I would think in my head: That means the LDS church is the only way to be saved. That was my mind-set and my automatic response because I believed I was in Jesus Christ's only true church so therefore I was accessing all of the things that it said were through Jesus. All others that weren't a member of the Mormon church just didn't have all the truth about the restoration of the gospel and therefore they couldn't fully grasp or accept salvation through Jesus Christ because Jesus was only going to save those within His organization that He set up Himself. He wasn't going to save the ones outside of the Mormon church because they weren't worthy and didn't qualify for the Celestial Kingdom, they would not receive exaltation (which is the Christian equivalent of salvation- living with God for eternity).

I remember reading Matt. 11:28-30 where it says "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." It says "Come to me" not come to my church or come to this set of established beliefs, or come to this organized religion, He says come to me. It's about a relationship, to come to Him and give Him our burdens. And by the way, 1 John 5:3 says "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." And then right before that in 1 John 3:23 it says what the commandments are: "And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us." To all my Mormon readers out there: I don't know about you but obeying the Ten Commandments, Tithing, going to church every Sunday, Home/Visiting Teaching, Magnifying your church calling and all associated meetings, going to the temple, read the Book of Mormon and keeping up-to-date on Church magazines for the First Presidency message, and on and on the list goes; this all was extremely burdensome and on top of that is the guilt when you don't think you did "as much as you could have" and you wonder whether God is pleased with you all the time. And where is there time to develop a personal relationship with Jesus independent of the LDS church, and your worship of God? When does that ever happen when the LDS church puts such a gigantic burden on your shoulders to keep you busy and preoccupied with the LDS church and functions that it's hard to have an active, personal relationship with Jesus amidst it all.

Then there's the one in John 14:5-6 where Jesus is asked by His disciples: "...Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? 6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus says that He is the way and the truth, not a certain church or organization. Here was Jesus' chance to explain the way into heaven, the way to eternal life, and if it were through being baptized into His church then surely He would say it now, but He says that He is the way, Jesus is the way. The LDS people should get up in testimony meeting and testify that Jesus is the Truth, not that the LDS church is true or Joseph Smith is a true prophet, but that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life, it's all about Him. This is my hope that someday Mormons will only testify of Jesus in their testimony meetings of the "truth", when now He is a minor side-note. One rarely bears their testimony in Fast and Testimony Meeting without mentioning Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, the temple, the current leader of the LDS church (Pres. Monson currently), and the LDS church being the only true church on the earth, and of course the occasional pioneer, family history, geneology, and food storage. Only once have I ever heard someone in a Mormon testimony meeting testify of Jesus alone, and that was Micah Wilder (drummer, band manager, and one of my closest friends) while we were on our Mormon missions; of course when that happened he had already become a born-again Christian and was no longer Mormon, so I guess I have never heard an LDS person only testify of Jesus, that He was enough.

The last verse I want to mention is also what sparked this blog and it's in Mark 9:14-29 and it's where Jesus' disciples are trying to cast out this demon out of a boy and they can't and don't know why. Jesus comes and casts the demon out and afterward the disciples ask Jesus why they couldn't cast it out and this is what Jesus said in verse 29: "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer [and fasting]." Hmmm... LDS people believe that Jesus gave the disciples the Melchezidek Priesthood and therefore they should have been able to cast out the demons with that authority, but they weren't able to. The Bible doesn't support their view on the Melchezidek Priesthood being given to anyone but explains that Jesus is the only one that holds it forever and is our High Priest forever. But why wouldn't Jesus have told them that this kind of spirit was only driven out by the Melchezidek Priesthood, or the "proper authority", or something like that if the disciples truly had the priesthood? Why didn't Jesus say something like: Come on guys you have the priesthood, cast this spirit out! If they had the priesthood as Mormonism teaches then why didn't Jesus say something about it here? He wanted them to have faith in God and in Him, the Son. When you read it as a child it is simple and clear. What they had was a lack of faith. Earlier in the passage in verse 19 Jesus calls them a "faithless generation", and in 23 He says "All things are possible for one who believes." The point of this passage is that it's about faith in Jesus and faith in God that all things are possible, that nothing is impossible with God.

It's all about Jesus. It's all about faith in Him and it's all about love. If you focus on believing in Jesus (not a church or man, but Jesus Himself through His Word, the Bible), you will come to know Him and I know that because that's how I came to know Jesus, by reading His Word and making it a part of my life. When you come to know Jesus, you will be filled with the love of God because God is love and He will abide in you. This is what brings the peace of knowing who you are: a hell-deserving sinner saved by the grace and mercy of God; why you are here: to live for God and glorify and praise Him because He has saved you; and where you are going: to live forever with God in heaven because through your faith in Jesus you have become born-again and adopted into His household, a new creation in Christ Jesus- 1 John 5:13-14 "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us." If you don't know who you are, why you are here and where you are going according to the Bible, find out. Any questions? God bless.

Journal Excerpts About Finding My Soul Mate

These are some quotes from my journal when I first got back from my mission for the LDS church and was wanting to start the next part of my life, to meet a girl and fall in love with her as I was meant to, because I did believe in destiny and that there was one girl that I was meant to fall in love with and get married and spend the rest of my life with. It might be called old-fashioned or a fairy-tale but my faith that God controlled every part of my life and had a plan laid out for me in my life before I was even born came from my understanding of the Bible and I believed it. I really believed that there was one girl out there that would be my perfect match and I was determined to find her. It was hard for me to wait on what I thought at the time was God's slow timing.

