A rant about "Christians" 1.1

"I'm a Christian" they say as they continue to post things such as "God hates fags", "Muslims go to hell", "God hates you", "God hates everyone", "Jesus hates [this]" or "Jesus hates [that]".

God does hate, but he hates sin—not people. But if God is a God of love, and would not be God without love, how could he hate? It's because God sees the bigger picture. He sees the consequences of your sins in a much bigger and broader view than you do. His love for his creations far outweighs his hate for sin.

God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of tolerance, because if He did, He'd be allowing the sinner to eventually reach the Celestial Kingdom, where they literally would not be able to stay because of the sin they've committed. When Jesus taught that "no unclean thing" may enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, he was being literal. They literally cannot abide there in the presence of God's eternal glory and be able to survive. He's not condemning people, he's issuing a warning, saying "Guys, if you don't follow what I teach, you literally cannot stay with me and Dad!"

And then there are people that say "I'm a Christian" and then have absolutely no idea what the Atonement is or what Christ stood for and taught. Christ stood for understanding of all peoples, of not judging unless it was righteous judgment—righteous, not self-righteous, and there is a huge difference—and of obedience to higher laws so that we can receive blessings and be happy. Jesus taught that He was the way, the truth, and the light and life. He taught to overcome the natural man, which is selfish, evil, carnal, violent-prone, abusive, and wild, and instead become a Disciple, who is long-suffering, patient, kind, obedient, stalwart, truthful, honest, chaste, virtuous, compassionate, and humble, as Jesus himself was.

If you don't have any understanding of what Jesus did for you personally, or have a basic understanding of his teachings, or at least have a desire to learn what those teachings are and to incorporate them into your life, are you truly a Christian? Are you really a disciple of Christ? And how do you tell? Because if you don't grasp the Atonement, you don't grasp repentance, and if you don't grasp repentance, you don't truly grasp anything. Repentance is not something bad. Repentance means to "turn to", to return towards God. Part of becoming a better person is recognizing that you've made mistakes and then FIXING them.

Repentance is a lot like a backspace key on the computer. First you have to recognize that it's there, and then you have to move towards it with your finger. It's a cheesy analogy, I know, but bear with me.

In the same way that you have to move your finger to delete something, YOU have to move yourself towards God and accept the Atonement in order for you to advance at all. You can't go forward in life with a bunch of sins stopping your spiritual growth.

Sins are like stones in your spiritual backpack. The more you sin, even if they're just little things, the heavier the backpack gets. You have to understand and apply the Atonement, the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial backspace key, and get rid of those stones. Avoiding true repentance and returning to the sin denotes an undeveloped sense of understanding of what the Atonement is and means.

Once you've repented, God doesn't remember the sin anymore and therefore could not hold it against you at the final day, and you've come closer to God and Christ through your repentance.

Sins also work as a binding chain from the sinner to Satan, the father of lies and the great deceiver. Sins make us free to bind us to Satan, where as repentance and living a Christ-like life binds us to Christ and therefore makes us free.

Some people will try and rationalize their sins by saying, "If [God] loves me, he'll justify me doing a little sin and I'll be okay". This is a grave misunderstanding of love. There is a difference between love and law, and love, regardless of how much God loves you, is not an excuse for sin, and ultimately justice must be satisfied. It's much easier to talk of mercy than justice, but justice must still be satisfied. Laws stand regardless of social trends, social norms, and perceived instances of misjudgment or condemnation.

God loves you, but He can't just excuse you for going against His commandments. Which are commandments, not just highly useful suggestions.

I'm continually striving to be better at everything I mentioned. I'm selfish, I was carnal. I'm working on my flaws and developing my strengths. I've turned from repentance and accepting and understanding the Atonement many times, and I'm continually getting better at returning to my Father and His Son and repenting for my wrongs. I am not perfect, and I am not expected to be in this life. God does not call us to do things that we cannot do someday. Nevertheless, this is a topic that I've been prompted to talk about, and one of my strengths I'm developing is following the Spirit, regardless of perceived consequence.

Lifelong members irk me

Which is saying something - I am one.
Where has anyone ever said that slut shaming was okay? Or that it was okay to mock drugees? To my knowledge, in no scripture has it ever said "love everyone, but mock the fornicators, for they are not worthy of my love". That's what God's love IS. It's stubborn. Infinite. Beautiful. Never-ending. Always present.
So why do some people think it's okay to mock those that are living that kind of lifestyle?
It's like calling people "gay". It's stupid and offensive. Does being gay make us less worthy of God's love?
I know a few people that have had premarital sex before they converted to the Church. Are they still sluts? Or do you need a reminder of what the Atonement IS?
“42 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.” - Doctrine and Covenants, 58:42
Shaming someone over things that they did before they converted is not okay.

There's always hope

"Let me tell you something, little child," He said, once upon a time, in a barely-grasped world we can no longer see, "you're going to suffer. This mortal experience is going to be very, very hard. I give unto you a promise though, child. When you suffer, I suffer. When you cry, I cry. When you're hurt, I hurt. I love you, and I will always be with you."

I firmly believe that there is no place so dark and deep that we cannot come back up. And when we feel alone, we need just remember that we never truly are. We are surrounded by the prayers of family members, living, dead, and not yet arrived. Whenever we're sad, whenever we feel alone, or hopeless, or afraid, we can survive with one comforting thought.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU ARE NOT BEYOND LOVE. YOU ARE NOT FOREVER LOST.

