Life Rock Two! My Savior
For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
—1 Corinthians 10:4
Whose am I?
Look at your hands. Now look at your arms. Look at your knees and your feet. Look at yourself in the mirror. What do you see? You see you! You see your body. But whose body is it? Who do you belong to?
I remember the moment when I first realized I wasn’t my own. My body wasn’t mine! What a strange thought that was. I always figured I belonged to me. I figured since these were my hands, my feet, and my face, it must be my body.
I guess the Corinthians thought the same thing, so Paul wrote them a letter, which began with a one-word question: “What?” It sounds like Paul was surprised by their misunderstanding. (When an Apostle starts out with, “What?” you know we’re being a little bit dense.)
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)
Did you catch that? “Ye are not your own” and “ye are bought with a price.” And what price was that? How much are you worth? That’s an interesting question. The price was the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He bought us, and that’s why we call Him our Redeemer. So now we belong to Him.
Knowing we don’t own ourselves kind of gives us a different perspective on things, doesn’t it? When so many people in the world think they can do whatever they want with their bodies, including all kinds of violations of the law of chastity and the Word of Wisdom, we know that we belong to our Redeemer. He bought us with His blood.
I was watching a movie called The Errand of Angels, which was about sister missionaries in Austria. At one point, one of the sisters commented to the other, “There are two names on your name tag.”
“Good point,” I thought, “your own name, and the name of Jesus Christ.”
Always “With You”
Jesus Christ is a Life Rock, and building on the rock of Christ means you are never, ever, ever alone. He is always “with you.” I suppose some of you reading this book might be sixteen- to eighteen-year-old priests in your ward or branch. And what promise do you recite at the very end of each of the sacrament prayers? “That they may always have his Spirit to be with them” (D&C 20:77; emphasis added). There it is. The Lord never wants you to feel alone. He has set up a system so that He can always be “with you.” Indeed, there are two names on your name tag.
And, just so you don’t forget, the Lord arranged it so that you’ll hear those prayers each Sunday and be not only reminded but reminded by a covenant that God will be “with you”—and He always, always, always keeps His covenants.
As you know, when we are baptized, we take upon us the name of Christ, and we renew that covenant at the sacrament table each week. We know that we are spirit children of Heavenly Father, but when we accept the Atonement, we also become children of Christ because we’re “born again.” Elder Bruce C. Hafen taught:
In introducing the sacrament to the Nephites, Christ said, “And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my spirit to be with you” (3 Nephi 18:11; emphasis added). So Christ first spoke the sacrament prayer as He personally taught what the sacrament is. And the promised “with you” is more than a formal prayer; it is His voice, speaking His promise of constant companionship to each of us. (Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times, 34)
The first “Life Rock” answered the questions, “Who am I, and who is God?” I’ve chosen the second “Life Rock” to answer the question “Whose am I?” We belong to Christ because we have taken His name upon us.
Take a look at your scriptures. Did you get your name embossed on them at the bookstore? What does that mean? It means they belong to you. What does it mean, then, when you take upon you the name of Christ at baptism? It means you belong to Him. The Lord assured Alma, “Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine” (Mosiah 26:18). We are His, and He is “with us.”
I Can’t Resist!
God has given us a terrific challenge: Go down and live in that world, but don’t become worldly. It’s almost like saying, “Go play in the mud, but don’t get dirty.” God has sent us here, but He sent us to be a light to the world, to show our brothers and sisters that it’s possible to be surrounded by mud but choose not to wallow in it.
Some might say, “But I’m just not good at resisting temptation!” Fact is, no one is very good at it. If we were, we would never sin. But we are not alone. Perhaps you are not very good at resisting temptation, but Jesus is. He resisted and conquered every temptation He ever faced, and He is with you! So you don’t have to face temptation alone, and you never have. Just remember that He is with you, and when a temptation comes, imagine Him being right by your side, and you’ll immediately feel added strength and power.
“But . . .” someone might say, “I’m not worthy to have Him with me,” or “I’m too unclean to have Him with me.” Now, here’s where Satan inserts himself again. He wants you to think you must be perfect before you can invite and receive the Lord’s help, or you have to be perfect before He can love you, or you have to be perfect before He will hear your prayers. Satan’s very good at this one. In fact, some of you may be out there thinking, “Yeah, that’s exactly how it works.”
Behold, I say unto you, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Let’s try it this way: Do you have to be cured of a sickness before you call the doctor? Or do you have to be perfectly healthy before you call and make an appointment? Or does your compound fracture have to heal before you call the ambulance? No, that’s backwards. That’s what doctors and EMTs are for—to help sick people!
