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(6.08) Choose Life · Filled with His Love

• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to Filled with His Love.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, I talked about moral agency and how it is the least understood principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Elder David A.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Bednar.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: He referenced Moses 7, verse 32, to illustrate his point.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, and unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their father.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the temple the other day and began reading in Deuteronomy chapter thirty.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness for forty years.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're in Moab, looking eagerly across the Jordan River to the promised land.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Moses knows he will not enter the promised land, so he gives his farewell address to those he's been leading for so many years.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had never noticed the power of his address.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: These were his final words before he died.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing death is near has a way of focusing one's thoughts, and Moses wanted to make sure he gave his most powerful address before the Israelites entered the promised land.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: This chapter in Deuteronomy shows how important moral agency is in God's plan of happiness.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Moses tells Israel that even after straying, if they return to the Lord with all their heart and soul, God will receive them, gather them, and bless them.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even failure is not the end if they choose to come back.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that they will still struggle after they cross Jordan and enter the promised land, but he teaches that repentance is real, and they will always be able to recover from any mistake they make.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: He reminds them that righteous living is not out of reach.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is clear and accessible, so all they need to do is make one choice, that's all.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what is that choice?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here are his exact words.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love these words choose life.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is helping them see that if they keep the commandments, they will be choosing life, but if they rebel, they will experience spiritual death, which is separation from God.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The next verse is even more powerful, quote, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life and the length of thy days, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is saying that choosing life ultimately means choosing God.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You use your God given moral agency to choose Him.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: God not only gave you life, He is your life.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: As Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: All we need to do is love God with all our heart and soul.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if love is the highest expression of moral agency, choosing life is not primarily choosing rules over sin, it is choosing relationship over separation, attachment over alienation, and love over indifference.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sin isolates, it separates us from God, often from other people and eventually from our truest selves.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation, by contrast, is reconciliation.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Christ came not merely to forgive us, but to bring us back into relationship with the Father, the highest possibilities within us, what Truman Madsen called the highest in us.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: In some ways, this might sound too easy.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: We just need to choose life by choosing God.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: One simple choice.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But as it turns out, this is the supreme challenge of mortality.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: One might say that every choice we make either leads us closer to God or further away.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Seemingly insignificant choices can turn out to be more consequential than we thought.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we must realize that moral agency can sometimes be constrained by outside forces.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: We live in the same world, but our surrounding environments vary sometimes drastically.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: One of the clearest examples I've seen of people literally choosing life comes from the work of my niece, Julie Hernandez, and her husband, Janelle, in the Philippines.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've discussed their work before on this podcast, but the power of what they're doing continues to impress me.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: They help abused young women rebuild their lives.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Their center is called Lighthouse Sanctuary.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's in this center that young women who have been mistreated can choose life.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Julie tells of a young woman who had endured years of sexual abuse and was living at Lighthouse Sanctuary with her newborn baby, conceived through that abuse.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than being defined by her suffering, the young woman spoke about how her prayers had been answered, that she was now safe, and that she wanted to become a lawyer to defend children who had experienced what she had.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Julie writes that the younger girls in the shelter looked up to her, and after hearing her dreams, she simply said, I believe you.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those in the shelter often enter in a state of hopelessness.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Their moral agency has been severely limited, but in the sanctuary, they can rediscover their power to choose.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: They decide to choose life by choosing God.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Our choices may not seem as dramatic as those in the lighthouse sanctuary, but we have the opportunity to choose God every day.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes choosing life is as simple as offering encouragement, expressing gratitude, or really listening to someone who needs to be heard.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: We can also ask ourselves if we're choosing the life God wants us to choose.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Are we spending our time in ways that draw us closer to Him?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are we helping others draw closer to Him?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Choosing life is uplifting.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: When we choose life, we try things we've never done before.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: We explore until we discover something we have never understood.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Choosing life not only lifts us, but it inevitably lifts those around us.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes choosing life, choosing God, takes more energy and faith than we've ever expended.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at other times choosing life is as simple as listening to a friend or family member really, really listening.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have a close friend who was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: The prognosis is not good, but when we visited with her she was full of faith, as full of faith as anyone I have ever known.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: She wants to be able to raise her children, and so against all odds, she is choosing hope because she has chosen God.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: President Nelson once taught that we should expect miracles, and her expectation is palpable.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we keep praying that those miracles will come.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but I for one want to choose life.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to choose it every day, all day.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do things that will strengthen my attachment to God and to those I love.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Mortality is so brief.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have only the time allotted to us to show the Lord whom we have chosen.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here is my invitation.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today, take a few quiet moments and ask yourself, How will I choose life?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: What will you do today that draws you closer to God?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: What will you do that helps someone else draw closer to Him?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just as Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, each day we are invited to cross from fear to faith, from isolation to relationship, from death to life.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Every day we choose again, and my hope is that together we will choose life.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and until next time, let's draw a little closer to God and to one another.