That, above all, is the message I want to share with you, whoever you are. This world is cruel. It's dark, and it's getting worse. Times will be hard, times will be strange, but most of all, change dominates this world. We are here to learn how to be charitable when it's hard, to have patience when we're at our wit's end. We are here to learn and to become better than we were.

Yesterday is dead. There is only now. Learn from what you did, and learn from the mistakes that you've made. Learn from other people's mistakes. Write down what you could have done better. Write down what you should have done.

But you're not alone in your sufferings. That's what Christ did for us through the Atonement. He gave us the way by which we can reach Heaven and live with Him and His Father once again.
Jesus Christ knows perfectly EXACTLY what you went through. That's what the Atonement was. That's what that glorious sacrifice is.

"The bad news is, we're never going to be perfect while in this life. The good news of the Gospel is, we don't have to be."

We are here to be refined before we are able to be perfected.
So shrug off your worries! Today is now! This is your day! MAKE IT YOUR OWN! Tell someone you love them! Give someone a hug. Give someone an honest compliment you might have been holding back.

And remember, I believe in you. That's a gift I guess I have. I believe in people. I don't often let them know. I rarely mention it. But I believe with an undeniable faith that, through Christ, you can overcome anything--and if you can't overcome it, you can learn to bear the weight.

We're given rough tides for two reasons: to be cleansed or to be strengthened. And sometimes, it takes some breaking down before you're strong enough to build yourself up to be STRONGER than how you originally were.

You can do this. You will make it. Now go and try once more.

Everything is gonna be all right. Be strong, believe. Know that you're never alone. Know that with God, all things are possible. Be still and know that there is a God that loves and cares for you personally. And remember, above all, that you are worth saving.

Ah.

Sometimes I wonder, legitly, if I have some sort of sociopath in me. I find it hard to care. About people, about things, about my life, about my Spiritual self. Maybe it's just apathy, but it's a hard-reigned apathy if so. Perhaps I'm so out of tune with who I am and with God that I've simply phased out of the human side of my nature and split into two different people.

On the one hand, you have the warrior. The priest. The scholar. The wise young man. The writer. The author.
On the other hand, you have the coward, the sick, the lustful, the dispassionate, the cold, and the strange.
They're at war, constantly, now. And I can't ever escape. There is no escape from self except in hard work, which is fleeting to pursue. This is why I want a longboard. The only other time I could escape from myself, aside from working, was when I rode a longboard that my friend Kade loaned me while we worked at a fireworks stand last summer.

Fortune favors the bold, but often times it abandons those that do not work for their own happiness. Depression is one thing, but I am not depressed. I'm apathetic, and there is a difference. You can still work hard while feeling apathy. It's much harder to work--or move--at all when you're depressed.

I am not being an example of the believer that I should be.
And I don't know if I can find the strength to ask for the strength to become that believer again.

Step 2.Patience

Patience is a virtue. Your own timing may not be anywhere near as important or even as good as the Lord's time. His timing is also far, far more perfect, and while not everything will fall into place with your timing, it always will with His. God has a plan for you, and ultimately He'll send people that will gently try and steer you onto His path. Whether or not you obey those gentle signs--whether they actually are gentle or not--is up to you entirely.
Take into account the existence of Paul, then Saul, or Alma the younger or Alma the elder. All three of them had committed great acts of wickedness. In Saul's case, he went around and preached a lot against Jesus' teachings and continually persecuted him. Alma the elder was a wicked high priest, until the Spirit wrought a mighty change of heart to him when Abinadi visited him and the King and his court to call them and their people to repentence. In Alma the younger's case, he was basically doing the same as Saul was, except with added murder, threatenings, bribery, adultery, and other acts of violence.
In the end, though, each of these three became mighty tools in God's hand. Paul became and Apostle. Alma became a Prophet and helped to construct the Church in Ancient America. Alma the younger became a Prophet after his father, and was an extremely impactful missionary.
They had the choice not to obey and listen. But they did. And in the end, they had to go through some extremely hard trials before they were able to do what they needed to do here.
Too often we pray for patience and then expect it right away. How do we even get patience? The answer is simple. We are patient through whatever it is that we're going through. Through trials, tribulations, traps, tests, and the fiery darts of the adversary. Each one just loves to go at us and get in our way so that we doubt our faith, our God, and His love for us. But in the end, everything that happens to us is for our benefit. Even--especially--if it doesn't seem so at the time.
Patience comes from adversity. So do most things. Wisdom comes from trial and error and being able to see things beyond your years because of experience and observation. Strength comes from trials and from tests.
Patience is vital to being a mother or a father. When your car has broken down, your child is screaming in the booster seat, it's raining, thunder is striking overhead, and your head is pounding in exhaustion, patience is something that is hard to grasp, but very useful for the situation at hand.
Patience and the ability to be calm in a tense situation go hand in hand. And it's a skill that everyone should work on. In a world where we have nearly everything instantly, wirelessly, and without much work, patience can be hard to come across.
So, work on being patient. Learn to become more willing to understand and lend a helping hand to those that can't help themselves or are struggling to do so. You help them, and yourself at the same time. It's a win-win situation, and those are always worth working for.