Repentance

Talks

Quotes

“Oh God of second chances and new beginnings – here I am again.”

Man’s autobiography

Chapter 1 – I walked down the street.  I didn’t know there was a big hole.  I fell in the hole.  It took me forever to climb out.

Chapter 2 – I walked down the street.  I knew a hole was there.  I fell in it anyway.

Chapter 3 – I walked down the street.  I knew a hole was there.  I fell into it again.  It has become a habit.

Chapter 4 – I walked down the street.  I saw the hole.  I walked around it.

Chapter 5 – I walked down a different street

We spend most of our lives climbing in and out of holes.  Why not walk down another street?  There’s only one street without holes – the strait and narrow one.

Everysin must be paid for.  The question is – who will pay? 

One day each of us will run out of tomorrows.

We are not punished for our sins.  We are punished by our sins.

Christ could have stopped his grief at any point, but he thought of you and kept going. 

Live each day and be done with it. 

Forgive yourself for past mistakes.“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”  When we have truly repented, the Lord forgives and forgets.  And so should we.  Sometimes we mistakenly believe that part of the repentance process involves beating ourselves over the head for 15 years for each mistake.  This is not necessary.  In fact, it is destructive. – Shannon Williams

You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast.  Another satanic sucker punch is that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent.  That’s just not true.  It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change” – and mean it.  Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make.  You may well spend – indeed, you had better spend – the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence.  But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as they did for Alma and the sons of Mosiah…..Only Satan would say, “You can’t change.  You won’t change.  Give up.  Give in.  Don’t’ repent.  You are just the way you are.”  That is a lie born of desperation.  Don’t fall for it (However Long and Hard the Road 919850, 6-7).  Jeffrey R. Holland’s promise.

Jeffrey Holland BYU devotional January 13, 2009 – Excellent talk called “Remember Lot’s Wife” Don’t dwell on the past.  Don’t look back.

You can rationalize or repent.

Elder Renlund’s talk October 2016: “President Boyd K. Packer affirmed the hopeful promises of repentance in April 2015 at his last general conference. He described the power of the Savior’s Atonement to heal in what I consider the distillation of the wisdom gained in half a century of apostolic service. President Packer said: “The Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces. What it fixes is fixed. … It just heals, and what it heals stays healed. The Atonement, which can reclaim each one of us, bears no scars. That means that no matter what we have done or where we have been or how something happened, if we truly repent, [the Savior] has promised that He would atone. And when He atoned, that settled that. … 

“… The Atonement … can wash clean every stain no matter how difficult or how long or how many times repeated.

The greatest lie ever told on this planet was by an excommunicated member of the church – Lucifer.  “You’ve done so much bad and so many wrong things that you can never make it or be forgiven.”

If you don’t learn from your mistakes, what’s the use of making them?

“The truth never hurts – unless it ought to.” – B. C. Forbes

Atonement – we must pay the deductible so we appreciate the part He paid.

There may not be peace in the world, but there can be peace in our hearts.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance; but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.  St. Augustine

The truth shall make you free, but first it shall make your miserable.

Would you like to sit in a room by yourself with your life video and a pair of scissors? 

The obstacle in front of us is never as big as the power behind us.

Stop being ashamed of your temptations.  It’s not a sin to be tempted.  James 1:12

Even Christ was tempted – he was still perfect.

Focus your mind on victory, not past failures.  Imagine Christ there lovingly placing his arm around your shoulder and giving you encouragement.

You can’t solve spiritual problems with human solutions.

“I am a disciple of Christ.  I will do nothing to disappoint him.”

Sin never starts with an action.  It always starts with a thought.  You can therefore never change a habit by focusing on actions.(Paraphrased from Carleen Tanner Ricks Education Week 1999)

What does rock bottom look like with your weakness?  He Did Deliver Me From Bondage by Colleen Harrison quote “Don’t worry if you’re not motivated to change.  Life will bring you to the point of motivation.”  You can choose to be humble or be compelled to be humble. 

Bob Hudson in Sunday School, as taught by his father “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!”

Lessons learned about repentance and the Atonement:

• Satan only wants to destroy us.  He has no pure motives whatsoever.  He constantly lies to us to make us questions ourselves and our relationship with God. 
• The Atonement of Jesus Christ is powerful enough to right any wrong, to remove any pain, to relieve any suffering, and to heal any individual.
• Guilt clouds everything in our lives.  It extinguishes the spirit within us.  It turns off the light in someone’s life.  There is nothing more important than having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  Nothing.
• Prayer and scripture study every day of our lives is not optional.

