January 15, 2017

Bought With A Price

Neal A. Maxwell
All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience
pg2/3
There is little doubt, for instance, but that a goodly portion of our pride proceeds from some assumptions we make about ourselves and our lives - assumptions that are at first soothing but very wrong. We think, for instance, that we "own" ourselves. It is perfectly true that our individual identity is guaranteed, that we are agents for ourselves, and so forth - but this truth, when it is torn away from other realities, gives us a very lopsided view of things. Without the ransoming atonement of the Savior, we would be stranded souls, doomed to die with no hope of the resurrection or of individual immortality. We were literally purchased by Jesus. (Acts 20:28) Quite true, we do not yet have to acknowledge that reality, though someday we will. Nor are we now even forced to follow the conditions that the Purchaser laid down. So in a sense we are quite free to do as we please, just as if we were our "own"....this illusion underwrites the false assumptions that we make about our time, our talents, and our possessions that each of us sees as "mine." We may even feel noble when we give of our time and means, and we are apt to be somewhat grumpy if anyone, especially a prophet, reminds us that all that we have belongs to God anyway........

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