http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts A collection of scriptural thoughts by Stephen Anderson Sun, 11 May 2008 14:07:36 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you ever see someone standing on top of a mountain you can be sure that he did not fall there. -- Anonymous In regarding some of the characteristics of sin we readily can determine for ourselves that we “like sheep,” “...have all gone our own way.” We all have ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/sin-ispart-5-the-good-news/ It is correct to say that sin is waste. The consecration of our “time, talents and everything with which the Lord has blessed us” represents our determination not to waste our precious mortal probation. To fritter away our relatively short time on this earth in search of vain ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/sin-ispart-4/ [Classic “good gone bad” is an age-old story in our world. Sin....can be a resulting perversion of....laws and principles that manifests itself through the desires of our hearts.] Should we choose to disbelieve this or strike out on our own we will come to realize that we are just “kicking ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/sin-ispart-3/ When we fail to align our lives with eternal principles – temporal or spiritual – we eventually will resort to unsound reasoning and subsequent sinful action. We begin to feel that there must be “some other way” to achieve our deep-rooted yearning for happiness. The feeling is real and ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/sin-ispart-2/ Since the earliest of times man has been discovering immutable laws. No one need tell us what gravity is all about. There are many such laws – eternal truths – regarding this earth in its current state. Indeed, many such laws are still being discovered and many ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/sin-ispart-1/ ...Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed.  And people often talk as if the 'annihilation' of a soul were intrinsically possible.  In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else.  Burn a log, and you have gases, ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/destruction/ ...how can a few brief years spent here, born to trouble as we are, have a significant impact on [our] eternal existence?...This life, Lehi tells us, is only a probation, only a test (1 Nephi 10:21; 2 Nephi 2:21; Alma 34:32).  A test, to be searching and definitive, need last ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/the-desires-of-our-heart/ Like Jesus, a lot of prophets were put to death for testifying of the truth. What is it about the truth that so provokes a society that it starts killing people? My answer is that a particular truth caused this violent reaction -- for Jesus and the prophets ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/one-reason-why-truth-hurts/ Now let us suppose a modern-day case. Suppose we have the scriptures, the gospel, the priesthood, the Church, the ordinances, the organization, even the keys of the kingdom -- everything that now is down to the last jot and tittle -- and yet there is no atonement of Christ. ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/69/ Water baptism is only a preparatory cleansing of the believing penitent...whereas, the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost cleanses more thoroughly, by renewing the inner man, and by purifying the affectations, desires, and thoughts which have long been habituated in the impure ways of sin.  Without the aid of ... http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/thoughts/the-renewing-holy-ghost/