The Resurrection

When Satan was cast out of heaven after rebelling against God, he was denied two important things:

1. The chance to live with Heavenly Father again.
2. The chance to receive a body like the Father has.

From the time he was cast out, it has always been in his plan to foil these exact same things. At the Fall of Adam, two forms of death entered into the world: spiritual death, or a separation from Heavenly Father as a result of sin; and physical death, or a separation of the spirit from the body as a result of mortality.

As Easter rolls around, we are celebrating the resurrection of the Savior and Redeemer of the world. However, I feel that we generally understand the aspect of the Atonement that redeems us from spiritual death than we do the aspect that saves us from physical death.

Remember, though, God's work and glory "is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."

Eternal life = living with Heavenly Father again, or conquering spiritual death.

Immortality = having our body and spirit reunited forever, or conquering physical death.

On the night of Christ's death, he accomplished the first task of the Atonement; he suffered, bled, and

The Logic of the Plan of Salvation

It's interesting to me the utter importance of the priesthood, particularly how it relates to the Plan of Salvation. Before I came on my mission, I was talking to a born-again Christian who lead a Bible study group on Utah State University's campus, and it struck me as really odd that they don't believe in any sort of a pre-mortal life.

With the idea that "man is as God once was; God is as man might become" (Lorenzo Snow), we have an answer to the question: What is the meaning of life?

(For a fantastic article about this quote by Lorenzo Snow, click here.)

Posing that question to my born-again friend, all he said is that we are here to glorify God. While I won't deny that's important, how is this for a "plan of salvation": God created us to glorify Him; We don't need to keep His commandments, but instead we just have to have faith; Most of us won't have faith, though, so most will just go to Hell forever; Those that make it to Heaven... just kind of stay there. And that glorifies God?

The purpose just doesn't make sense. Why make it possible to fail - or rather, likely to fail - if there's nothing but misery following? Would God create us simply so that we could suffer for eternity, with no real mission assigned to those who do succeed?  It does bring light to the idea of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ being the same person, though. Why would God actually create someone just to be sacrificed? And why would he not create more people who could be perfect?

Our Plan of Salvation makes sense. God created us because the laws of the priesthood must continue onward. We came to Earth to obtain a body to be like Him. We prove we can be like Him through "obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel" (Articles of Faith 1:3). We have a Savior, our brother, who offered himself as a sacrifice for where we fall short, "after all that we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). If we "endure it well" (Doctrine and Covenants 121:8), we can return to our Heavenly Father, and learn to be like Him, sealed with an eternal companion with an eternal family. This family then fulfils the role that I am currently fulfilling. All the while, the Melchezidek priesthood holds it all together.

The reasoning, the doctrine, and the brilliance is sound. We have purpose and design. We have answers and guides. All because of the eternally holy priesthood.

The Link Between "Knowing" and "Doing"

Most of us know what is right and what is wrong. We may try to convince ourselves otherwise and excuse poor behavior, but we know. It is what is called the Light of Christ, which Moroni 7:16 says "is given to every man, that he may know good from evil."

However, it doesn't take too much research to realize that many, many people don't do good things. In fact, we all do some really stupid things. Why is this? If we know what we should do, why the heck don't we just do it?

Think about Nephi's oft-rehearsed quote:

"I will go and do the things the Lord hath commanded, for I know the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a wayfor them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

What happened there? We know that he did, in fact, do as the Lord commanded him. Right here he professes that he knows what he should do. This scripture is the perfect example of the fundamental link between "knowing" and "doing": "Choosing."

One of the greatest gifts of our Heavenly Father is our agency, or our right to choose for ourselves the course which we will follow in this life. President David O. McKay actually said, “Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man.”

2 Nephi 2:27 teaches, “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."

"How do we make correct choices?," President James E. Faust asked. "A choice involves making a conscious decision. To make an intelligent

Why so much about Israel?

Time after time, I've always read 3 Nephi and loved hearing the story of the Savior coming to the Americas... and then got completely lost and confused about why He proceeds to focus so much on the gathering of Israel for most of His ministry with the Nephites. But recently, I've been thinking about why Christ would do this, and it has hit me very hard.

First, let's remember what the gathering of Israel really entails. Abraham made a covenant with God, where he was promised that his seed would be blessed forever and that they would be responsible for taking the gospel throughout the world. From that point, they were God's chosen people. The Old Testament deals entirely with Israel. When Christ came to Earth, he taught only Israel. Gentiles did receive the gospel after He was crucified, but Israel was promised that they would be taught first. Part of the promise of Israel was that they were given a chosen land. Even when their disobedience led to God's children being expelled from their promised lands, the land was still rightfully theirs. Before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, it is promised that Israel's lands will be restored.

Second, let's look at who the Nephites and Lamanites really are. We know that Lehi's family left with Ishmael's family during the reign of King Zedekiah. Later, we learn that Lehi was a part of the Tribe of Manasseh and Ishmael was from Ephraim. The blessings involved with each of those tribes, while important otherwise, aren't necessarily essential here. What is crucial to understand is that the Nephites and Lamanites are from Israel, and the blessings made through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob belonged to them, too.

When Christ said in John 10:16, "Other sheep I have," He wasn't suggesting that He was going to see other random individuals; He was going to visit His sheep, His covenant people, other members of Israel.

Now, why is this at all important? And why does this matter to us. Clearly scripture isn't written to edify the people of the time, but those down the line - us. So again... why the emphasis on the gathering of Israel?

The Nephites and Lamanite had, by this point, been gone from Jerusalem about 600 years. While they (at least some of them, some of the time) strove to live righteously, they were away from their home. As we compare the early books of the Book of Mormon to the Old Testament, it is clear