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.