Powerful Repentance Letter
Repentance
Recipients:
Alabama Birmingham Mission
27 Nov 2017
President Sainsbury
Dear Sisters and Elders,
A mission is a wonderful time to come to know God, to find out who He is, to feel of His love. And as we come to know God, we come to love God, to put him first in our lives and to seek His approval. One of His greatest gifts to us is the gift of repentance. The ability to repent and to be forgiven is one of God's greatest manifestations of love for us. And our willingness to repent is one of our greatest manifestations of love for God. How blessed we are to have the gift of repentance, to be able to joyfully repent every day of our shortcomings and mistakes and to be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.
However, repentance is not something to be taken lightly. To tap into the atonement and the forgiveness it brings requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Repentance requires that we yield our whole heart unto God. We cannot hold back when it comes to repentance. If Christ is going to take away the terrible price for our sins, He will only do so under His conditions and on his terms.
Years ago there was a man who wanted to repent for violating the Word of Wisdom. He, however, had no desire to pay tithing. He did not agree with the commandment to pay the Lord a tenth of his income but felt very strongly about keeping the Word of Wisdom. He asked for forgiveness and was finally able to stop his drinking and smoking. But he was never able to truly feel the Spirit, to feel forgiveness, to feel clean, because forgiveness of any sin requires repentance of all sins and a complete effort to keep all of Heavenly Fathers commandments. His overcoming sin was accounted unto him for righteousness. We are blessed for all of our efforts. But if we want to receive forgiveness for our sins and mistakes, we have to yield our whole hearts unto God. We have to not only strive to overcome the one sin we are working on, we have to have a desire to over come all of our sins. This is true repentance.
When our whole hearts are turned to God, we call this conversion. When we are converted, we don't hold back. As Amaleki teaches in Omni 26: "And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved."
Our missionary purpose is to teach repentance and baptize converts. For us to teach this principle, we ourselves must understand repentance and practice it every day. The more converted we are, the better we are able to help others become converted. The more we yield our whole hearts unto God, the more powerful the Spirit will be with us. The price for the Spirit is not cheap because the atonement was not cheap. We can be powerful missionaries full of the Spirit if we truly love God by repenting and seeking forgiveness.
May we "yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and become 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."
Remember the principle, "We will never be forgiven a single sin, until we are willing and desirous to repent of all of our sins."
May we cherish the blessing of cheerful, ongoing repentance in our daily lives offered us by the Lord. May we give our whole hearts unto God by repenting of our sins, striving to be exactly obedient, and paying the price to be full of the power of the Holy Ghost.
Have a great week and keep smiling.
Love President Sainsbury
A mission is a wonderful time to come to know God, to find out who He is, to feel of His love. And as we come to know God, we come to love God, to put him first in our lives and to seek His approval. One of His greatest gifts to us is the gift of repentance. The ability to repent and to be forgiven is one of God's greatest manifestations of love for us. And our willingness to repent is one of our greatest manifestations of love for God. How blessed we are to have the gift of repentance, to be able to joyfully repent every day of our shortcomings and mistakes and to be washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.
However, repentance is not something to be taken lightly. To tap into the atonement and the forgiveness it brings requires a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Repentance requires that we yield our whole heart unto God. We cannot hold back when it comes to repentance. If Christ is going to take away the terrible price for our sins, He will only do so under His conditions and on his terms.
Years ago there was a man who wanted to repent for violating the Word of Wisdom. He, however, had no desire to pay tithing. He did not agree with the commandment to pay the Lord a tenth of his income but felt very strongly about keeping the Word of Wisdom. He asked for forgiveness and was finally able to stop his drinking and smoking. But he was never able to truly feel the Spirit, to feel forgiveness, to feel clean, because forgiveness of any sin requires repentance of all sins and a complete effort to keep all of Heavenly Fathers commandments. His overcoming sin was accounted unto him for righteousness. We are blessed for all of our efforts. But if we want to receive forgiveness for our sins and mistakes, we have to yield our whole hearts unto God. We have to not only strive to overcome the one sin we are working on, we have to have a desire to over come all of our sins. This is true repentance.
When our whole hearts are turned to God, we call this conversion. When we are converted, we don't hold back. As Amaleki teaches in Omni 26: "And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved."
Our missionary purpose is to teach repentance and baptize converts. For us to teach this principle, we ourselves must understand repentance and practice it every day. The more converted we are, the better we are able to help others become converted. The more we yield our whole hearts unto God, the more powerful the Spirit will be with us. The price for the Spirit is not cheap because the atonement was not cheap. We can be powerful missionaries full of the Spirit if we truly love God by repenting and seeking forgiveness.
May we "yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and become 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."
Remember the principle, "We will never be forgiven a single sin, until we are willing and desirous to repent of all of our sins."
May we cherish the blessing of cheerful, ongoing repentance in our daily lives offered us by the Lord. May we give our whole hearts unto God by repenting of our sins, striving to be exactly obedient, and paying the price to be full of the power of the Holy Ghost.
Have a great week and keep smiling.
Love President Sainsbury
President and Sister Sainsbury have such a spirit of love for the young missionaries and all of us.
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