The Awesome Mercy of Christ

Not too many days ago, I was going through a real crisis of the soul. I can't describe it, though I wish I could. I was stepping back from God out of fear of the future, yet was trying not to, as I poured out my heart and soul. After two or three days, it abated enough that I could talk to God "like a normal person," and I was in cognitive dissonance at how he could forgive me so readily for the things I'd been feeling, thinking, and saying (even while I was struggling to believe differently, to believe faithfully).

The mercy and understanding of Jesus Christ is incredible, indeed!

Redemption

I was reading in a book1 and, in a list about some LDS teachings, the author wrote: “As sinners we cannot be redeemed without Jesus." She wrote this as if it was a bad thing. And I began to think about that. According to a man2 who has seen Jesus in Gethsemane, Jesus suffered two things: He suffered the horrors of those who had hurt others when they finally realized how bad their actions really were, and then he came to peace with God, thus knowing how to lead them back to God. He also suffered the physical and nonphysical pains of the victims, including their resentments and anger, and came to peace with God.

From what I understand, the redemption consists of Jesus teaching us to follow the path he trod with each of us in Gethsemane. Because he lived each of our experiences and found his way to peace with God, he can tell and show us how to do the same thing. It has nothing to do with harming us or making us subservient to any organized (or even unorganized) religion or to taking away our freedoms to choose.

(I would recommend reading Luna’s book. Honestly, though, I don’t think it’s worth owning. She has a lot of truth in there, but she also has a lot of misunderstandings about God. Like the organized churches, she conflates their doctrine with God’s. For example, we should be obedient to God, but that equates to obeying the leaders. In fact, obeying him often puts one at variance with organized religions and their prideful (and often greedy for money and power) leaders.

The point of this post, though, is that the redemption is not there to limit our freedoms, but to teach us to come to peace, in ourselves, with God. The thing she does not understand is that God loves us an incredible amount. If we listen to him and not to men, we will get farther. Yes, he does send messengers when the people as a whole have gone astray. At the same time, true messengers will teach that we need to connect with God. Also, true messengers are human and can screw up. Because of that we each need our own connection with heaven, and, like I said in an earlier post, all of us have that connection because Christ literally stepped out of time and walked our paths with us. Also, him being "in and through all things", and by him "all things were created," means that we also have that connection with him. We can ignore it. We can refuse to follow it, but it is there.

To follow our own soul’s connection to God is not slavery, but freedom.



1 Recovering Agency – Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, by Luna Lindsey, an epub book.
2 Denver Snuffer Jr.

The Atonement and Me

The atonement and me. The atonement is me. Did you ever think of the atonement of Christ as being that personal?

I was listening to this podcast on the atonement of Christ a couple of nights ago. I'd read the words before in a book called Come, Let Us Adore Him, but something struck me that I hadn't quite thought of before. I thought on it, I pondered on it. I want to share what came to me, and I hope that I make sense. This taps into a science we don't have access to at this time.

During the atonement, Jesus stepped outside of time and felt for every human being who had ever been born on this planet and who ever would be born here (or who had their ancestry here). We don't have a science that can replicate that, as far as I know. I'm not talking about woo-woo science nor subjective experiences. I'm talking about something that can be provably replicated.

This is what I understood: Jesus stepped outside of time and essentially became one with each individual. He walked in our shoes. He lived our lives with us (whether we had been born or not). He is with us now because of that crack in time that allowed him to go into eternity and somehow merge with each of us along the timeline of the earth.

He lived our illnesses, our wounds. He lived our hurts and our hurting of others. He lived our denial that we have hurt others. He lived our anger and vengeance toward someone who had victimized us. He lived our cruel pranks (on both sides). He knows because he has lived it, right alongside us, inside us as it were.

It sounds like some sort of science that says we are all living everything at the same "time" but not the same time. (How's that for not making sense?)

As he tapped into every soul, he overcame the darkness that is in every soul. Because of this act (which we can't seem to fully comprehend) he is literally with each one of us each day of our lives. Only a heartbeat away, willing to take away our pain and sorrows because he has already done so, from our birth to our judgment. He did it and he overcame, and because he was each one of us and overcame, he can fill us with his love (which is the thing he used as the tool to overcome) so that we, also, can overcome. Anything. We can overcome anything if we are willing to do so.

But he won't force us to turn to him. He won't force us to recognize that he is always with us (always, because he stepped out of time and followed timeless a rule to do so). We can choose to ignore him, if we wish.

