THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I

JOHN BRADFORD

John Bradford, a champion of the Church of England, was imprisoned by the Catholic Church for his loyalty to the King and the Church of England. When the King died a Catholic queen was enthroned and the arrest was made. When he saw many of his fellow prisoners heading for the gallows he made his famous statement; “there but for the grace of God goes John Bradford”. He was eventually hanged.

A true belief that God has a hand in our lives and blesses us daily is sometimes conflicted by our belief in free agency. Do we really make our own proverbial “bed”? Is our life a result of who we are and the choices we’ve made or are we blessed immeasurably by our creator? How many of our blessings come because of our “works” and what blessings are a result of the “grace of God”? Am I more deserving of my many blessings than the guy who lost his job and has had a lot of “bad luck”?

I recall many years ago a plane crashed into a mall in the city where we live. There was a Vietnamese lady who was badly burned because of the crash. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shortly after this incident she lost some members of her family due to other accidents. All were due to no fault of her own. Now could I say “there but for the grace of God, go I”?

We all should study Isaiah 55. This chapter contains the following verse:

8 ¶ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

Maybe the tragedies are blessings and the blessings are really only an earthly reality with no eternal value. Our lives are in the hands of God and it is up to Him how he will bless us. We are at His mercy. The works we perform on this earth are for His glory, not for our earthly blessing.

We believe we are saved by grace after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23) The only way we can partake of the atonement is to unselfishly glorify God. I certainly don’t mean with only words, but also with works. We then can be made “one with Christ”. We must be AT ONE with Christ in order to gain salvation and only Christ can do that.

TRUTH "As I See It"

 

Every day is filled with the pursuit of truth.  To many the truth cannot be found.  It seems that most believe that religious truth is a matter of interpretation and only applies to our particular circumstances.  My truth is for me and your truth is for you.  They may or may not be the same, but it serves my purpose just the same.

The apostle John gives us an account of the Savior’s response to Pilate when asked if he were a king.

John 18   
37. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
38. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

It seems to me that Pilate wasn’t interested in the truth for as soon as he asked the question he turned and went out to the Jews to render his decision.  Maybe the 
Savior answered this question or maybe he felt that Pilate was not really interested.  Up until now we have no real answer.

Alvin R. Dyer once stated; “Religion, in the true Christian concept, depends upon revelation from God for its faith and teachings of truth.”  If it hasn’t been revealed to man by God and hasn’t been proven by using the scientific method, then I believe our opinion is just as good as anybody else’s.  We need to be aware that in many cases as we pursue truth each day it probably can’t be found.  However, we can be confident that if science discovers a “truth” that is contrary to the revealed word of God, then it can’t be true.

Following the above statements; Can we find political “TRUTH”?

JUST A PENCIL

Early in the morning of November 23, 1963 my missionary companion and I entered the train station in Munich, Germany. That day was the day I was being transfered to a small village outside of Nuremberg, Germany called Stein. I spotted a newspaper vendor holding up a newspaper with the headlines KENNEDY ERMORDET. Much to our amazement Pres. Kennedy had been assassinated. What a strange feeling we had to be in Germany and our president was gunned down in the USA. Sadness filled the air as we and many of the German citizens tried to grasp what had just happened the day before. My understanding of the german language was very limited and being a missionary and isolated from much of the news of the day I was unable to get many of the details. This was hard, but I was in Germany to be a missionary and the outside world was far from my daily thoughts. I mentioned this tragedy in my journal, but it wasn’t the main topic. I learned most of the details of the assassination after returning home in 1966.

Stein is a beautiful German village and the home of the pencil manufacturer FABER-CASTELL. Again while I was there I wasn’t concerned with pencils. It was interesting to note that one of the most famous writing instrument manufacturers started here, but not much thought was given to “pencils”. Then this morning I read a commentary/column in the newspaper on pencils. My thoughts went back to this beautiful village and the great experiences I had there. However, today I am concerned with the state of the world. You might call it worry/concern for the business climate and how the government is making it more and more difficult to prosper in business. We must all consider the history of the USA and why it is the most prosperous country in the world. Our freedoms in all areas, including business, have allowed us to follow the plan of the Savior. To pursue dreams, work hard, fail, succeed, be happy, be sad, experience tragedy, experience joy are all necessary for our salvation. We don’t need a government to think for us and provide us with their version of “THE PLAN OF HAPPINESS”.

Go to the link below and read this article. It made me concerned of where we are headed.

http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp?columnID={E5EDD2ED-4581-40CF-88BF-2B6735005AD4}