Medical examiners often perform autopsies on physical bodies to determine the cause of death. If we were to perform an autopsy on a spiritual death it might look something like this: A good person commits a sin.  He feels guilt.  If he repents right then and there, he’s fine.  But often he allows it to fester.  Satan starts telling him lies.  He says, “You can’t pray.  You’re not worthy.  God won’t answer your prayer because you don’t deserve it.”  So he quits praying.  He tries to compartmentalize the guilt because it hurts.  Every time he feels the spirit, the wound is reopened and he feels the guilt.  So he copes by avoiding the spirit at all costs.  He stops reading scriptures, stops going to church, etc.  Slowly he enters a downward spiral – less spirit, easier to sin, less spirit, easier to sin until he is past feeling and hard hearted.  Then he gives up all together.

Alma 36:18-21 Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death.  And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.

I’ve been studying a lot lately about covenants, and trying to understand why they’re so important to The Lord. There are so many good people, but they won’t be saved until they enter into sacred covenants with The Lord. Why? Hartman Rector Jr. said, “You see, there is a difference between stopping sinning and repentance….People stop sinning all the time because they are afraid they will get AIDS or die of lung cancer or some other reason, but they do not get rid of their sins”. The Lord isn’t just about stopping sinning, He is all about what we START doing. When we enter into covenants, not only do we stop bad behavior, but we promise to START doing good–serving others, following the Savior, relying on the Spirit, etc. This Gospel isn’t about what we leave behind, it’s about what we can BECOME through the Atonement of Christ. I hope we can each ask The Lord what we need to leave behind, and then work hard to be who He would have us be.  -Sister Rachel Larsen

Satan’s increasing influence in the world is allowed to provide an atmosphere in which to prove ourselves. While he causes havoc today, Satan’s final destiny was fixed by Jesus Christ through His Atonement and the Resurrection. The devil will not triumph. Even now he must operate within the bounds set by the Lord. He cannot take away any blessing that has been earned. He cannot alter character that has been woven from righteous decisions. He has no power to destroy the eternal bonds forged in a holy temple between a husband, wife, and children. He cannot quench true faith. He cannot take away your testimony. Yes, these things can be lost by succumbing to his temptations. But he has no power in and of himself to destroy them. (Richard G. Scott October 2010 conference) 

You know that you know.  Don’t fight it.

Jesus Christ – You can’t know him until you come to need him – Chris Nelson

Moses in the Pearl of Great Price.  Satan appeared to him and asked him to worship him.  God appeared to him and asked him to worship him.  Moses immediately could differentiate between the two.  You need to listen to the voices in your head and differentiate between the two.

Clean, Reclaim, and Sanctify Our Lives by Elder Shayne M. Bowen – fantastic talk in October 2006 about repentance

Jesus suffered in Gethsemane for all the sins of the world, even the ones that wouldn’t be repented of.  For those of us who repent, it was worth it because he suffered so that we didn’t have to. However, for those who don’t repent, his suffering was in vain.  He went through all of that for nothing.  There’s no reason that two people should have to endure such incredible suffering for the same sin.

Elder Bruce C. Hafen has written, “The great Mediator asks for our repentance not because we must ‘repay’ him in exchange for his paying our debt to justice, but because repentance initiates a developmental process that, with the Savior’s help, leads us along the path to a saintly character” (The Broken Heart [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989], 149; emphasis in original).

In April 2018 General Conference Elder Lynn G. Robbins shared the following: “Success,” it has been said, “isn’t the absence of failure, but going from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.” With his invention of the light bulb, Thomas Edison purportedly said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

So, amid a life full of stumbling blocks and imperfection, we all are grateful for second chances. Repentance is God’s ever-accessible gift that allows and enables us to go from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm. Repentance isn’t His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance is His plan, knowing that we will. 

“Are you battling a demon of addiction—tobacco or drugs or gambling, or the pernicious contemporary plague of pornography? Is your marriage in trouble or your child in danger? Are you confused with gender identity or searching for self-esteem? Do you—or someone you love—face disease or depression or death? Whatever other steps you may need to take to resolve these concerns, come first to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trust in heaven’s promises. In that regard Alma’s testimony is my testimony: “I do know,” he says, “that whosoever shall put their trust in God shall be supported in their trials, and their troubles, and their afflictions.”

This reliance upon the merciful nature of God is at the very center of the gospel Christ taught. I testify that the Savior’s Atonement lifts from us not only the burden of our sins but also the burden of our disappointments and sorrows, our heartaches and our despair.

