Gospel Message Day 182

Repentance, Part 3

In Institute, we were talking about various Book of Mormon heroes and things they did to Come unto Christ. For Alma the Older and Alma the Younger, both were pretty far down the Sinning Path, and yet made huge steps in repenting and coming back to Christ. I love Elder Anderson's 1st Conference talk. It was about repentance, and talked of how repenting is returning to our Father and to our Savior.

The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to “re-turn” toward God. It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change, and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments. Being disciples of Christ, we rejoice in the blessing of repenting and the joy of being forgiven. They become part of us, shaping the way we think and feel.

Among the tens of thousands listening to this conference, there are many degrees of personal worthiness and righteousness. Yet repentance is a blessing to all of us. We each need to feel the Savior’s arms of mercy through the forgiveness of our sins....

Repentance is turning away from some things, such as dishonesty, pride, anger, and impure thoughts, and turning toward other things, such as kindness, unselfishness, patience, and spirituality. It is “re-turning” toward God.



My current set of scriptures has been slowly marked by topic. After that talk, I made sure that any time I came across a scripture that referred to return to God, I marked it with the same marking that I used for repentance. I found quite a few more scriptures on the topic because of it. Plus, when you see it as a returning, you can better understand how repentance is such a great blessing for us.