Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

I taught the Relief Society lesson yesterday. I am the 4th Sunday teacher so I always have to teach from the conference talks. I love it because there are so many good things in the talks, but it's also hard because it's not in "lesson" format. I always struggle to come up with a good sequence and ask good questions to get a discussion going. But, afterwards, I always come away having learned a lot. In fact, every single one of the talks that I've had to teach about have come at times when I really needed to hear the message contained in them.

I just wanted to jot down a few of the quotes that I really enjoyed from yesterday's lesson. It was taken from Elder Bednar's talk called "Clean Hands and a Pure Heart".

The first quote just jumped out at me and really spoke to me. It says, "The purpose of our mortal journey is not merely to see the sights on earth or to expend our allotment of time on self-centered pursuits; rather, we are to "walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4), to become sanctified by yielding our hearts unto God (see Helaman 3:35), and to obtain "the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16)."
I guess the real reason I noticed it so much is because the last little while my life focus has been "to see the sights on earth". Since we have been in China, I have been planning vacations, wanting to fit in as many places as possible. At Christmas, I remember telling Jason that our Christmas felt really selfish this year. Being far away from family, we didn't really think about anyone but ourselves. I am not saying that seeing the sights of the world or focusing on ourselves is always bad, it just shouldn't be our main focus. So, it was good for me to reflect and think about how I can "walk in newness of life", yield my heart to God, and obtain "the mind of Christ".

Here are two more quotes that I really enjoyed:
"Repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness are spiritually necessary, and we must always do so. But remission of sin is not the only or even the ultimate purpose of the gospel. To have our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit such that 'we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually' (Mosiah 5:12), as did King Benjamin's people, is the covenant responsibility we have accepted."

"All our worthy desires and good works, as necesary as they are, can never produce clean hands and a pure heart. It is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that provides both a cleansing and redeeming power that helps us to overcome sin and a sanctifying and strengthening power that helps us to become better than we ever could by relying only upon our own strength. The infinite Atonement is for both the sinner and for the saint in each of us."

I enjoyed the whole talk. It was really a good reminder to me of the power of the atonement. That it's not just there to get rid of sin, but also the desire to sin. It doesn't just cleanse, it also sanctifies and changes our hearts. And it's up to us to allow the Spirit to work that change in us. It is not good enough to merely avoid evil, we need to fill our lives with good. We can continually improve as the Spirit works a miracle in our hearts.