During the week we spent in Utah, I was reminded of just how personal and beautiful God is.
He is strong, and I am weak. When I depend on myself, things will fail, but if I depend on the Lord, He will lead me through, not because I am good enough, but because he is good. This is what makes the Christian gospel unlike any other religion. It’s the fact that the Creator of the universe wants to meet us wherever we are in our spiritual journey, and simply walk with us and have a personal relationship with us. We don’t have to clean ourselves up first. We don’t have to complete a list from A to Z perfectly to live with Him forever.
We get to be dependent on the Lord, trust in Him fully, and walk in confidence and joy because salvation is not dependent on our works! We get to walk in joy, confidence, and strength because we are leaning daily on the one who carries, the one who leaves the 99 to get the one, and the one who loves us so intensely that He died the death that in a fair world we would have earned.
As I look back on my week in Utah, my heart begins to hurt when thinking about the members of the LDS church that we talked to. It was one thing to learn about their belief system and details about how Mormonism came to be, but it was another thing to talk to people who fully believed it; as well as those whose lives were centered around the LDS church and who seemed so kind and joyful, yet they were living in a lie. It hurts to actually see people who God cherishes and deeply wants, who are deliberately living in a life of deception and don’t know the truth! What was so interesting was that it all seemed very surface level.
Many of the LDS members were not that knowledgeable about their own faith. It seemed that we sometimes knew more about the Book of Mormon than they did. Oftentimes, when we begin to get into some deeper topics, many members deflect the questions by stating that they didn’t know much, and that there were missionaries on campus that could answer the questions better. Funnily enough, however, many said that they actually just got off of mission either a year ago or a month ago, so shouldn’t they have been able to answer as well? Regardless, they were very kind and very open to answering our questions. One of my favorite parts was the fact that the conversation could get a little intense, but in a way that was still respectful.
We were able to have a respectful, intellectual argument about the case for Christ!
What my partner, Micah Davis, and I tried to convey to each LDS member was that Jesus Christ is Lord, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all one but 3 distinct persons, and that eternal life and salvation come from trusting that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised again, and that it is not by works, but rather works are a byproduct of faith. These were our main points that we hit on. We showed that there are contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. We talked about objective and subjective truth, and we asked them if they think the Bible and Book of Mormon are objectively true. Every single one of them said yes.
So then, we delivered this point: if they are both objectively true, true independent of anyone’s beliefs, how do you deal with the contradictions between the two? Because of all the contradictions, one book has to be true, and the other has to be false. They cannot both be true. But this is what makes the gospel so unique! Jesus has given us the good news that it is not of our own selves. It is the gift of God, not a result of works. Hallelujah.
If it were up to my good deeds and how close I was to being perfect, I would be so far off the line I wouldn’t even be eligible enough to THINK about what heaven might be like. This is the good news. That Jesus died FOR us, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish. We get to be dependent on the Lord, not ourselves. This is what separates Christianity from other religions. In other religions, you have to work to be saved. You would have to completely forsake your sin before you’re saved, versus being saved because you are a sinner and being saved where you are at. The labor and calling of taking action to deny purposefully choosing to sin is something you do as an act of becoming like Christ by striving to be more like Him and embodying His character.
Praise God that it is not of our own doing. The Christian gospel is unique because Christ’s blood has already paid it all.
Rayn Wickliffe, Class of 2027
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