Out With the Passive

In  3 Ne. 27: 19 it says, "And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end."

    This verse has been on my mind recently and has caused me to do a great deal of pondering and study on the subject. The main part that sticks out to me is the beginning. It reads, "no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom." In order to return to live with our Heavenly Father we must become clean. This brought me to the question of what makes us unclean? The answer to that is sin. Sin makes us unclean and prevents us from inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven. Sin is knowingly going against the will of God. We make our claim on the Kingdom of Heaven void when we go against the will of God. The rest of the verse denotes that there is action involved in the process of aligning our will with God's. This brings me to the title of this post, Out With the Passive.
    First, I would like to note the next part of this verse that reads, "therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood." From this we gather that there are no exceptions to the prerequisites for entering the Kingdom of Heaven. We need to wash ourselves clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. How do we make ourselves clean though? The rest of the verse tells us that we must have faith, repent, and endure faithfully to the end if we are to wash ourselves clean. I feel that there is a common misconception in the world. Many people believe that all we have to do is seek forgiveness everytime we do something wrong in order to get back to Heaven. This is partly true. We definitely must seek forgiveness but we do that through repentance. Repentance is also change. Previously we have established that an aligning of our will's with God's is necessary for entrance into His kingdom. If we simply ask for forgiveness everytime that we do something wrong have we aligned our will with God's? Have we changed ourselves to be more like Him? The answer is no.
   Also, I believe that most everyone in the world does not understand what God has asked of us. He hasn't asked for part of our will or 75% of our will, He has asked for all of it. He wants us to completely align our will with His. How do we go about doing this? In order to align our will with God's we must first seek to know His will. We need to find out what He wants for us and apply what we find to our lives. We cannot be saved in ignorance. As we seek for understanding, God will make us aware of the changes that we need to make. One thing that I have found out is that we still suffer the consequences of sins (transgressions) that we have unknowingly committed. Even if we are doing something wrong and are not aware that we are doing something wrong, it still makes us unclean. If we are unclean we cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This brings me to the point that I am trying to make. If we are to become fully clean we must act! We come to understand the Gospel more fully as we live it. We cannot afford to make the mistake of believing that enduring to the end means going to church every week and passively reading our scriptures and praying. We must progress to the end! In 2 Nephi 28:30 it states, "For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have." Each day we must learn line upon line. Continual improvement is the Celestial motto. Begin today to make a change. Do the words you use and the music you listen to invite the Spirit? Do you spend your time productively? Are you living your life as the Savior would? Ask yourself these questions. Evaluate your day to day activities and measure your progress. If you are not becoming more like your Heavenly Father each day then you are not on the right path. I know from my experience that as soon as obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, we are endowed with power. We are shown the way and the gate is opened. My plea to you today is to become clean. Let your carnal desires be swallowed up by the person you were before this life and become the person the Lord would have you be.