HOW TO LEAD A MORE VIBRANT SPIRITUAL LIFE



DAY 3

REPENTANCE AND FORGIVENESS


Full repentance will bring the sweet relief of forgiveness, peace of conscience, and a renewed life, allowing us to move forward towards a more vibrant spiritual life.
… but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. (Philippians 3:13)

We cannot move forward if we are burdened with transgressions. Through a full repentance we can relieve ourselves of wrongdoings we have done to others, and through complete forgiveness we can relieve ourselves of the anger caused by others transgressions against us.

…though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

“Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lore; for there remaineth in him the greater sin” (D&C 64:9)



“My soul was harrowed up [troubled] to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.

“Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea, I saw that I had rebelled against my God, and that I had not kept his holy commandments.

“…So great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror.

“…It came to pass that as I was…harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy…concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.

“Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me…

“And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more…

“And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; and yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!

“…There can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy” (Alma 36:12-14, 17-21)

Experience that “sweet joy” that Alma experienced through repentance and forgiveness.

As we keep the commandments, through this process we can grow and develop to a higher spiritual plane.