I am seriously thinking that the light of Christ that enlightens every human was put there when Christ paid the price for sin in the garden of Gethsemane, that it stretched backward from him and forward from him. That is why we are connected to him. That is why we can turn inward and access God.

Bottom line: The Lord is with each one of us all the time in a very real way (even if angels or "the Spirit" is grieved and leaves). He has felt our sorrows, illnesses, pains, and sins in a very real way because he became us - each one of us.

I find it an interesting bit of science, and I find that it brings me closer to Christ. It makes me trust him more. It makes me have more faith in him.

We speak of Christ. We rejoice in Christ.

We speak of Christ. We rejoice in Christ.

My friend, Jeremy, created this blog so we could rejoice in Christ. I have been thinking of what I might say. I wanted to bear powerful testimony. Something on the order of “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Alas, words fail me. The words I would like to have, anyway.

He is my Redeemer. He is my friend. He is my salvation. A thought came to me. My small attempt at rejoicing in Christ.

I had a dream a long time ago. It was over twenty years ago – before I was ever married. In this dream, one of my brothers (Rodell) and I were traveling. We stopped at a small town. He left. I stayed a while.

This town had one major enemy. This enemy (a man) would occasionally show up near town. The rules were that when the alarm sounded, everyone was to run outside of town and hide – in the grass, in the bushes, behind rocks, anywhere. If the enemy came anywhere near you, even if he didn't see you, the rule was that you should stand up quickly, say, “Here I am,” and let him kill you. I thought that was a stupid rule.

One day, the enemy came and we all hightailed it out of there. I was hiding in some grass, squatting down with my hands on the ground to support me. I saw the enemy's feet walk nearby, stop as he looked around, then he passed on. I wasn't about to jump up and shout, “Here I am.”

Instead, I looked around and picked up a brown stone that was elongated. In fact, it looked like a large potato. I stood up and threw it at the man. It hit him in the back and killed him.

The mayor was furious. I wasn't supposed to vanquish the enemy. I was supposed to give in to him. Talk about ungrateful.

Two or three years ago, during my daily study time, I thought about that dream. I decided I wanted to pursue it in meditation, to see if it meant what I had thought. (I had thought the enemy represented the devil.)

I sat back and began to meditate. I brought him clearly to my mind, but I wasn't brave enough to throw the stone. It wasn't until the second or third meditation that I did. I moved my arm as if actually throwing one, to help make the visualization more real. The results were not at all what I had expected. He didn't fall down dead at all.

As soon as the stone hit his back, he turned around and stared at me. His eyes were incredible. They drew me in. In his eyes, I saw every sin I had ever committed, every sin I was tempted to commit, and every sin he wanted me to commit that I either had not thought of or was not tempted with at the moment. The message was, “You want to do these things. These things will heal you. They will fill the void of never having had a father. They will make everything better.” And I do mean “everything”. Every heartache. Every pain. I was sinking into his power, wanting to sin, wanting to do everything his eyes told me I wanted to do.

At the same time, in the perimeters – or at the cellular level, I was becoming alarmed and concerned. I was powerless to pull away. I was powerless to move my mind and desires elsewhere. But these little cells, these little somethings that are a part of me cried out for help. They begged for help.

The man was in front of me. Jesus appeared to my right, about as far away from me as the man was. Together, we made a triangle. Jesus had a bow. He had arrows in a holder on his back. He fitted an arrow to the bow, and shot the man dead. The man had never known Jesus was there. He was concentrating all of his power on me. Another strange thing is that the arrow went into his back (where the stone had hit him in the original dream), yet his side was facing Jesus. All he had to do was turn his head ever so slightly, and he would have seen Jesus.

Then I was able to come out of the meditation.

I've thought about that dream-meditation several times. Jesus rescued me. At first, I thought I was pretty stupid to think I could take on this enemy by myself, but today it occurs to me that the dream was accurate. I did vanquish the enemy. I vanquished him through my faith on Jesus Christ.

The power of the enemy was incredible. He used my own emotional wounds to draw me in. I can't describe the feeling, the longing to be healed, to be safe. He promised this. Healing, safety, fulfillment. They were all lies. He really sought my destruction.

But Jesus was there. All I had to do was want to be saved, with my whole soul. At least the part of the soul that was not held captive.

And I suppose that's the message I want to get across. If we want Jesus to rescue us, if we want that with our whole soul (even if that “whole soul” isn't much, because of our wounds), He will come. He will help us. He will vanquish the enemy of our soul.

Toni