FDRL 212 Week 3 Unit 2: Live as Saints Should Live

Romans 13:11 "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

It's very easy to fall into a mindset of procrastination when it comes to thinking of salvation:"Oh I have plenty of time--I'll worry about that later".  But we're told in this verse in Romans that we should avoid that way of thinking because we don't have as much time as we think that we do. Ezekial 3:20 warns us against living righteous lives the majority of time, but sinning a little here and there. God WILL remember our sins. D&C 14:7 tells us that in order to qualify for eternal life, we have to keep the commandments and endure the end. It is a constant way of life, rather than checking off a checklist for a 1 time activity.

In Romans chapters 12-13, we are given a list of activities from Paul that he believes will help us achieve eternal life. They are:

• Give our bodies as a holy sacrifice to the Lord
• Do not conform to the world
• Renew your mind (learn a lot!) and constantly look for the things which are good
• Abhor evil things
• Cleave to things that are good
• Be hospitable; help those that are in need
• Overcome evil with good
• Subject your soul to the higher powers of God
• Do good things
• Love one another
• Keep the commandments

In chapter 14, Paul warns against judging another person. At the end of our lives, we will have to account for our actions and our lives to God--so who are we to judge how another person will live their life? That business is between the individual person and the Lord. Paul says that our responsibility is to make sure that we are not putting stumblingblocks in the way of another person. We should not be making life any harder for those around us. We should work to please those around us. Christ was very selfless and we should be equally selfless. D&C 38:25-27 give us an excellent parable about not judging others. God is no respecter of persons and therefore will not favor one person above another. Just as a parent wouldn't give one child everything while leaving the other child out in the cold, God will not treat us unfairly. If we feel that someone else is being treated either better or worse by the Lord than we are, then we obviously do not have the whole story and should not be passing judgment on the other person.

In his day, Paul frequently referred to members of the church as "saints".

FDRL212 Week 3 Unit 1: Baptism

According to chapter 6 in the book of Romans, before we are baptized we must become dead to sin. Baptism is to symbolize Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Sprinkling does not fulfill that because there is very little action involved. Baptism by immersion involves the person being baptized being lowered into the Christ and figuratively dying in our sin, and gaining new life as they are raised up to Christ in righteous obedience. We can keep this 'newness of life' by using our body as an instrument of righteous rather than that of an instrument of sin. Our bodies are gifts from God. In order to keep living a righteous life, we must dedicate our lives to living in a way that the Lord can use us as a tool to bring about his righteousness.

Mosiah 3:19 states: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father".

According to this verse in Mosiah, ideally our natural man would die at baptisms. We would no longer want to do the things of the world and would, instead, want to do what Christ would have us do.

Romans 6 discusses knowing whose servant we are. We are given two choices: become a servant of sin or a servant of obedience. Servants of obedience are righteous and will be blessed, whereas servants of sin will find only death. It is very black and white--no grey area. Those things that we do out of faithful of obedience will cause us to be servants of obedience and righteousness. Things that detract from the Spirit and lead us farther away from Christ will leave us a servant of sin.

True freedom comes when we give up our sin, and turn to Christ as we lead lives of righteous obedience.