More miserable

I often go back to something my mission president, Carlos H. Amado, told me at the end of my mission. He said that we would all agree with our judgment in the final judgment day. I found that very remarkable, as everyone overestimates  (well almost everyone) how good a person they are. Even some of the world's greatest criminals thought they were the good guys.

So the thought of a self-centered, controlling, ego maniac actually agreeing with the judgment placed on him was certainly an eyebrow raiser for me. I didn't understand it, but it comforted me. He also told me that the same sort of thing would apply with marriages. That has been helpful for me as well.

But then you go back to the religions of my day who think that all you have to do is pay lip service to Christ, while letting your life soak in the sewage pit, and think it's all going to be good. To me, God wouldn't set up such a messed up system - why would a loving father be OK with us living in a stench out of our own bad choices? Of course he wants more from us than that.

So when I run into scriptures like today, it all comes together. This is in Moroni 9 verse 4: "Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in Hell".

That makes things clear and simple to me. Christ saves us from a mortal end - all of us - without any conditions. That's a free gift to all. But what happens after that depends on who we are. If I'm a porn addict here, I'll have the same needs there, and I won't want to have that addiction while in the shadow of my Redeemer. I'll want to be away, and my loving Father will allow that. I'll be away. As away as I'm comfortable being.

To me, that's another show of extreme love: while any loving parent wants his children close, he won't force them to be close. If the bright light of love and righteousness makes a soul uncomfortable, he doesn't get forced to stay there. The most perfect of all loving fathers wouldn't do that.

So to those who would object to all of the above and say "we are saved by grace with no price on our own", that would be true. Christ saves us from death by his grace. That's free, but that's physical death. What I don't understand fully yet is how much his atonement saves us from a spiritual death. I suspect that it goes back to how much we want to be saved from that kind of death.

It's perhaps like the joke about changing light bulbs: "How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?" The answer is "Only one, but the bulb really has to want to change."

And if I am really addicted to my porn habit here, I'm not likely to be interested in having it be forgiven and erased there. No use forgiving it when I'll routinely continue with it going forward. I'll go where I can continue with the vices I cling to.

All of this points to me to a perfectly loving God. I use a measure for myself, and it's this: if I knew that I'd be visited by my Bishop, stake president, or mother for a month of my life, and they saw everything I did, would that fill me with fear and dread, or would I be excited about that? Would the opportunity to be surrounded by greatness be met with excitement, or would it be met with fear and grumbling?

That, I believe, is a preview of what judgment day may look like for me. I hope that I live my life well enough to feel only love for my Redeemer when that day comes.