The Entanglements of Sin

What makes a person free and what makes him restricted?

   Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free; entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes.

Doctrine & Covenants 88:86

Have you ever had the experience of sin and its consequences taking away your freedoms?  Sin will always eventually take away our freedoms.  Have you ever had the experience of being liberated from sin and all its entanglements?  With Christ’s help, we can become free from the chains of sin.

Those are such basic and simple doctrines. Yet sometimes we find ourselves moving back into the very sins that enslaved us in the first place.  The solution is to “abide” in the liberty the Lord gives us by abiding with God.  As we focus on the Savior and all He has given us to be engaged in, we will find we don’t have the time for sin.

Today’s Takeaway: Ask for the Lord to keep you from sin every day.  Engage yourself to be close to the Lord so that you will not get tangled up again.  If you are already entangled in sin, ask the Lord to free you and strengthen you to move away from those things. 

Americans’ Idols

Look for the characteristic of Idolatry today.

  They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall.

Doctrine & Covenants 1:16

Do you have a problem with idolatry? I used to think I didn't have a problem with it until I read scriptures like this. Consider what Spencer W. Kimball taught about idolatry today.

“Modern idols or false gods can take such forms as clothes, homes, businesses, machines, automobiles, pleasure boats, and numerous other material deflectors from the path to godhood… Intangible things make just as ready gods. Degrees and letters and titles can become idols. … Many people build and furnish a home and buy the automobile first—and then find they “cannot afford” to pay tithing. Whom do they worship? Certainly not the Lord of heaven and earth. … Many worship the hunt, the fishing trip, the vacation, the weekend picnics and outings. Others have as their idols the games of sport, baseball, football, the bullfight, or golf. … Still another image men worship is that of power and prestige. … These gods of power, wealth, and influence are most demanding and are quite as real as the golden calves of the children of Israel in the wilderness. (The Miracle of Forgiveness, 40, 41–42).

Today’s Takeaway: Consider what things grab your attention when you don’t have to think about anything at all. Think about the list above. Are any of those things an idol in your life? Do they get precedence over God and the things of God? Perhaps the big lesson is to make priorities of the things that matter most. 

Easy to Pollute

Look for what kinds of things pollute what God wants to give us.

  Behold, I say unto you, there were jarrings, and contentions, and envyings, and strifes, and lustful and covetous desires among them; therefore by these things they polluted their inheritances.

Doctrine & Covenants 101:6

Imagine a glass with the world’s purest water. How much pollution would it take to make it something you would not want to drink?  How many parts per million of pollution would make it undrinkable?  If I coughed really hard into the water, would you consider it polluted and no longer want to drink it?

The lesson is no matter how good and pure something is, a little bad pollutes a lot. Notice the little things the Lord listed that were polluting their homes and their lives as followers of Christ; a little lust, strife, some coveting.  “Don’t get upset, I’m just kidding.”  Sometimes the things we might consider to be no big deal, are the things that are keeping our homes from having God’s Spirit there.

Today’s Takeaway: Consider if there are any little indiscretions that are polluting you and where you live. Often the things we think are “no big deal” get in the way of having the most important things.