A Life Doing Good

                Last week we discussed one aspect of living perfectly:  refraining from choosing any wrong choices.  Another aspect is choosing to do that which is right.  In other words you cannot live perfectly if you refrain from doing that which is good or that you know to be right.

  

              We established that Jesus Christ refrained from doing any wrong.  This means if He went about doing that which is good, He lived a perfect life free from error and sin.  So what is good?

                There are many philosophies and ideas on how to determine what is good.  You can use the utilitarian approach, the values-based approach, or a variety of other options for deciding how you will determine what is right and good.  I personally think of it as doing that which furthers and builds the gospel of Jesus Christ.

                Whatever approach you use, there tends to be a common thread.  That which is good tends to focus on helping those around you live happier and more complete lives.  We will use this for our analysis of whether or not Jesus Christ chose to do good in His life.

                One of the ways Jesus helped those around Him was by providing for their physical needs.  We can find ample evidence of Him healing the sick, such as the lepers (see Matthew 8:2-3; Matthew 15:30; Matthew 21:14; Mark 1:40-42; Luke 5:12-13; Luke 17:12-19), the woman with an issue of blood (see Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-29; Luke 8:43-48), those who could not walk (see Matthew 9:2-8; Mark 2:3-12; Luke 5:18-26; John 5:4-9), and the blind (see Matthew 9:27-30; Matthew 12:22; John 9:1-7).  He also saved lives by raising the dead (see Matthew 9:18-19, 22-25; Mark 5:23-24, 35-42; Luke 7:11-15; Luke 8:41-42, 49-55; John 11:11-44).  He provided food and nourishment (see Matthew 14:16-21; Matthew 15:32-38; Mark 6:37-44; Mark 8:6-9; Luke 9:13-17; John 6:5-13).  And He provided love and compassion (see Luke 7:11-15; Luke 23:34; John 8:3-11; John 19:25-27), as well as a multitude of other miracles for those with physical needs.

                Another way Jesus went about helping those around Him was by providing spiritual nourishment.  He instructed in the messages of the true gospel (see any of the parables for examples).  He forgave sin (see Matthew 9:2-8; Luke 5:18-26; Luke 7:44-50; Mark 2:3-12; John 5:14).  He established the true gospel structure (see Matthew 26:26-30; Luke 11:2-4).  And He atoned and died for us (see Matthew 26:36-45; Matthew 27:31-50; Mark 14:32-42; Mark 15:37; Luke 22:39-46; Luke 23:46; John 19:30).

                Jesus also went about doing good by living the laws of God and government.  He paid taxes and taught others to do so (see Matthew 17:24-27; Matthew 22:16-22; Mark 12:14-17; Luke 20:20-26).  He was baptized as commanded by God (see Matthew 3:13-16; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21).  He gave all honor to God and not to Himself (see John 5:19, 30; John 17).  The only laws He didn’t observe were religious laws not authorized by God.

                Jesus Christ went about doing that which was good.  Since this is true, and since He refrained from giving into temptation, we can conclude that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life.

                I testify that I know these things are true.  I know Jesus was free of sin.  I know He went about doing good.  I know He lived a perfect life.  I know that because Jesus Christ was perfect in life, He has the right, the power, and the authority to cleanse us of our sins so we can dwell with God even though we make mistakes.  All that is required of us is our effort to be good in our choices and repentance when we fall short.

A Life Without Sin

                We’ve discussed how part of our test in the Premortal Existence, a large part, involved faith in Jehovah.  We’ve also stated that part of this faith was founded in our trust that He could come to earth as Jesus Christ and live a perfect life free from all sin and error.  As mentioned previously, this was necessary for Him to be able to cleanse us of our sins and grant us mercy so we may become like God.

               If we searched our world, we’d find nobody is perfect.  Some are closer than others, but all of us fall significantly short of perfection.  How, then, could Jesus Christ live a perfect life?

                Fortunately Jesus Christ had two assets held only by Him and no one else.  First, His will was already either perfect or nearly perfect.  Second, He had a divine father, giving Him the divine power of a god.  The combination of these two characteristics gave Jesus Christ the strength and will power to live perfectly when none of the rest of us could.

