Some Edification

I’ve decided that this week I should write something edifying. I actually found it sometime last week when I was studying, but I’ve decided to post it this week since it’s pretty cool. I always like cool quotes of the religious type. So, here it is:

“When we reject the counsel which comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence. We reject the protection of a perfectly loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Father in Heaven, whose whole purpose, as that of His Beloved Son, is to give us eternal life, to give us all that He has, and to bring us home again in families to the arms of His love. In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred. We have moral agency as a gift of God. Rather than the right to choose to be free of influence, it is the inalienable right to submit ourselves to whichever of those powers we choose.” – Elder Henry B. Eyring, Finding Safety in Counsel, Conference Report, April 1997

I found it to be quite thought-provoking. It reminds me of the scripture in 2 Nephi 2:27, which reads, “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh, and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.”

So, we’ve got two options. We can choose to follow God’s commandments and receive liberty and eternal life, or we can choose not to follow His commandments, and receive captivity and death. There’s no in-between ground. Anything that’s not in line with God’s will is a thing that Satan wants us to do. We don’t have the “right to choose to be free of influence.”