stinkin thinkin clean hands pure heart harrison

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While my own father was not a prophet, I was definitely taught from the time I was small what I should and should not do. We can be sure Alma was taught well by his prophet-father, and still he strayed. I keep coming back to the story of Alma the Younger because he is such a great example to me of someone who came to this mighty change “later” in life, after a period of turning away from the righteous teachings of his upbringing. It may be referred to as being “born again” (John 3:3-8 Mosiah 27:25), undergoing “a mighty change” (Mosiah 5:2 Alma 5:11-14), or coming “unto Christ” (Omni 1:26 Moroni 10:30-33). There are many names in the scriptures for the kind of change we are seeking in Step Seven.

The gift of the Holy Ghost … increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them by the gift of wisdom to their lawful use ( Key to Theology, 101-2). This and all other attributes must be cleansed and purified by the influence of the Holy Ghost on our hearts. Our ability to feel intense desire is only evil when it is misused and misapplied. Only when this trait has been enslaved and perverted by Satan’s lies does it become lust. It is a God-given and godly attribute to feel sexual attraction and physical passion. This rebirth experience can include having “weak things become strong” (Ether 12:27) in our lives! The ability to feel a powerful degree of sexual desire is not an evil thing, in and of itself. I bear my solemn testimony to you that this comprehensive change in our very nature can include our attitude toward sex, even though it has been an area of life that has been filled with turmoil, temptation and maladjustment. Tate, Jr., eds., Helaman through 3 Nephi 8: According to Thy Word, 22, emphasis added)

The additional wonder and beauty of the Atonement is that we are not expected to resist sin by will power and personal resolve alone, though such things are essential rather, as we come to gain that life which is in Christ – a life which comes as we seek for and cultivate the Spirit of the Lord – we receive that enabling power which extends to us the strength to forsake and overcome, a power which we could not have generated on our own. We are not in the ultimate sense, therefore, redeemed from our sins, to use Amulek’s and Helaman’s words, until those sins have no more power over us. That is to say, Jesus came to cleanse us from guilt and the taints of transgression he also came to renovate our nature and empower our souls that we are delivered, in process of time, from the effects and pull of those transgressions.

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But we cannot enjoy the full and complete powers of the atonement of Christ until our redemption from sin entails the re-creation of a nature which is foreign to sin. And thanks be to God that it does happen.

There is no way in our present state to comprehend how and in what manner this miracle of miracles was and is brought to pass. It is marvelous beyond the power of expression to contemplate that the Savior can and does forgive our sins. Sometimes we tend to focus so much upon the fact that Jesus Christ died for us that we do not attend to an equally important facet of his redemptive enterprise – the fact that he also came to live in us.