Well, since this is my first of many blog posts and some of you know me better than others, I thought I would start with
my own testimony and how it is that I came to believe in Jesus Christ. My faith is a real and living part of my life and as
you can probably tell from the lyrics I've posted on this site, informs much about the way I view the world and our purpose
in it. I cannot separate it from the rest of my life, nor would I want to. It is inextricably woven into the fabric of my
life in a way that has brought me tremendous happiness. I know that I have a Savior, who came into the world and made himself
a "ransom for many" (
Matt. 20: 28). I know that he came because "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him,
should not perish, but have everlasting life" (
John 3: 16). That is an amazing thing when you think about it. The Son of God, who was himself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
condescended with man in the flesh and paid the price himself for all of our sins. He suffered immeasurably so that we would
not have to suffer ourselves if we would accept his sacrifice in our behalf. And he did so beause of the love he has for us.
Correspondingly, his Father, who is also our Father in Heaven, was willing to allow him to suffer because he
too "so loved the world" and desired that "the world through [Christ] might be saved". Many times in my life (particularly
in these last 10 years or so since I had what I refer to as "my conversion experience"), I have felt
overwhelmed with gratitude as I have pondered what God has done in this thing. But it has not always been so. I had to
walk through a considerable spiritual valley in my life before I truly understood and came to appreciate what Jesus
was offering me...
When I was a child my mother instilled a great love for Jesus Christ in me and a great feeling of respect for that name.
There was a sweet peace in my childhood because of that knowledge, and an abiding assurance, despite the rough waters we sometimes
went through as a family, that God loved me and that I had a friend in Jesus. When I became a teenager however, I began to
allow habits and behaviors to creep into my life that I knew would not ultimately bring me happiness and that lessened that
light in my life. One compromise of my standards after another led me into a place by the time I reached college where I had
lost my bearings spiritually and felt depressed, discouraged and dark inside. I put up a good show on the outside and was
generally what people would consider "a good person" but something was missing and I felt that emptiness in my life daily,
though I didn't fully recognize it. I had lost something and I did not know where to find it. I didn't even realize that I
needed it.
Everything began to change during the Christmas break of my sophomore year. I had a conversation with a long time friend
of mine who was raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Somehow we got onto the topic of what
our parents had taught us growing up, and as we spoke we came to the topic of God and what our parents had
taught us concerning the Gospel. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but I remember feeling a sweet feeling in
my heart that I hadn't felt for a long time as we talked. Something began to move for me spiritually, though I was
still mostly unaware of it.
My friend went back to his University and I to mine, but something stuck in my friend's heart about our conversation
and he kept thinking of me. It turned out that we had more in common that I thought. He had also been struggling a bit in
his life because of some of his own poor choices, and he found that as he taught me about what his parents had taught him
about Jesus Christ, his own faith began to rekindle.
One event led to another and our respective summer breaks from college arrived with my friend inviting me to attend church
with him. I found the first meeting I attended to be enjoyable and uplifting, but it was the second meeting that brought me
an experience I was not prepared for. The Latter-Day Saints have a tradition once a month where they fast and pray and gather
together to bear testimony to eachother, donating the money they would have spent on food to caring for the needy. The second
meeting I attended with my friend was such a meeting and I got to hear member after member of the very active student congregation
that worshipped there bear witness of the truths that they had come to know in the Gospel. It was a wonderful meeting and
my heart was full to overflowing. I felt a strong desire in my heart on that day to be baptized into the church. This feeling
was accompanied by an outpouring of the love of God in my heart that was as real and tangible as anything I had experienced
to that point. God was calling me to something and testifying to me of the tender love he had for me, despite my many failings...
My friend informed me that baptism was certainly something that could be done, but that I needed to take some lessons
beforehand to understand the covenant I would be undertaking in baptism as well as the basic doctrines of the church. As I
attended those lessons, there was a peace that accompanied what I was being taught that assured me of it's truthfulness. I
felt the love of God enveloping the room and knew that as we progressed through the lessons (though I struggled
at times too with my own shortcomings), what I was learning was filling that emptiness in my life with something real and
substantial. This was what was missing from my life, a real relationship with God. I learned how to pray; I learned that prayer
was not some formal procedure perfunctorily offered to an unknowable force, but an outpouring of one's soul to a caring, real
and ever present Father, who listened and
answered. I learned more about scripture and the words that
God had caused to be written by way of prophets throughout the ages, and as I read these
scriptures (click this link to peruse the scriptural canon of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints online), my
life was filled even more with this light and knowledge. I could feel myself growing happier.
Since that time over 10 years ago, I have had many experiences in my life that have culminated in my conversion and I
would like to share one of the basic truths I have learned, which I would invite you to ponder yourself, if you have
never pondered it.
It is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ is my Lord and my Savior and that it is
only through
his grace and
because of his Atonement that I am forgiven of my sins. What do I mean by that? I mean that by
myself I am nothing (see
Mosiah Chapter 2). Because Jesus paid the price for my sins, if I repent and come to him, God can make more of me than I can make of myself.
