Lesson
“Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence”
Elder Jorg Klebingat
By
Megan P.
Megan started her lesson by
handing out an Introspection Quiz for each of us to consider privately. The questions were:
1. On a scale of 1-10, how
would you rate your spiritual confidence before God?
2. Do you have a personal witness that your
current offering as a Latter-Day-Saint is sufficient to inherit eternal life?
3. Can you say within
yourself that Heavenly Father is pleased with you?
4. What thoughts would come to mind if you had a
personal interview with your Savior one minute from now?
5. Would sins, regrets and shortcomings dominate
your self-image or would you simply experience joyful anticipation?
6. Would you meet or avoid His gaze?
7. Would you linger by the door or confidently
walk up to Him?
If we come up short with the
heartfelt answers to the above questions, Elder Klebingat gives us six
practical suggestions that could dissipate our doubts about our worthiness and
restore the kind of peaceful assurance and spiritual confidence that is ours to
have if we want it.
These six suggestions will
help us to identify specific ways to
increase our spiritual confidence if we are willing to listen to the Spirit and
act on those promptings.
1.
Take
responsibility for your own spiritual well-being.
Chose to study and pray often.
2.
Take
responsibility for your own physical well-being.
Eat well and exercise.
3.
Embrace
voluntary, wholehearted obedience as part of your life.
Free Agency is so important.
4.
Become really,
really good at repenting thoroughly and quickly.
So important! Don’t let Satan stop you!
5.
Become really,
really good at forgiving.
Christ’s
atonement makes compensation for damaged
lives. You are not given the keys to judge, even yourselves. (John Lund)
6.
Accept trials,
setbacks and “surprises” as part of your mortal experience.
Change
and “fix” what you can, accept what you can’t change and learn from it.
As you contemplate putting
these suggestions into practice, you need to:
BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF
BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF
SET REALISTIC GOALS
Megan then passed out
individual quotes from the talk to be discussed in small groups.
Elder Klebingat concludes his
talk, “Whenever the adversary cannot persuade imperfect yet striving Saints
such as you to abandon your belief in a personal and loving God, he employs a
vicious campaign to put as much distance as possible between you and God. He will seek access to your heart to tell you
lies – lies that Heavenly Father is disappointed in you, that the atonement is
beyond your reach, that there is no point in even trying, that everyone else is
better than you, that you are unworthy, and a thousand variations of that same
evil theme.
As long as you allow these
voices to chisel away at your soul, you can’t approach the throne of God with
real confidence. Whatever you do,
whatever you pray for, whatever hopes for a miracle you may have, there will
always be just enough self-doubt chipping away at your faith – not only your
faith in God but also your confidence in yourself. Living the gospel in this manner is no fun,
nor is it very healthy. Above all, it is
completely unnecessary! The decision to
change is yours – and yours alone.”
Let thy bowels also be full
of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue
garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the
presence of God (D&C 121;45)
