The Continuous Atonement

This is my opinion.  Everyone involved in an addiction recovery could benefit by reading "The Continuous Atonement" by Brad Wilcox.  At least they should all read Chapter 1.  That chapter answers the question, "What if I have promised myself hundreds of times that I will not do it again, and then I do?"  What then?

If you have no other option, just go into any LDS bookstore, and stand there and read the first chapter.  Is is 22 pages, large print.  If it were a textbook with small print it would be less than 10 pages.

The following is a link to a talk Brad Wilcox gave at BYU covering some the the same material. The title is: "His Grace Is Sufficient."  Check it out: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1966&tid=7 

From that link you can:
  • Read the talk
  • Watch the talk on YouTube
  • Download a PDF
  • Download an MP3 

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
  • “The next time a young man reading the sacrament prayer makes a mistake, remember, that’s what the sacrament is all about.”  (Correcting mistakes)
     
  • In talking about Adam and Eve, “Their fall wasn’t down.  Rather, as I have heard it expressed, they fell forward.’”
     
  • “Christ referred to Himself as the ‘light.”  He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it.”
     
  • “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given to us to prevent our pain.  The gospel was given to us to heal our pain.”
     
  • The Savior’s message “is not just ‘Come unto me,’ but ‘Come as you are.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Go get your act together and then come back when you fit the mold.’  He says, in essence, ‘Let’s start right where you are, and go from there.”
     
  • “It isn’t easy.  Not one ever said that it would be.  The question for us to consider is, Is it worth it?”
     
  • “The Atonement is fundamentally a doctrine of human development, not a doctrine that simply erases black marks.”
     
  • “The Atonement was designed to do more than restore us to the ‘starting line’—more than just wipe the slate clean. Its crowning purpose is to endow us with power so that we might overcome each of our weaknesses and acquire the driving traits that would make us like God.”
     
  • “The Atonement is not just to cleanse, but to complete; not to comfort, but to compensate; not just to liberate, but to lift.”
     
  • “To be admitted to His presence, we must be more than clean.  We must be changed.”
     
  • “Christian friends ask me if I have been saved by grace.  I always answer, ‘Yes—absolutely.’  Then I occasionally ask them if they have been changed by grace.”
     
  • “We don’t get into heaven on Jesus’ coattails.  Rather, He changes us until we fit His coat.”
     
  • “While justification is represented by clean hands, sanctification is represented by a pure heart that has been given to God.’
     
  • “Elder Dallin H. Oakes wrote: “The final judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done.  It is an acknowledgement of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become.”
Go read the book!

1 comment:

motherof8 said...

thank you for sharing these words of hope and encouragement!