If you are lonely, please know you can find comfort. If you are discouraged, please know you can find hope. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be strengthened. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be mended.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, “Broken Things to Mend”, April 2006)

Stephen Robinson says, “The first Article of Faith specifies that we must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  But believing in Jesus’ identity as the Christ is only the first half of it.  The other half is believing in his ability, in his power to cleanse and to save – to make unworthy sons and daughters worthy.  Not only must we believe that he is who he says he is, we must also believe that he can do what he says he can do.  One individual might say, “ Oh Bishop, I can’t expect the same blessings as the faithful Saints.  I can’t expect to be exalted in the kingdom of God because I sinned horribly.  You see, I did this, or I did that.  Of course I’ll come to church and hope for the best, but I can’t possibly be exalted after what I did.”  If we believe only in Christ without believing Christ, then we are like people sitting in cold, dark houses surrounded by unused lamps and heaters, people who believe in electricity but who never throw the switch to turn on the power.  No matter how much of the gospel one learns or even believes as a theory, until we accept the reality of our own salvation, we have not yet turned on the power.” Stephen Robinson – Believing Christ

In General Conference 2006 Shayne M. Bowen said, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ is available to each of us. His Atonement is infinite. It applies to everyone, even you. It can clean, reclaim, and sanctify even you. That is what infinite means—total, complete, all, forever. President Boyd K. Packer has taught: “There is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the atonement of Christ” (“The Brilliant Morning of Forgiveness,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 20).

Jeffrey Holland, in his talk “Remember Lot’s Wife” said, “I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone…..The past is to be learned from but not lived in.  …When we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future.”

“When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open up some ancient wound which the Son of God Himself died trying to heal…..If something is buried in the past, leave it buried.”

“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42). The proviso, of course, is that repentance has to be sincere, but when it is and when honest effort is being made to progress, we are guilty of the greater sin if we keep remembering and recalling and rehashing someone with their earlier mistakes, and that “someone” might be ourselves.  Like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons of war, and leave them buried.  Forgive, and do that which is harder than to forgive. Forget.  And when it comes to mind, forget it again.  You can remember just enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but put the rest of it on the dung heap Paul spoke of to those Phillipians….God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are, and with His help, where you are willing to go.” BYU Devotional January 13, 2009

“We all make mistakes.  We can all identify with Nephi when he said, “O wretched man that I am!  Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.  I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.  And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.” (2 Nephi 4:17-19)

“Even though Nephi was discouraged and depressed by his inability to live perfectly, he trusted the Savior to get him to the kingdom anyway.  He trusted the Savior and was confident in the Savior’s love.  Nephi was saying, “No, I’m not perfect.  Yes, my faults bother me, and yes, I wish I did a better job.  Nevertheless, I have faith in Jesus Christ, I trust him. He says he can get me into his kingdom despite my imperfections, and I believe him.  I know he loves me, and I trust him to continue saving me from all my enemies.” (Stephen Robinson Believing Christ pg 22)

In Ether 12:27 we read, “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.  I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”

Wonderful excerpts from the book He Did Deliver Me From Bondage –by Colleen Harrison. “Do you have a problem?  An insurmountable problem of any nature?  Is there some aspect of your life in which you are out of control, unable to “govern” yourself or your life? Is it alcohol or some other drug, legal or illegal?  Is it a compulsive sexual behavior pattern?  Is it your weight or a disordered behavior towards food and eating?  Is it compulsive use of money?  Or excessive work commitments that consume you and your family’s lives?  Or is your downfall a desperate obsession with trying to help and control and fix other people and their mistakes, cover all their needs or die trying?” (Harrison, pg. 96).  You have two alternatives – you can try to overcome it yourself, or recognize your powerlessness and access the power of the Savior’s Atonement.

“On our own, the best we can accomplish is a sort of “white knuckle” uptight feeling of resistance to our desire to sin.  The fact is that internally, nothing has been changed, and we still want to “do it” (whatever our sin is) just one more time.  This state of constant struggle is not the best we can hope for.  Life was not meant to be a long, slow, torturous journey of constant tension, fear and guilt.” (Harrison, pg 98-99)

Now, think of the alternative.  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to stop overeating simply because you have no more desire to do it?  Wouldn’t it be a miracle if you could stop losing your temper, not because you bit your tongue or went somewhere alone and slugged a pillow, but because you have no more disposition to strike out at others?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could live on a budget, not because you had no charge cards, but because you didn’t desire to overuse them?  Or to stop looking at pornography on the Internet, not because you’ve installed a content filter or cancelled your service, but because you have no more desire to look at it.  And finally, …wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that “peace which passeth understanding?” (Phillipians 4:7) (Harrison, pg 95)

