You're Strong Enough (15 page)

Christ’s New Law

Could you imagine what the world would be like if everyone took into consideration what others may be going through? Better yet, what would happen if everyone realized this Earthly life was a test and our enemy is not each other, but Satan?
To get there, we must start with the golden rules:
Do unto others as you would have done to you
.
Judge another as you would like to be judged.
If you want our Heavenly Father to be merciful to you for your transgressions, you must forgive others who sin against you.

For example: Let’s say you’re on your path home, when you come across someone who’s hurt. You think to yourself,
if I stop now I will lose a couple of hours
. So, you start to walk off. Then, something inside you tells you to help him. So you turn back, bandage his wounds and help him on his way. When you get back on your path, you feel pretty good inside.

A day later, while still trekking on your path, you come across treacherous terrain that goes straight up. As you are climbing you start to slip. You scream for help. Just before you lose your last grip, someone grabs your hand and pulls you up. Once you are on safe ground, you look at the stranger to thank him. To your surprise, it is the man you helped the day before.

Our Heavenly Father asks us to treat others as we would want to be treated. We are not living in the time of Moses, where an eye for an eye was the rule.
We are living in a time that desperately needs love, kindness and forgiveness.
When Jesus Christ brought the new laws:

• Turn the other
  cheek
  ;
  
• Treat others as you’d want to be treated
  ;
  
• Love your enemies
  ;
  
• Pray for those who despitefully use you
  ;
  

He did so with us in mind. Jesus knew the world would, eventually, become full of pain and suffering. He knew the only way to keep us from being swallowed up in it, is to grasp onto God’s laws of kindness, trust, love and healing.
God knew
an eye for an eye
will never bring peace like love and forgiveness can in a world that needs it so
badly.

We must always strive to do the right thing—no matter what is returned—and hope that God will account it for our good. As we allow God’s justice to claim those who have hurt us, seek repentance when we have messed up, be careful of the choices we make that affect others, and treat others as we would want to be treated, we will find relief from the sorrows in this life.
Relief comes when we do our part in forgiving and we let God do his part in judging.

As you use the belt of truth, the truth that God will deal justly with those that have harmed us, you will be set free. We are on this quest and our choices of forgiving, loving, and accepting will always be rewarded, whether other humans return in kind. Therefore, be true to yourself, others, and our Heavenly Father by causing positive ripple effects in your life.
As you are true to your course back home, you will find ultimate relief when hardships
come.

Your Quest for Relief

Your first quest
for relief is to search within. See if there are any grudges, feelings of revenge, or hopes of someone else getting hurt. If you find you have not forgiven another because justice hasn’t been served to them here on Earth, seek God’s forgiveness. Repent for your continued ill-feelings toward that person who hurt you and ask God to do His will on them.

The second quest
for relief is to repent for those things
you
have done that have harmed others or yourself. After you have sought God’s forgiveness, go to the person and ask for forgiveness. Try to make it right. You may be surprised that this course of action brings you a new friend instead of an enemy.

Your third quest
is to see if you are doing anything that is contrary to the new law of Christ. Are you doing things in your life that will bring dishonor to your name? See what kind of ripple effects you are creating by your choices. If they are negative ripple effects, repent and start creating positive ones. In fact, I challenge you to do ten good deeds in one day and see what the Heavens return in kind. Then write down what happens.

And finally,
I want you to treat others as you would
want
to be treated for a week and see what that does for your self-esteem, your relationship with God, your love for others and your overall confidence.

Your job is to forgive. God’s job is to judge.

Treat others as you would WANT to be treated.

Create such positive ripple effects that your future children will feel it.

A
s we continue on this quest, there will be times when we will be tempted by things that are not good for us. Satan will do whatever he can to slow us down, steer us off course, darken our views, be our puppeteer, weaken our souls and poison our bodies.
He will try to deprive us of our eternal reward. His biggest target is our
body.

During your quest, and because of many hard obstacles you’ve encountered, you may find yourself starving for affection, for love, for compassion, for acceptance, for relief and for peace. When people are starving, they typically will eat anything. But be careful what you put into your body.
Your choice could mean the difference between Satan controlling you and you controlling
you.

Watch out for Satan’s Fiery Darts of Lies!

Don’t Let a Caramel Apple Fool You

As you’re on your quest, you start to feel hungry. As you do, you notice these caramel apples within your reach. When you look at them, the only thing you can see is this beautiful outer shell of caramel that covers the entire apple. It looks sweet and gooey. Your glands start to salivate, and you think:
Boy I can’t wait to eat this delicious caramel apple; it will fill my soul, for I am starving.