I had just broken off my engagement to a girl I had dated a little before and after my mission and also a short-term relationship with another girl that I had just broken up with when I wrote these entries.

14 Feb 07

"I just had this amazing insight this morning and it's interesting that it just so happens to be Valentine's Day too...Well the thought hit me and really opened my eyes to this. I thought about why I haven't found the girl I'm gonna marry yet, and why I have to have no one right now and why I must wait so long until I find her...and the thought came out of the blue...What would you think about and where would your heart rest, and what would you value most if you had the love of your life; the girl you're going to marry right now? And it caught me off-guard and I was like whoa! If I was in a relationship, how much time would be devoted to God versus her? I realized that I'm so lonely that right now I would put her above everyone else and everything else as well. My thoughts and heart would all be for and about her, and I would value her more than my relationship w/ God. That tells me one thing...my heart is in the wrong place. I spend so much time thinking about how to impress or get girls to like me, that there's hardly any time for God. What about impressing God? Is impressing others more important to me than impressing God...If my heart is living for God and He becomes my number one goal then my focus and thoughts will finally shift from being on myself and my needs of finding my future wife, and turned to knowing and loving God more. With all my heart, and not just part of it...When what I want most in life is anything but Jesus Christ (even marriage or love) I will lose everything. But once my deepest desire is to love and know Jesus and I let my dreams and wishes go, then He will give me everything." Matt. 16:25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. "Psalms 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart." I find great strength in this scripture. If I stop worrying about where my wife is and when I'm gonna meet her and blah blah blah- and just delight myself in the Lord, then my wife will come to me and my heart will be ready."

16 Feb 07

"I am trying to give God my want for a girl in my life right now but it's so hard. I feel discouraged because I don't know if I can give that up...I want someone to have close to me and to connect with so bad, it's just hard when I feel the loneliness creep in. I feel like it's so far away till I'll be ready to have someone. I need to give my heart to God first or I will never find her. That's how I feel and that's why it's hard for me because I want to find a girl now. but my heart is so weak and is set so much on finding a girl or being in a relationship that there's not as much room left for Jesus to be my love. I'm distracted right now and I need help. I need to give it up to God."

There's a Bible verse that really means a lot to me: Phil. 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I made my requests known to God about finding a girl to love and spend the rest of my life with and then I just did my best to trust Him and focus on Him. When I finally started to forget about girls and tried to show God how much I loved Him for saving me by living for Him and living His Word, then Katie came into my life. Our relationship was a friendship where we talked on the phone about God and how amazing He was. She was in Utah finishing up High School and I was in Florida with her brothers who are in the band (that's how we met), and we started calling each other many times a week because we had both left the Mormon church and were discovering this brand-new world of living the New Law of grace, and a relationship with Jesus. We talked for hours and hours about Jesus and the Bible and shared insights and sang songs to each other and fell in love because we both loved Jesus with all our hearts. We didn't even think about "us" only God and Jesus. So when we developed strong feelings for each other it just felt right because it was happening within us by God and not ourselves. We just loved God and it was like He connected us together through our connection and intimacy with Him. Now we are happily married and have been for two years. Our relationship began in the Word of God and in the Love of God and that's where we are striving to keep it. We encourage each other in our faith in Jesus and hold each other to the Bible. We are one with each other, all other Christians around the World in the Body of Christ, and with Christ Himself as He is one with God.

I hope these insights will help anyone out there who is focused on finding their future love as I was, to stop, and focus on the only true love, Jesus Christ. He will never let you down or disappoint, He is always faithful and committed, and His love never fails. If you delight yourself in Him, fall in head-over-heels love with Him, He will give you the desires of your heart and you will find rest and peace. He is my true love and I don't need anything else in this life. Like Paul says, I count everything that I once counted as gain, as loss compared to the surpassing riches of knowing my Lord Jesus (Phil. 3:7-9). God bless.

New Year's Resolutions

I hear and read a lot of people make goals for the next year that they want to accomplish and improve on. I personally don't make New Year's Resolutions because my feelings are that if it's something that is going to take a year to improve upon then it's probably something that needs to be taken one day at a time and thereby becomes a daily resolution. The reason I say this is because the Bible teaches us in James 4:13-16 that we don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow so how can we possibly know what will be in our lives in a year! We just need to trust God and make goals but say "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." Check this out, this is really cool. The Bible really does have all the answers.

James 4:13-16
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"- 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

If people make their resolution to improve on their financial standing be it debt, payments, mortgage, whatever, they need to trust God and wait on Him and His will. It's okay to make goals if you set your goals with flexibility so that you aren't boasting in your arrogance but with faith you are trusting God and ready to change your goals to fit His will. That's where the "if the Lord wills" part comes in.

And especially for those that make their New Year Resolutions to fall in love or find that special someone, Psalms 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." The focus should be on Jesus and if you delight yourself in Him, just totally fall in head-over-heels love for Jesus, He will give you the desires of your heart. I did this and now I have a beautiful wife. We fell in love as we talked about our love for God and what He had done in our lives, and read the Bible together. In my case God's will was for me to meet Katie and marry her, and each has to follow God's will for their individual lives.

I think the perfect New Year's Resolution is to devote myself to Jesus afresh every day. I didn't say to a church, or to any man, but to Jesus and to follow His Word, the Bible. That would be my resolution, I will take things one day at a time and not be anxious or worry about tomorrow or this coming year, but with faith I will re-dedicate myself to Jesus Christ each day and live for Him because I love Him and He loves me. I will make my requests known to God with prayer and thanksgiving and not be anxious about them but trust and have faith.

Phil. 4:6
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.