This past week I sat in front of many of our investigators, a few of which over the past 11 weeks i have come to know and love. This past week a few of these beloved people made great changes in their lives, from things as small as praying to our Heavenly Father all the way to making the decision to be babtized, following our saviors perfect example. It got me thinking in depth about our ability to make these decisions:
From the begining, Heavenly Father decreed that his children would be blessed with this great gift to choose: called AGENCY or "The right to choose for ourselves what course of action to take" (JS 1:645) Only by learning to use agency, congruent with Eternal Principles of Righteousness, would we become like our maker. Agency is a gift from God. It is necessary for our growth. Our choices and decisions determine our blessings or the consequences of our actions (whether good or bad). Agency can opperate beause there is: 1: Opposition in all things. 2: Knowledge of good an evil , 3: Laws and commandments given by god and 4: the freedom to choose. (See also Joshua 24:15)
We find perfect examples of Agency and its application and use of growth in the chapter of Second Nephi, where the Prophet Lehi explains about the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and their need to learn and grow through their agency:
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and allthings are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
The power to choose this "Happiness and Eternal life" is "within us" (Read D&C 58:27-28). So, my invitation to all those reading this i to exercise this moral and free agecy with faith in Jesus Christ by: 1. Reading the Book of Mormon everyday, 2. Pray about its truthfulness continually and 3. Follow the Example and teachings of our Savior that we find within this sacred record with a perseverance to endure to the end. Through this course of action, we will be able to exercise our agency in a way that like Adam and Eve, we too may learn and grow until in the last day we recieve this "Happiness and Eternal Life".
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen
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