Cessation of Posting

          There is a time for things to start, and there is also a time for them to end.  The purpose of this blog has been to help people come closer to Christ.  In fact, that is the great objective of my life.  I have learned a lot from the posts I have written, and I hope and pray that they have touched the lives of those who needed them the most.

          What I feel in my heart is that the purpose of this blog has been completed.  I accomplished what I set out to do.  It is time to move on.

          Elder Scott once said, " We need not worry if we can’t simultaneously do all of the things that the Lord has counseled us to do. He has spoken of a time and a season for all things. In response to our sincere prayers for guidance, He will direct us in what should be emphasized at each phase of our life. We can learn, grow, and become like Him one consistent step at a time."

          I know that that is true.  There is a time for everything under the heavens.  And there is also a time to end.  I pray that each of you that have read this blog will go forward in faith and accomplish all that your Father in Heaven knows that you can do.  I hope that you will arise and shine and be like Him.

          The time has come for me to focus on other projects.  I trust that with the Lord's help, they will be even greater tools in His hands to bring to pass His righteousness.  Know that I love you, and that I have written what I have written for your sakes.  Not mine.  I hope that my words will help you in your quest to follow the Savior.

          Finally, I want to acknowledge the Lord's help in anything good that has come from this blog.  It is His work.  He is the one who performs the miracles.  With His help, we can do great things.

          I would like to share with you my testimony that I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  He did in reality die for us.  His Atonement extends beyond the immensity of space and to eternity.  He is intensely concerned about each one of us.  Joseph Smith was His servant in initiating a work that will sweep the world and ultimately save it.  I know that Thomas S. Monson is a literal prophet and that his words are God's words.  The Book of Mormon is true.  The Plan of Salvation is real.  Zion will come.  All of these things I know for myself, independent of all others.  It is true, and it is wonderful.

Your Fellow-Servant,

Gavin Chatterley

"Sunset," no changes made, by sunny_mjx, "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode"

Death Without Sting

          Because of the sacrifice of the Savior, death has no sting.  Death has no victory.  Satan has no power.  We often speak of the Savior’s atonement and rightly we should.  As we speak of Christ at every opportunity, we must never lose our sense of awe and eternal gratitude of the sacrifice of the Son of God.

          --Dieter F. Uchtdorf

          Death is thought of as the universal punishment, the misfortune of all misfortunes.  No matter how bad it gets, people comfort themselves by saying, "at least I'm not dead."  At the same time, it is inevitable.  Through Jesus Christ we learn that the sting of death is swallowed up in his Atonement.  This can be true in multiple senses of the term.  If we think of death in the physical sense, the natural conclusion is that Christ swallows up the sting of death because now we know that it will be only a temporary circumstance.  Because of the Resurrection, death will not have a permanent claim on anyone.

          However, the scriptures teach additional meanings of the phrase.  For example, in the Doctrine and Covenants we read, "And the elders of the church, two or more, shall be called, and shall pray for and lay their hands upon them in my name; and if they die they shall die unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me...And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them;" (D&C 42:45, 47)  Have you ever thought of death as something that could be "sweet"?  Yet that is precisely what this verse was saying.  Furthermore, I don't know that Christ's power is limited by the kind of death that a person experiences.  This scripture seems to indicate that Christ removes the sting a of death from His disciples in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

          To take this thought even further, recall that often, if not always, temporal things are symbolic of spiritual things.  In terms of spiritual death, that would mean that not only does Christ give us the hope that our spiritual death, by way of the fall, can become a temporary circumstance, He can take away the sting of that death in this life.  If spiritual death means separation from God, removing death's sting would mean being united with him even in mortality.  Just as we qualified for a redemption from physical death by keeping our first estate, we qualify for the removal of the second by being faithful in mortality.  Such an idea casts light on the statement by Joseph Smith regarding whose who prove faithful, "[Christ] will manifest the Father unto him."

          Just as the Resurrection is the ultimate victory over temporal death, so is this promise the ultimate victory over spiritual death.  In the same way that the Savior thwarts physical mortality by "preserving [us] from day to day, by lending [us] breath", Christ can take away the sting of the second death inherent in each moment by the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

          Let us believe in Christ, that He may exercise His saving grace in us by taking away the spiritual misery of daily mortal experience through the administration of the First Comforter.