Always Retain a Remission of Your Sins -- Sacrament Talk

When I got the e-mail detailing what I was to talk about today, there was a quote by President Hinckley: “How shall our people keep themselves unspotted from the world unless they develop within themselves the spiritual strength and capacity to resist temptation? . . . Where shall they develop such discipline? . . . They shall develop [it] in their communion with the Lord as worshippers in sacrament meetings. Every sacrament meeting ought to be a spiritual feast...It ought to be a time for...hearing the word of the Lord with reverence and appreciation.”

What a great thought. However, while I’m sure all of our sacrament meets are a spiritual feast, sometimes I am not a partaker.

There is much I can do much to help Sunday be a good day. Best case scenario is that I bathe the kids on Saturday, lay out everyone’s clothes on Saturday night. I pack the kids church bag in advance, I wake up early, get my kids dressed late enough that they don’t have time to get their dresses dirty, and earlier enough that we are still on time. And I try to keep an eye on the clock so I’m not yelling at everyone as we are getting out the door. Simple, right?

But then we get to church. Logan and I have to divvy out seating arrangements that please everyone. Which usually consists of me holding River on one knee, and Kaya begging to be on the other. I wipe runny noses. I try to scrub spit-up off my dress. Now I need to nurse River. I try to grab the sacrament while making sure Lucy and Kaya only take one, and River doesn’t dump out the whole tray. Inevitably, one of my kids needs to go to the bathroom. Then I have to break up a fight about who stole who’s chair while we were gone. And somewhere in there I’m supposed to be partaking in a spiritual feast.

 I was chatting with my grandmother one day about how hard it is to get anything out of church when you have young kids. My grandma had 7 kids in 7 years. She told me that if she left church feeling THE SAME as when she got to church she called it a good day. Not even to mention feeling MORE spiritually uplifted. And we all feel that way sometimes.

While I’m sure many parents of young children (or maybe even those sitting near families with young children), understand how I feel, don’t we all have days like this? Where life happens and maybe we aren’t paying as much attention as we should? Maybe you got into a huge fight before church and aren’t in the right frame of mind to listen to the spirit, maybe you are stressed about school or work, maybe you are sitting too close to your crush, and can’t seem to pay attention to anything else, maybe you are using your phone to “read the scriptures” AKA checking instagram.

So what can we do?

One of the Primary songs says “Saturday is a Special Day it’s the day we get ready for Sunday.” And as I mentioned earlier, there are many things we can do on Saturday to help us be better organized on Sunday. However, true Sabbath day preparation should begin on Monday! And I don’t say that to stress you out. You’re probably thinking, “this lady can’t even handle three hours of church, and now she’s saying we should spend the whole week preparing for Church?!” Yes I am. But it’s not MORE stressful. It’s less. You see, in the gospel, it’s not so much about the few BIG things we do, it’s about the small everyday things we do. It is about consistently keeping the commandments, reading our scriptures, and praying to our loving Heavenly Father. I can’t control how everything will go during Church on Sunday, but I can find a few minutes every day to add to my spiritual reservoir. It’s really easy to make up excuses. In my phase of life now, but also in every phase of life. We have to make spiritual living a priority.

I loved President Monson’s words this conference, “May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.”

How often do I choose to check Facebook instead of reading the scriptures?

Richard G Scott said, “Don’t yield to Satan’s lie that you don’t have time to study the scriptures. Choose to take time to study them. Feasting on the word of God each day is more important than sleep, school, work, television shows, video games, or social media.”

We need to choose the harder right.

The harder right takes time and effort. Consistent time and effort. But it pays off. Elder Scott went on to say, “Through daily, consistent scripture study, you will find peace in the turmoil around you and strength to resist temptations. You will develop strong faith in the grace of God and know that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ all will be made right according to God’s timing.”

Peace in the turmoil around me. What a wonderful blessing. And this is just for reading the scriptures. How many other aspects of my life am I taking the easy (wrong) way out? What other blessings am I missing out on? What if we all make the effort to read our scriptures, pray, listen to the promptings of the spirit, and be more Christ-like instead of playing Angry birds, watching Netflix, and getting 10 more minutes of sleep.

This week I made it a goal to read the scriptures BEFORE I checked my phone in the morning. Even in this short amount of time, I can already see a difference in my life and in how I interact with my family.

Sometimes I wonder if I will be able to maintain doing the harder right all the time. It is so tempting to do the easy wrong.

In the Bible Dictionary under Grace, it states: “It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts”

Through faith in the atonement we can maintain it! Through the enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ we will be strengthened, and our efforts will be increased.

But not only that, in his recent conference address Elder Bednar stated: “[We can] become new creatures in Christ by receiving in our lives the blessings made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The “merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah” can help us triumph over the self-centered and selfish tendencies of the natural man and become more selfless, benevolent, and saintly.”

So not only will we received strength and assistance, but our very nature will change.

Elder Bednar encourages: “With the help of the Lord and through the power of His Spirit to “teach [us] all things,” indeed we can be blessed to realize our spiritual possibilities… Our weaknesses can be strengthened, and our limitations can be overcome.”

When we do these things, we are happier and we begin to receive the blessings King Benjamin promised in Mosiah 4:12 ““if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins...” We become a better people, better friends, better mothers, fathers, siblings, children, daughter-in-laws, better wives and husbands. More patient and loving, less stressed. Kinder toward everyone we meet, and everyone we interact with online. We will be filled with the love of God, and since charity is the pure love of Christ, we will be a more charitable people.

When we do these everyday things we are continually re-aligning our lives with our Savior’s. We are keeping ourselves on the strait and narrow. Similarly, we are told in D&C 59:9 “And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;”

Elder Bednar stated, “Ordinances….constitute authorized channels through which the blessings and powers of heaven can flow into our individual lives… Ordinances received and honored with integrity are essential to obtaining the power of godliness and all of the blessings made available through the Savior’s Atonement… "

Our daily effort by itself isn’t enough. We need to participate in the ordinance of the sacrament. And to get all the blessings of the sacrament, we need to do the daily effort!

Elder Bednar teaches: “The ordinance of the sacrament is a holy and repeated invitation to repent sincerely and to be renewed spiritually. The act of partaking of the sacrament, in and of itself, does not remit sins. But as we prepare conscientiously and participate in this holy ordinance with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, then the promise is that we may always have the Spirit of the Lord to be with us. And by the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost as our constant companion, we can always retain a remission of our sins.”

Even though I am not able get the entire spiritual feast during sacrament meeting, if I am preparing myself, with a broken heart and contrite spirit, like Elder Bednar says, I can still be renewed spiritually. The small bites I get became more meaningful. Through daily efforts, AND partaking of the sacrament (even if through the arms of a wiggly toddler) I can develop “the spiritual strength and capacity to resist temptation” that President Hinckley mentioned.

I challenge you to start preparing tomorrow. To prepare yourself all week to partake of the sacrament. Choose every day the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

Elder Bednar taught: “Although none of us can achieve perfection in this life, we can become increasingly worthy and spotless as we are “cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.”33 I promise and testify we will be blessed with increased faith in the Savior and greater spiritual assurance as we seek to always retain a remission of our sins and, ultimately, to stand spotless before the Lord at the last day”

I add my testimony that I know of the enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. I have witnessed it in my own life, and have faith that as I exert daily effort, and as I partake of the sacrament, I will be able to overcome my weaknesses and ultimately become perfected in Christ.