Upon the first bite, a disgusting flavor fills your mouth and you find that the apple inside is rotten and poisonous. You feel betrayed. How could the outer part of the apple that is covered with this caramel look so good and enticing, while hiding its true nature of it being poisonous inside? And, how is it that these appeared along my path as soon as I felt I was hungry?

Satan is smart, he will tempt you when your need is evident.
When he knows your starving, he’s going to make what he is offering to look as tempting and enticing as possible. Therefore, be careful what you put into your body. The side effects can be deadly as poison.

Poison

Why would I use the word
poison
to describe the inside of this caramel apple? Because there are different types of poison. Some poisons are fast-acting and deadly. Others are slow and unnoticed. The same concept applies to sins. Some sins are more traumatic to the soul immediately, while other sins take a little bit longer to show their damage. But ultimately, the poison of sin will wreck havoc in your life. Satan will make sin look appealing so it can be tempting to us.
Do you think Satan would tempt you with something that you knew would kill you immediately, or try and tempt you with a rotten
apple?

Remember, Satan is the most cunning, deceptive, hateful, evil spirit that ever existed. He will do everything he can to cloud your view of what he is tempting you with. Satan does not, and will not, put the poison symbol on things you’re about to take because he knows you wouldn’t take it. Instead, he covers sin with a beautiful outer shell like caramel, so that he may hide the true nature of the poisonous apple inside.

Watch out for Satan’s Fiery Darts of Lies!

One method Satan uses is the media as a source to convince us that it doesn’t matter what we put into our bodies.
Fun is our ultimate goal. What Satan doesn’t show us through the media is the results of partaking of the poison. Why would He? His main goal is to try to convince us that drugs, porn, alcohol, premarital sex and smoking are the only way to live.

If Satan can’t convince you to partake of the whole poisonous caramel apple, he will make you believe that biting just a little bit into it won’t do very much damage. He will try to convince you that, because you are starving, you have every right to quench your starvation no matter the method. Beware.
No matter how starving you are, don’t be fooled into eating Satan’s caramel apple. Your starvation will not be quenched. In fact, Satan’s enticement will only leave you more famished.

The caramel may look wonderful and tasty. It may even look perfect. But watch out for the poison inside the apple, for it will quickly or slowly destroy who you are.
Satan knows who we are, so he has created sins to be in opposition to God’s commandments.
He knows when we disobey God’s commands, it is another way he can get us off course and weaken us. If he succeeds, then we are allowing him to be our puppet master.

Before we left, our Heavenly Father gave us the armor of God to defend against Satan. The one that protects our bodies the most is the breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness encourages us to keep our minds and bodies clean from filth and darkness. As a breastplate protects our body from any arrow, sword, or any other weapon aimed at destroying our most vital parts, similarly, our Heavenly Father wants us to use the breastplate of righteousness to quench the fiery darts of Satan’s temptation, deception and poisonous lies.
Our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy. And true happiness comes from keeping our minds and bodies clean, and, ultimately, conquering our
quest.

Starvation

Most people will be tempted to eat caramel apples along their path because they are starving. Through starvation, Satan will try to convince us that his offerings can dull our pain. Satan is a liar. None of his methods will ever solve any problem that we are faced with.
The only thing that will solve our problems is to forgive those who have harmed us, ask God to heal us and then to learn from it.
In other words starvation is only quenched with real foods (tree of life).

When Starvation Begins

There may be times that you are in so much pain because of what you’ve gone through, that you may be convinced that eating the caramel apple will somehow dull the pain or poison the other person who harmed you. It won’t. If you choose to partake of the caramel apple then it will poison your own soul, which will make the pain even worse. For instance, if you were to get bit by a rattlesnake, would anyone feel the pain or get the poison? No, just you. Trying to dull the pain because of harmful acts done to us through Satan’s methods will
never
be in your best interest. And thinking you are making others suffer through you poisoning yourself is not reality.

Satan tempts us with many “caramel apples.” Each has its own consequences and degrees of darkness. Each
will thwart
our efforts of overcoming our trials, forgiving those who have harmed us, seeking out for God’s help, feeling the Spirit, using the Savior’s atonement and, ultimately, returning back to our Heavenly Father victorious.

Starving for Love

Satan’s Way
-
As you’re walking along your path, you might feel lonely (parents divorced) and unloved. One day you notice some people on a darker path having sex, so you watch. As you watch, Satan convinces you to partake of the poisonous caramel apple of pornography by watching others as well. He convinces you that if you can see others “having sex” that it will quench your hunger for love. What Satan did not tell you, as you look at porn, is that this love is not real, but created by him. He also did not tell you that, as you look at porn, you’ll find yourself becoming more controlling, depressed, narcissistic, anxious and have a low self-concept. Such results create you not loving yourself now.