The only way to achieve long term-success is to go to the root of the problem. True self -mastery comes from turning our “self” over to the Master.(Harrison, pg 17-18)

Too many of us are saying to ourselves, “When I’ve done it, when I’ve perfected myself, when I’ve made myself completely righteous, then I’ll be worthy of the Atonement.  Then Christ can do his work and exalt me.”  But this will never happen, for it puts the cart before the horse.  It’s like saying, “When my tumor is gone, then I’ll call the doctor.  I’ll be ready for him then.”  This is not how things are designed to work either in medicine or in the gospel.  “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” (Matt 9:12) Stephen Robinson, Believing Christ

Let me share some excerpts from a talk given by Elder Craig A. Cardon in April 2013: “We do well to remember that with very few exceptions, the Lord’s “seventy times seven” does not limit forgiveness according to the seriousness of the sin…….He has said that “he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.”  Yet, in His mercy, He allows for improvement over time rather than demanding immediate perfection.  Even with the multitude of sins occasioned by the weakness of mortality, as often as we repent and seek His forgiveness, He forgives again and again…..As we consider our own lives and the lives of our loved ones and acquaintances, we should be equally willing to forgive ourselves and others.”

That is why it’s called the infinite atonement.  It’s not like a warranty we receive when we buy a new appliance that has certain restrictions.  It is infinite – there is nothing the Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot heal.  Like President Monson said, “Look to the lighthouse of the Lord, There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost but what its beacon light can rescue.” 

Mosiah 26:30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

The depth and breadth and height of His willingness to work with us are infinite, limited only by our willingness (or lack of willingness) to work with Him.  Again and again in the scriptures we find the testimony that His love will outlast the process of perfecting us, no matter how long it takes. (Colleen Harrison He Did Deliver Me From Bondage pg 137)

We must realize that it takes time to rid ourselves of the “old ways.”  Our nature has been changed, not our past.  Neither have our bodies been changed.  We are still subject to hunger, fatigue, etcetera.  We must give ourselves allowance for these imperfections and be willing to admit them and accept them.  When we relapse we must not get discouraged or despair that these principles do not work.  We must keep trusting in God, realizing that often His pattern is to ease our burden before relieving our bondage altogether. (Colleen Harrison He Did Deliver Me From Bondage pg A 17)

Stephen Robinson in his book “Believing Christ” says the following: Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sings be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” I would like to expand upon this scripture just a little bit to make sure that the significance of it doesn’t get past us.  What the Lord is saying here is this: “It doesn’t matter what you did.  Whatever it was, no matter how horrible or vile, is not the issue.  The issue here is that whatever your sin was or is, I can erase it, I can clean you up and make you innocent, pure and worthy, and I can do it today, I can do it now.”

Unfortunately, there are many members of the church who simply do not believe this.  Though they claim to have testimonies of Christ and of his gospel, they reject the witness of the scriptures and of the prophets about the good news of Christ’s atonement.  Often these people naively hold on to mutually contradictory propositions without even realizing the nature of the contradiction.  For example, they may believe that the church is true, that Jesus is the Christ, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, while at the same time refusing to accept the possibility of their own complete forgiveness and eventual exaltation in the kingdom of God.  They believe in Christ, but they do not believe Christ.  He says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.  I can make you pure and worthy and celestial, “ and they answer back, “No, you can’t.  The gospel only works for other people; it won’t work for me.”

The first Article of Faith specifies that we must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We often think that having faith in Christ means believing in his identity as the Son of God and the Savior of the world.  But believing in Jesus’ identity as the Christ is only the first half of it.  The other half is believing in his ability, in his power to cleanse and to save – to make unworthy sons and daughters worthy.  Not only must we believe that he is who he says he is, we must also believe that he can do what he says he can do.” ( Stephen Robinson Believing Christ pg 9-10)

Colleen Harrison said, “When the pain of the problem gets worse than the pain of the solution, you’ll be ready to change. (If you are puzzled over the meaning of that statement and need an example of what it means, just think how desperately ready to face labor and deliver the ninth month of pregnancy makes most women.) In other words, if you find yourself not really willing to put forth the effort to (repent), don’t worry.  Life will eventually bring you to a place of readiness to accept the truth that God and His ways are the only solution that works.” (Harrison, He Did Deliver Me From Bondage pg. 11)  You can choose to be humble or be compelled to be humble.