BYU (Brigham Young University) is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church.” As part of their undergraduate coursework, BYU students take multiple semesters of spiritually uplifting, stimulating religion classes.
In this series (see below), students enrolled in scripture study classes have shared their thoughts, insights, and reflections on the Book of Mormon in the form of letters to someone they know. We invite you to take a look at their epiphanies and discoveries as they delve into the scriptures.
In publishing these, we fulfill their desire to speak to all of us of the relevance, power and beauty of the Book of Mormon, a second witness of Jesus Christ and complement to the Bible. The Book of Mormon includes the religious history of a group of Israelites who settled in ancient America. (The names they use are those of prophets who taught the Book of Mormon peoples to look forward to the coming of Christ—Nephi, Lehi, Alma, Helaman, and other unfamiliar names. We hope those names will become more familiar to you as you read their inspiring words and feel the relevance and divinity of their messages through these letters.)
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Mormon Thoughts: Look to the Heart
Dear Family,
This past week I read a scripture that I really like. I know that it is a well-known scripture, but is also probably one that we know on a more superficial level. It is in 3 Nephi, chapter 9, verses 19-20:
And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost…
On the surface, it is plainly talking about how animal sacrifice is to be done away with and that personal devotion is to be its replacement. It is the fulfillment of the old law of Moses and the beginning of the new law – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The focus has been shifted from the exterior to the interior; repentance is to be a personal matter rather than one involving public ceremony and animal symbolism. But that’s not all – if we look deeper, it really shows that God doesn’t just want people who do certain things (like perform sacrifices or obey the commandments), but people who are a certain way (those with broken, contrite, and repentant souls).
So who and what we are, it turns out, is much more important than what we are doing. I’m by no means saying that our actions aren’t important, but they are less important as things in and of themselves than they are as demonstrations of who and what we are on the inside.
People have always been prone to judge by the exterior and the actions we see people take part in. The problem with judging by the exterior is that, even though the outside might be rough and not what we’d expect a decent person to look like, the inside might hold one of the nicest, kindest, and most decent people around. The problem with judging by actions is that we rarely fully understand other people’s motives, reasons, or struggles. You’d most definitely think differently of someone on the street smoking a cigarette if you knew, after a life long struggle with smoking, and multiple packs a day, that they were fighting the habit with all of their might and were down to one cigarette a day instead of 25. Someone might be dealing with a grievous sin or a horrendous habit and making the slow progress toward their final goal. But we don’t always see those long struggles. We simply don’t know everyone’s past, and we definitely don’t know their futures or their eternal potentials. But God does.
To illustrate this, I’d like to pose the following question: If God wants us to come unto Him with broken hearts and contrite spirits, which of the following individuals would God be more pleased with: (1) a young individual who has never really had any serious issues. This person doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t have problems with pornography or chastity, goes to church every Sunday, and even reads the scriptures. This person goes to church because they were raised that way, reads the scriptures because it is expected, and keeps the commandments because they haven’t ever really been tempted to break them… or (2) a young person who has had a rough past. This person has done a little bit of everything that hasn’t, doesn’t really go to church that often, and hardly reads the scriptures. This person is trying to change though. He or she feels remorse because of the past and is doing everything in his or her power to follow the example of Jesus. This person still slips up every now and then but gets right back up and tries to make things right.
Well… sorry to make things obvious if I haven’t already, but it looks to me like (1) is simply going through the motions and lacks conviction; (2) might look a bit shabby and suffer judgment because of it, but when you look on the inside, they truly have a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.” That is what God wants! He doesn’t expect us to ever be perfect during our lifetimes and knows very well (far better than we ourselves do) all of the mistakes we’ll make and sins we’ll commit. Luckily, he doesn’t demand perfection – he doesn’t want a pretty exterior. He wants a softened interior that is ever striving to do what is right. And that is something that everyone can give. That is a sacrifice that everyone can make. Our current best might be way less than perfection, but if we’re giving the best, then God will most definitely be pleased with us. If we are sincerely giving our best effort, then we have to refrain from beating ourselves up about the little things. God hasn’t given up on us, so why should we?
In choosing the right, don’t just strive to do the right… try to BE the right – the right kind of person and the person that God wants you to be. It’s your heart that matters.
Love, Andrew
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