I will go and do

Another commission gifted to a friend. We will quite often be called upon to do hard things. God does not give us commandments that we cannot accomplish. But He may give us commandments that will require us to depend on Him to succeed.

Our Escape

Death and Hell--or Physical Death and Spiritual Death--are very aptly compared to a terrible monster, which we cannot hope to escape on our own. Thankfully, God prepared a way for us to escape. It is only through His Son, Jesus Christ, that we are able to escape. Because He laid down his life and took it up again, all mankind will be Resurrected one day; physical death will be conquered, and will have claim over us for only a short time before we too will be resurrected, our bodies perfected and reunited with our spirits, never to be parted again. Because He took upon Himself the sins and pains of the entire world in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Way has been prepared for our liberation from spiritual death as well. All we need to do is take hold, and not let go.

Spirit of Contention

Whatever your religion, whatever your ideology, attacking those who disagree with you doesn't help your cause. That's not to say we shouldn't defend our beliefs. But we can do so without being awful to one another.

Saved By Grace

Many members (and even non-members) are familiar with this scripture from 2 Nephi, or at least the last part. But I think we often misinterpret it. We read "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do," and we think it means "I am only saved by grace after I have done all that I can do; if I don't do all I can do, I won't be saved." In reality, we should interpret it to mean, "Even after all I can do, it is grace that saves me, not my own works."
In the grand scheme of things, our all, our very best and most valiant efforts are pitiful compared to the great debt we owe our Heavenly Father, both because of all He has given us, and because of our own disobedience and unworthiness. Luckily, it is not our good works that pays our debt. Rather, it is by our good works that we show our faith (see James 2:18). It is an act of faith to humbly make our paltry offering, in spite of the great debt we owe. Such faith will ultimately be rewarded by the great gift of our Savior's Grace, which is sufficient to pay the debts of every person who has ever lived and ever will live. We will never be able to repay our Savior for that gift. And if we will accept Him and exercise faith in Him, we'll never have to.

Lehi's Gratitude