The difference between being born of man and being born of God is the difference between being spiritual and being worldly. It has a profound effect on the lives of people today. Spiritual rebirth requires a drastic attitude change and even a change of heart. But most people have forgotten what it means to truly change. As President Benson pointed out in his quote, being “Born of God” changes the entire way we do things. Today, people try and fix things. But God tries to fix people. People change things by changing people’s opinions. It is the only way we know how to work on something. Logic motivates people, color-coded guides and maps tell us exactly what to do. We can’t fix people; so we work on situations. But the only way to fix situations is to fix people. For the root to every problem is a person, and the correction to every problem is held in a person. The only people we can make better, however, are ourselves. And even that we can’t do alone. The world will put a drunkard in rehab. This is to train him, to fix what is wrong with his mind, or at least put the fear of the law into him. What if we were somehow able to fix what is wrong with his soul? Wouldn’t this make a bigger difference? If people truly understand the love and benevolence of God, it is manifested in their actions. They “keep the commandments of God, that they might rejoice and be filled with love towards God and all men” (Mosiah 2:4). This, then, is the test. Many people will say “I know what I’m doing is wrong” and yet they continue to do it. They have knowledge in their minds, not in their hearts. The heart is the sole motivator in life. It is the place where life begins, and without it life ends. When the knowledge enters a person’s heart, then the spiritual rebirth begins. When a person joins the church and falls away, we know that his spirit was touched. But he was not born again. Being born again requires discovering who you are on the spiritual side. It means the person itself changes. Never again can you go back. You are different, and that is how it should be. As President Benson pointed out, it is this miraculous looking through new eyes that will change the way the world works. A person who before practiced healing with spider webs and cotton is shown how this doesn’t work extremely well. Becoming more familiar with the more difficult but also more rewarding practice of medicine and stitches he would then never dream of going back to the backwards way of healing with spider webs. The world works in primitive methods such as the spider webs and cotton. But we have the knowledge of medicine and suture. Many people in the church have the dim belief that God can work miracles. But for whatever reason, these same people have never called upon the Physician to heal them. They haven’t witnessed first hand the power of what the Lord has given us. How then can they testify of it and truly be born again? In some ways, they believe; but they haven’t learned to trust in the Lord. For these people, King Benjamin prompted them to “open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view” (Mosiah 2:8). Once we have been born again, we have a responsibility to “open our mouths.” “Christ changes men, who then change their environment” (Benson article). Our lifestyle should change because of Christ. Then we must help our fellow men find their way to the Healer, even if we simply point them in the right direction. This is best done by example and service. For when a person gives of him or herself in true, honest service, the world cannot help but notice and wonder why it is done. In seeking out the reason for this, we may inadvertently lead people to God. We should serve other people and the Lord, and thus we will ever be in “[service] to him who has created [us] from the beginning, and is preserving [us] day to day” (Mosiah 2:21). All mankind are in a fallen state to begin with. We have lost the wisdom of our Father and the knowledge to make the world work correctly. Naturally, we choose the easiest paths to follow. Without being born again, we can have no way of knowing that the easiest path is sometimes the quickest route to unhappiness. Therefore it is for our own eternal salvation that “all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again” (Mosiah 27:25). We understand that this does not mean, as the Apostle John explained, that we literally re-enter our mother’s womb and come out as a different person. This means simply having a spiritual re-birth; learning to see things not from the eyes of a mortal person trapped in a wicked world, but as a spiritual being visiting a mortal world. For we are not “mortal beings with a spirit, but spiritual beings with a body” (The New Era, a Mormonad). Many times for a person to be born again, he or she has to witness first hand the mercy and justice of the Lord, and how it applies to our lives. The atonement, that wonderful sacrifice of infinite blessing, is impossible to imagine, though we may believe in it. Fully appreciating it, however, often means taking full advantage of it. All of us, in some way, take advantage of it when we repent. But until a big trial has happened to us, rarely do we see the incredible significance the atonement has in our lives. Trials, as awful as they may be, happen to us to make us stronger. When I was in eleventh grade I went through the roughest period of my life, in which time my testimony grew beyond measure. As a mortal person, I was ready to succumb to the adversary and fall. We cannot get beyond the big things without help. It was with the help of my bishop that I finally came to understand the goodness of my God. I was like everyone else; I knew the church is true. But knowledge in itself is often not enough to make a person change. There must be love, and passion, and a desire for good. In the face of many hardships and weaknesses, that desire may be forgotten, misplaced, or even destroyed. Never does that change the truthfulness of the church. It only disrupts the amount of spiritual growth that can happen. For a period of time, my spiritual growth was stunted. But when I finally saw what I’d been doing, and allowed my Savior to heal me, I started my biggest spiritual growth spurt since primary. Somewhere I must have had the desire for a change of heart, because it came. Along with it came a new sense of who I am, a daughter of God. My Savior took upon Him my pains and sins because He knew I couldn’t do it myself. Developing a love for myself and for my God, my life changed. The things I’d been doing to myself and to others were wrong and needed to be forsaken. Of course I didn’t need my bishop to tell me what I’d been doing wrong; but I had closed my eyes to it. Only when I went in to talked to him did my eyes open. But instead of the awful hurting feeling that I had been carrying around in my heart, accepting what I was doing and finally stopping it made me feel whole again. My bishop, the wonderful person that he was, showed me that my divinity had never changed. I could stop hating myself. This acceptance, and realizing how it is possible, changed my outlook on life. My desire to do well, to purify my soul, became what I strived for. I wanted to please my Lord and make myself happy again. My parents have reflected with me about how this has affected my life. Parents, by nature, have a tendency to be “well pleased” with their children. But they know me better than anyone else. They have seen me sing in primary. They were there at my first two-minute talk in church. And they helped me jump out of the nest and spread my wings. At first, like everyone, I had to learn how to fly. I nearly crashed and bashed my head upon the rocks below. But I didn’t. And with the knowledge of flying came strength beyond belief. Only with the strength of my Lord can I stay airborne. Becoming born of God is like receiving our wings. We are bound here on earth, in this mortal sphere, physically and spiritually. But when we are born of God, we receive our spiritual wings, and then we have the ability, spiritually at least, to leave this atmosphere and soar to the heavens. God wanted us to have the chance to touch the sky. Through Him, all things are possible. |