Repentance

Imagine a child lives in a large, white, beautiful house. His parents tell him to leave the house while it is cleaned. While he is out he plays around in the mud. His parents call him back to the house, but as he arrives, they refuse to let him enter the house because he is dirty and the house was just cleaned. In this life we are outside our heavenly home and are daily covering ourselves with "mud." We desire to return to our heavenly home, but our parents won't let us in if we are not clean like the house. This is the struggle we all have in life, but the "mud" we cover ourselves with is sin.

We all make errors in this life: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)." We are all given the ability to choose, known as agency, and we tend to feel bad, or guilty, when we choose to do things we know are wrong. This is a blessing, known as the Light of Christ, that helps us to correct the eternal consequences of our sin. When we persist in choosing the wrong choices, we are conditioned to ignore the bad feelings of guilt that come from sin. Thus the longer we fall into sin, the harder it is to decide to change as well as act to pull ourselves out of the pit. As we try to feel good about ourselves in this life, we must continually go through a process known as repentance, which rids the feelings of guilt that accumulate from our errors.

Repentance is a difficult process that can often be embarrassing, depressing, and even cause more feelings of guilt. But the results of repentance includes a clear conscience, a light burden, and joy. To analyze this process we will follow Alma the Younger's repentance found in Alma 36:6-25. The following steps occurred in Alma's pursuit of repentance: recognition, take responsibility, realize the effects, remember Christ and His Atonement, request forgiveness, receive forgiveness, rejoice, restoration of light, and recommitting to God. To be fully repentant, we must undergo a similar process each time we sin. If we only do a few of the steps required, we will not be forgiven of our sins. It's an all or nothing deal.

As we repeat this process on a daily schedule, we will feel a peace of conscience, God's love for us, and more self worth. We will be on a straight course heading to a Celestial life. We will be clean and will not feel out of place as we enter our Father's clean home. The only way this is possible is through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior, and also the Savior of all mankind. I am eternally in debt to Him and the best thing I can do to repay Him is to be obedient to the commandments. I will also share what I know so that others can be obedient as well. Please share what you know with the world.