No matter how hard I worked in life trying to do a giant list of good things, I could never save myself. Without what Jesus
did for me I would be lost. Yet the Gospel encourages me to be my best (
1 Corinthians 9 verses 22-27) and repent when I fall down (which happens a lot in case you were wondering :-). And as
I strive to do that, I feel the Spirit of God moving me to action, to love and serve others. If I follow that spiritual guidance,
my ability to follow grows stronger and I find that I am doing good things. But ultimately it is the grace (or divine help)
of God that saves me. Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us we would be "of all men most miserable" (
1 Cor. 15: 19).
2 Nephi 10:24 25 10 reads:
"24 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and
the flesh; and remember, after ye are reconciled unto God, that it is only in and through the grace of God that ye are saved.
25 Wherefore, may God raise you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from everlasting death by
the power of the atonement, that ye may be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise him through grace
divine. Amen."
How do we come to God so that we can avail ourselves of the forgiveness God freely offers us in the sacrifice of his
Son? Well, we start with a sincere assessment of ourselves. We must approach this with the understanding that we may find
some things about ourselves that we aren't too pleased with, but also with the understanding that God actually wants a relationship
with us. He is our Father, we are his children and like any good father, he wants the best for us. If we pray to him
to guide us, he will, but we must be willing to make changes in our lives as well. As we come to a conviction of our own inadequacies,
failings, and shortcomings in life, we naturally have a longing in our heart to clean the slate. To start over. This is where
the Savior can do for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves. In the last hours of his life, Jesus knelt in the Garden
of Gethsemane and took upon himself all of the pains of our sins (
Luke 22: 44,
D&C 19: 18), he also felt every pain that we would ever suffer because of illness or infirmity so that he would know what we were going
through and how to comfort us (
Alma 7: 12). After that suffering in the Garden, he was taken by men unjustly and brought before the Roman government on all sorts of
spurious charges. He was spit upon, beaten, mocked, scourged in a most cruel manner and ultimately crucified. He suffered
it all without a word of protest, because he knew he was fulfilling an eternal destiny. He suffered it for us. He suffered
it because of his love for us and his desire that not one of his Father's children who had faith in him should be lost
(
Matt. 18: 11,
D&C 50: 42). In the Garden he had asked that the cup be passed from him if possible, a figurative assertion that what he
was going through was almost more than he, even God, could bear, yet immediately after came the phrase "Not my will, but thine
be done."(
Luke 22: 42)
And so it was.
And he "finished [his] preparations unto the children of men" (
D&C 19: 19). He declared "It is finished" (
John 19: 30) and gave up the ghost.
Were that the end of the story, we would think it a very sad tale, but there is a joyful denouement. Three days later,
he rose again from the grave having conquered two kinds of death for us. First our spiritual death by suffering for our sins.
Because of his sacrifice we can be forgiven and we have an "advocate with the father" (
1 Jn. 2: 1,
D&C 29: 5). Someone to argue our case who can truly make intercession for us, because he has paid the price in full. Second, he overcame
physical death. Because of his resurrection all people, regardless of how they live their lives, will be resurrected one day
and receive an imortal body. In this body they will be brought before God and judged according to their deeds on the Earth.
For this reason, this life is a time of preparation to meet God (
Alma 34: 32). The purpose of this life, The whole reason the Earth was created, was so that we could come here, receive a mortal
body, learn, grow, repent, develop our relationship with God and our loved ones, one day be resurrected with an imortal
body, and then be presented before God pure and clean, because of the Atonement of the Savior, receiving Eternal
Life, or life with God forever.
My baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was the gateway by which I availed myself of this cleansing.
After my baptism, several men whom I had come to trust and love as I watched them serve in the Church and who were authorized
bearers of God's priesthood, gathered around me , laid their hands on my head and confirmed me a member of the Church.
Then they said these words "Receive the Holy Ghost". With that ordinance, they did not command the Holy Ghost to come into
my life, but they invited me to "receive" it. At that moment, I did receive it and I felt cleansed and purified of my past
mistakes. God had wiped the slate clean. I had accepted Jesus Christ and his Gospel and entered into a covenant
to serve him to the end. This is what the Lord meant when he said a man must be born of water and of the spirit (see
John Chapter 3)
This is one of the reasons why I want to sing and write songs. I feel it's something in my heart that I must do.
The things I have experienced in my life because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are a gift I could never
deserve. Yet I have it. And because I have it, I feel a desire to share it. I have been blessed by the ministries
of other Christian artists (some of whom I mention in my Mark's Music Picks link). I hope the music that I write will be a
blessing to someone out there, who is searching for that something that will fill the empty with something that will truly
last.
Well, I've probably rambled on for long enough now...
(If you've read all the way up to here, you're a champ!)
Until next week...
God Bless You,
Mark
