Be Reconciled to God
Posted by Ben Thu, 13 Oct 2005 10:00:00 GMT
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved. (2 Nephi 10:24).
These past weeks after General Conference, its really started to hit me how serious this life really is. There are so many distractions with the busy reality of modern life, that I think I’ve often failed to recognize that the most important things we do while on this earth are of a spiritual nature.
Since recognizing this, I’ve made an effort to bring more spirituality into my life. I’ve began by just re-reading through some of the talks given at the last conference.
I read through Elder Eyrings this week, which is an extremely timely message. As part of his talk, he quotes the above scripture. Something jumped out at me as I read them that really hadn’t hit me before, and that is the word reconcile.
I was curious what exactly that word mean, so I looked it up in the 1828 websters dictionary, and here’s what I found:
To call back into union and friendship the affections which have been alienated; to restore to friendship or favor after estrangement;
To bring to acquiescence, content or quiet submission
The first defenition is especially fitting, I think. When we reconcile our selves to the will of God, we do bring our will into submission to his laws. As we do this, we are also restoring the friendship and affections which we’ve not enjoyed because of our own sins and because of the fall.
After we have regained our Father’s friendship and affections, then he can save us through the grace of his Son. That is just perfect doctrine.
What a thoughtful and inspiring entry. Very well said. You pointing out the 1828 definition of reconcile reminded me of one of the doctrines taught in the Lectures on Faith--that our Heavenly Father's most prominent personality trait is his compassion and love for his children. What in this case is described as friendship is in my mind what Moroni calls the Pure love of Christ, or in modern terms would be written Christ's Love. If you look at it this way, you realize that he who obtains Christlike love also obtains Christ's love and he is reconciled with Christ and God.