Posted on by Abe Austin

Influence and Persuasion- Moses 3:17, Moses 7:32

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;

COMMENTARY

Thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself
The Lord said I gave unto them their knowledge; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency
God made stones that lack any freedom of will, and therefore obey His commands completely. But for His children He did not want mindless rocks. He wanted people that lived, and acted, and chose. And He wanted that, even if it meant they would not obey His will completely. Even if it meant they would use that ability of choice to choose against Him.
In the Garden of Eden He made His will perfectly clear to Adam and Eve, but He also made it perfectly clear that they could ignore His will and do the exact opposite. And sometimes this seems baffling! A part of us may want to shout out “Well of course they went astray! You should have put in more safeguards and controls! If there isn’t anything keeping us tied to you then we’re all going to leave you sooner or later!”
And yes, that is exactly what happens with each of us, isn’t it? So long as nothing pushes us to disobey we’ll stay innocent, but eventually Satan comes and tempts us with the fruit. We’ll look at that temptation, then look over our shoulder to see if God really isn’t going to stop us. And He’s really not going to. And we’re gone.
“You had us, God,” we sadly think. “But you didn’t make us stay so you lost us!” But as we will see tomorrow, this isn’t the case at all.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Captive Heart- Psalm 34:18, Luke 15:7, Matthew 5:3-6

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

COMMENTARY

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart
Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine which need no repentance
Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness
Previously we spoke of how Jesus came to rescue the lost and the broken, and so long as we maintain that we’re “just fine,” there is very little that he can do for us. The Psalmist also recognized that the ones that the Lord is nearest to are not the perfect and seemingly well-put-together, but rather those with broken hearts and contrite spirits.
Indeed, Jesus goes so far as to say that there is greater joy in heaven for the lost soul that is saved, than for ninety-nine saved souls that were retained. He also specifically calls out blessings on the poor in spirit, the mournful, the meek, and the hungry.
The gospel takes the things that are paradoxes and contradictions in normal life, and makes them possible. And in the gospel, it is blessed to be broken.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Making Time for God- Summary

Many of us see the tragedies in the world, feel very discontented by them, and idly hoped that “someone would do something.” I certainly have had those moment myself, times where I vaguely wished for God’s help in the world, but at the same time was not actively making Him a part of my life.

Even then, I knew in my heart that God’s help is enacted through the people that strive to walk with Him. Therefore by not making Him a part of my life, I was actively disqualifying myself from being one of the instruments that I knew the world needed.

So maybe I don’t know how to cure all of the world’s problems. Maybe some of them I can’t do anything about. But I do know that there is some impact for good that I can do, and the only way to do it is if I am actively making time for God. This study helped me to explore why this is easier said than done, though, and what strategies we can employ to counter those obstacles.

Making Time for God is Just Hard

The most frustrating thing about not putting God first is that we feel like it should be an easy thing for us to do. We think that giving Him daily devotion and training our thoughts to be pure should simply be a matter of dedicating a few minutes to him and exercising some mindfulness. When we fail to achieve this, we start to think that there’s something wrong with us.
The simple, and hopefully encouraging, truth is that making time for God is not easy, and there is nothing wrong with us when we struggle to do it. We all live in a fallen world, one that is intent on crowding out things of a spiritual nature. The distractions of life are expertly subtle, cloaked so innocently that we don’t give them a second thought, and then they silently leech our time and energy from God.
Any opening in our lives is a vacuum that will be filled. In my own life I’ve noticed how I always seem to be subscribed to just enough YouTube channels to fill up all my available time. If ever I try to cut back, something instantly springs up to take its place. Something little, something innocuous, but something that isn’t God.
1 Corinthians 2:14- But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

We Are In Our Own Way

The problem with that “natural man” is that, well, it is natural. It is inside all of us without exception. There is a craving for the worldly distractions that each one of us is born with. It might manifest with different tastes, but each of those tastes can be easily indulged on this earth. Do you prefer lust? Do you desire recognition? Do you want a thrill? Gossip? Idle entertainment? Meaningless achievements? A never-ending chase for something new? It’s all here, take your fill, the supply will never run out!
In the end our problem doesn’t begin with the pornography or television shows or workaholic mentality. It’s that we don’t know how to just say “No!” to these things. We do not know how to master our selves, to meet our needs in healthy ways, to steer ourselves to something better.
We can’t make time for God because we can’t keep our own promises to ourselves. We can’t escape our sins and vanities because we don’t have the nerve to live without them.
1 Corinthians 3:3- For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Mosiah 3:19- For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord.

Putting God First Requires an Entirely New Us

And now we get to the bottom of it. This is why putting God first is so hard: because it requires a totally new version of ourselves, one where our spiritual self has defeat the carnal. But how can our spiritual self be powerful enough to defeat the carnal, except for by us having already putting God first in our lives?
It is a conundrum that is beyond us, a paradox that would halt us all, were a Savior not to intervene. We cannot lift ourselves by our own bootstraps…but he can lift us. He can pull us out of the water, because he alone can stand unsinking upon it.
Making time for God and becoming someone new are able to happen in one and the same moment with Christ’s help. Yes, at the start we lack the necessary self-mastery, but he will give us of his own. He asks us to choose one way that we can make God more a part of our lives, and if we sincerely try, then he will make up the difference and we can hold that change. And then another after that and another. The further we go, the less of a void he has to fill within us, the more we have been remade as him.
Making time for God isn’t just the first step along the way towards perfection, it is the entire journey.
2 Corinthians 5:17: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.