                We have a record of the life of Jesus in the New Testament.  So the important question is did He live perfectly while on earth?  Was our faith appropriately placed?  Looking at the record of His life, we can find the answer.

                One excellent example is found in the story of the temptations Jesus suffered while in the wilderness.  This story can be found in the accounts in Matthew 4, Mark 1, or Luke 4.

                From these records we learn that Jesus retired to the wilderness to fast and pray before beginning His mortal ministry.  After 40 days the devil came and tempted Him.  These temptations included power, prestige, and satisfaction of the natural desires of the mortal flesh.  In all three cases, Jesus refused temptation, turning to the scriptures for strength.

                Now it’s possible to mistakenly conclude these are the only temptations Jesus suffered.  Yet part of the reason for Jesus suffering temptation was so He could better understand how to help us through our temptations.  Only three temptations for such a short period of time would hardly accomplish this. 

But, as Luke 4:13 demonstrates, these were not the only temptations Jesus suffered.  He actually suffered temptations throughout His life, just as we do.  I will list a few that I know of.  I will not go into detail, but you can study them yourselves to learn how the Perfect One was tempted and how He overcome the temptations.

Following is the list of some of the temptations Jesus suffered:

1.      Matthew 22: 16-22 (Luke 20:21-26) Jesus is tempted to defy lawful government,

2.      Matthew 26: 37-44 (Mark 14: 33-42; Luke 22: 41-43) Jesus is tempted to decide not to perform the Atonement,

3.      Matthew 26-27 (Mark 14-15; Luke 22-23; John 18-19) Jesus is tempted many times to save Himself,

4.      Luke 2: 42-51 Jesus is tempted to disrespect His earthly parents,

5.      John 8: 1-11 Jesus is tempted to pass judgment prematurely on a woman taken in adultery.

Jesus refused temptation every time He was confronted by it.  He was not free of temptation at any time in His life, but He was free of making the wrong choice.  But there is more to a perfect life than living free of making wrong choices.  A perfect life would also require choosing the right thing in all circumstances.  Next time we will discuss whether or not Jesus successfully chose the right in all circumstances.

Why Jehovah?

             Last post we discussed the first step of the cleansing process:  our personal efforts.  We also discussed how we receive additional strength from Heavenly Father through Jehovah.  Jehovah was given this strength, along with the strength to complete our cleansing process, because of His earthly ministry.  This earthly ministry was what He offered to do in the Premortal Existence as the key to our Heavenly Father’s plan.

Our faith in Jehovah rested in our trust that He would come and successfully complete this ministry.  We all knew that if He failed none of us could be saved.  Jehovah would not have had the power to overcome physical death.  He would not have had the power to strengthen us during our trials.  He would not have been able to complete our cleansing, meaning we could not become like our Heavenly Father.  In other words, Jehovah’s failure would have meant our failure, regardless of our choices to become better people.

Thankfully, Jehovah succeeded in His earthly ministry, giving us the promises we’ve discussed. 

But why was He required anyway?  Couldn’t Heavenly Father cleanse us of our sins?  He is, after all, the Omnipotent God.  The answer to this goes back to our discussion about Him being a perfect god.  As a perfect god, Heavenly Father obeys the laws of the universe, including the laws of justice and mercy.  In addition, He has a perfected soul (remember that a perfected soul includes the physical body and spiritual body united as one perfected being).

The law of justice required that somebody would suffer the pains of imperfection and sin.  The law of mercy required that we be forgiven for our mistakes as long as we do what we must to have a claim on mercy.  To satisfy both laws, someone living a perfect life would be required to suffer the pains of imperfection and sin so they could grant mercy to those who fell short of perfection.  This would require the person living the perfect life to have an imperfect body capable of suffering pain and affliction.  As a perfected being already having a perfected physical body free from these, Heavenly Father couldn’t fulfill the requirements without breaking the laws He upholds.

Jehovah, however, could.  He didn’t yet have a physical body, so He would be capable of suffering the necessary pains when He gained His body.  At the same time, He was the best of us, having a nearly perfect will (if not a perfect will) Himself.   He would be able to withstand all temptation He was given.  Knowing this, and knowing Jehovah would offer Himself, Heavenly Father had selected Jehovah as the Cleanser of our souls. 