Well, then, what’s the Savior here for? To save people who need saving! On one occasion, Jesus was eating with publicans and sinners (and back then, to eat with someone meant that you accepted them and affirmed them). The scribes and Pharisees were shocked, and they asked why Jesus was eating with publicans and sinners. Jesus must have overheard, and He answered their question:
They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. (Matthew 9:12)
“Oh, I’d like to go see the doctor, but I’m too sick. I think I’ll wait until I feel better.”
One of the saddest, and, if you’ll forgive me, one of the dumbest things people can say (and not just teenagers; dumb comes in every age group) is, “I don’t see how the Lord could love me.” Well, they’re exactly right. They don’t see. Their eyesight must be messed up. But Jesus sees. He sees perfectly, and He was sent to save sinners! Doctors save sick people, and Jesus saves sinners! See how it works?
Perhaps a prescription will help—read this Rx from Nephi. Nephi wants to make this point so badly that he repeats the same idea four different times!
Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.
Behold, hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Behold, I say unto you, Nay.
Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but he hath given it free for all men; and he hath commanded his people that they should persuade all men to repentance.
Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden. (2 Nephi 26:25–28)
How many different ways or how many times do the scriptures and the prophets and the Lord Himself have to say it? Or, as the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” says, “What more can he say than to you he hath said?” (Hymns, no. 85). Again and again He has told us that He loves us and that He is “mighty to save” (see, for example, Alma 34:18). So if you feel mighty rotten, or if you feel like your past is mighty sinful, just remember—He is mightier. If you feel that way, then you might be described as “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). And what did Jesus tell the “poor in spirit” to do? “Come unto me” (Matthew 11:28). When? Now. Unlike every doctor and dentist I know, Jesus doesn’t have a waiting room with strange smells and old magazines. He’ll see you right now.
Sister Chieko Okazaki has written:
[Jesus Christ] is not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don’t need a Savior. He came to save us in our imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He’s not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief. (Lighten Up, 176)
As Moroni was writing his very last words in the Book of Mormon, he repeated the divine invitation:
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him . . . (Moroni 10:32)
So, let’s look closely at that verse and see if we can get the order of things figured out here. Did Moroni say:
1. Become perfect by yourself
2. Then come unto Christ
Nope. Did he say:
1. Come unto Christ
2. And then try to be perfect by yourself
Wrong again. He said:
1. Come unto Christ [first]
2. And be perfected in Him!
“In Him” is the key. He, by His grace or His enabling power, makes us perfect, forgives us, changes us, remakes us. But first we have to come, humbly, and acknowledge that we need Him—that we can’t save ourselves and we need a Savior to save us.
One of my favorite seminary videos is called Becoming Children of Christ. It’s about a girl who is less active but is brought back into full activity by a friend. As she’s listening in church, she hears a speaker quote King Benjamin, who said, “the natural man is an enemy to God.” Sitting there in the pew, she reflects on her past and wonders how God could ever accept her. She feels like she is an enemy to God. She feels terrible, and she won’t let go of her past sins.
My favorite scene is when she is sitting in the bishop’s office sharing with him her feelings of unworthiness. “After the things I’ve done,” she says, “He wouldn’t want me as one of His children.”
The bishop pauses for a moment and then says, “What do you see out of this window? Tell me, what do you see?”
She responds, “A tree, the parking lot, some cars . . . ?”
“We look out this window,” the bishop says, “and we see the same thing. Now, I want you to look at something else, and keep looking at it until we both see the same thing, okay? I want you to look at this picture of the Savior. Now, if I understand you correctly, you see someone that is so good that He wouldn’t want you to be one of His daughters.”
She nods her head in agreement because she feels unworthy to be loved by the Savior.
The bishop continues, “But I want you to see the person that I know. I see someone who is so good, and so full of mercy, who wants you to be one of His daughters so much that He was willing to suffer and die so that you could repent and be forgiven of what you’ve done wrong. Can you see that person?”
Her eyes are brimming with tears, and you can see that she finally understands. She belongs to the Savior, He is “with her,” and He loves her. I can’t do it justice in words, but thanks to technology, you can follow this link and watch it yourself!
The idea that Christ loves us was perhaps never put more beautifully than it was by Paul, who wrote to the Romans:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 37–39)
Now, we’ve looked at Life Rock One, and we know who we are and who God is. Life Rock Two has taught us whose we are. We are Christ’s, and He loves us so much that He bought us with His blood. He is always “with us” and will make our weak things strong (see Ether 12:27).
Life Rock Two
Jesus Christ is real.
We belong to Christ.
Because of our covenant of baptism, we can always have His Spirit to be “with us.”
Jesus came to save sinners.
We can come to Christ now, even when we feel unworthy.