In order to have the ability to cleanse us, Jehovah would have to accomplish three tasks in His earthly ministry.  First, He would have to live a life free of sin and error.  Second, He would have to suffer the pains and afflictions required by an imperfect world full of sin and error.  Third, He would have to lay down His life of His own free will, choosing to give up the physical body so He could then reclaim it and break the bonds of physical death.  We’ll visit these in more detail in following posts.

Jehovah needed a mortal body in order to be able to suffer pain and affliction.  However, He needed the ability of God in order to endure the afflictions required.  He also needed the power of God in order to have power over death so He could lay down His life and take it up again.  This meant He had to be born as the son of God and man.

He was literally born as such.  He came as Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, a mortal woman.  God was His father.  I don’t know how this happened, but I do know that it happened.  Thus He carried the mortal and divine characteristics necessary to accomplish His tasks.  Of this I bear my witness.

The Fight Against Sin

                We’ve talked about the two tests along our path to being like our Heavenly Father.  Unfortunately, we have a problem.  While we are here on earth taking the second test, we make mistakes—a lot of mistakes.  This makes us imperfect and unclean.  Yet the scriptures teach us that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God (See Ephesians 5:5 in the New Testament, Alma 11:37 in the Book of Mormon, or Alma 40:26 in the Book of Mormon).  This means that we cannot inherit the kingdom of God and become like Him unless we become clean.

               Now the only way we can become clean is to have the filthiness of our sins washed away.  In other words our souls need to be cleansed.  There are two parts to a true cleansing.  First, that which creates the filth needs to be taken away and eliminated.  If you wash a cutting board that has raw meat on it but leave the raw meat, the cutting board still carries the germs of the meat on it. 

In other words, we must eliminate the desire for sin from within us.  We cannot eliminate the filthiness of our sins if we continue to toy with the desires for those sins.  The desire for the sin will just taint our souls again and spread the filth throughout our beings as if we were never cleansed.  And in truth we weren’t if we continued toying with the desires.

Unfortunately this is really hard.  I’ve had some very difficult struggles with sin.  It isn’t easy giving up the wicked things we desire.  What makes it even worse is that the longer we have been immersed in a sin, the harder it is for us to give it up.  Yet we are required to try, just as we agreed to do in the Premortal Existence during the first test.  This is how we were required to exercise faith in ourselves.  Would we have faith that we would try to eliminate sin from our lives?  We, of course, said we would and are here to prove it.

Now I know I lack the ability to eliminate my desires for sins from my life.  There are too many of them and I’m a pretty weak person.  Does this mean I am a failure and will not pass the second test?  No, it doesn’t.  The Lord knows we are imperfect still.  As such we are all weak and lack the ability to eliminate all of our desires for sins. 

What is required is that we give it our best and our all.  Then we can call for help to give us the additional strength we need to succeed.  We could consider it much like the final battle for Gondor in “Lord of the Rings”.  Gandalf and the citizens of Gondor fought with all their might, but they couldn’t repel the oncoming Orc army.  When they reached their limit, the riders of Rohan appeared to help.  The Orc army was almost defeated and repelled when they received some additional strength.  Again Gondor came to the brink of destruction.  Then Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and the army of the dead arrived and finalized a victory for Gondor, saving the city from complete ruin.

This is how it works with us.  We fight with all we’ve got, never forgetting to pray and fast.  When we reach our limits, our Heavenly Father gives us some strength.  Then we are required to fight to our limits again, remembering to pray and fast.  Then we receive some more strength.  Ultimately, we will gain enough strength to win a victory over our sins.

So, in truth, our victory over sin begins with another exercise of faith in ourselves, just as we needed faith in ourselves in the first test.  We must believe we can overcome our sins with heavenly help.  We must let this belief grow to action to overcome these sins, for faith without works is dead (James 2:26 in the New Testament).  Then we have exercised faith in ourselves and taken the first step towards victory.

But where does this strength and help come from?  By what power are we able to receive it?  The answer is by the power and strength of Jehovah, given to Him by our Father in Heaven so that He could come to earth as Jesus Christ and perform the work necessary to bring us home. 

Next time we’ll discuss this mission on earth and how it gave Jehovah the strength to help us overcome sin.  We’ll also discuss how this mission finishes the second step of the cleansing process and overcomes the problem of the physical death.