Satan lies

I was cleaning out my Sunday bag today and I found a copy of my talk from this year from church. I read it and it really lifted my spirits and I thought someone out there might be in need of the moral boost it gave me writing it, so I thought I would share it here.

 While many of the scriptures and people quoted are LDS, the core message is for anyone who believes in divine love and the Atonement of Christ.

Truth and Lies

by Jennifer Nuckols

Ensign article Oct 2009.

My dear brothers and sisters, I have been asked to speak to you today, using a wonderful talk by Sister Jennifer Nickols, which can be found in October 2009 Ensign. The title of this talk is Truth and lies.

Brothers and sisters, Satan lies. Somethings are forever, like death, taxes and Satan lying. He knows what he is doing. He was doing it before time was time.

But if we as Latter day saints already know this, why do we talk about it so often? Because he lies so well. Some lies are easier for some of us to see, like claims that God does not exist, that evil things are good or that he, the devil will bring us salvation.

But others are harder to see through, because they cut deep into our weakest point, our self worth.

President Ezra Taft Benson said “Satan is increasingly striving to overcome the Saints with despair, discouragement, despondency, and depression.” and President Uchtdorf has warned that “Satan might even misuse words from the scriptures that emphasize the justice of God, in order to imply that there is no mercy.”

Satan wants us to lose faith, and he has a plan, and he has spent years perfecting it; Attack a person's individual worth and watch him crumble.

I have, as have many of you, fought this fight for years. I have struggled with my weight, with my hair and with my personality not fitting into the “norm”. As a teenager I felt on the outside so much of the time, I became uncomfortable when I was included in things.

The odd thing was, I really had no basis for my insecurity. I am not hound dog ugly, I was only a size 12-14 in school. I had wonderful, loving, supportive parents at home and I had many friends, both LDS and not, who cared deeply for me. But for some reason that was not enough. Something always told me I was not enough. I knew others who were even less “normal” than myself, but I always saw the best in them and I KNEW the Lord did, too. I never doubted the value of my friends and others at school. So why did I doubt myself?

Satan is very good at convincing us that we are right in our thinking because, “Look! You know others are valuable and loved by God, clearly you understand it! So if you feel so worthless, you must be right!”

How often I told myself that. How often I looked at those struggling around me and thought, “They are still so much better than me.”

Thankfully, because of the support I had, I was able to continue on. I did not give into the darker thoughts and desires of my heart. I fought on, believing that if those I loved and respected saw something in me, then I might just have a chance.

It took years, and the loving support of my husband to help me get out of that rut. I still slip in from time to time, but I am mostly in the clear. How did I do this? Sister Nickols said it best in the article, “I have tried to consciously identify my own damaging thoughts and replace them with gospel truths. In so doing, I have developed an increased ability to fight off Satan’s tools of 'despair, discouragement, despondency, and depression.'”

Replace the damaging thoughts with gospel truth. How exactly do we do that?

Well, Sister Nickols gave 5 wonderful examples of the great lies Satan tells us and the gospel truths to dispel them.

I would like to share them with you.

1.LIE: Because of my weaknesses and failings, God is continually disappointed in, frustrated with, and even angry with me.

TRUTH: God loves me and rejoices in me because I am His child.

For me, and for Sister Nickols, the best remedy is to think of our earthly fathers. Or for those who might not have had the best relationship with your fathers, a trusted male figure, a relative or a bishop.

How often have we made mistakes, our poor choices hurt others, and yet these caring men have loved us still?

My dad had a look he had mastered that some how said, “I love you so much, but what you did makes me sad, because I KNOW you can do better.” For a moment I would want to crawl inside myself, but with no word said, unspoken love pouring off of him, I would feel a desire, a NEED to do better. It inspired me, as should the love of our Heavenly Father.

In Heleman 15:3 it says, “yea, the people of Nephi hath he loved, and also hath he chastened them; yea, in the days of their iniquities hath he chastened them because he loveth them.”

That is how our Heavenly Father feels about us. He is sadden by these choices, not disappointed IN us, but FOR us. He wants so much more for us, but He will love us eternally, regardless of our mistakes.

2.LIE: I’m not as righteous, spiritual, attractive, or kind as that other person; therefore, God must love that person more than He loves me.

TRUTH: God knows my individual potential and progress intimately. He does not compare or rank me with His other children.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve said;

God “does not mercilessly measure [His children] against their neighbors. He doesn’t even compare them with each other. His gestures of compassion toward one do not require a withdrawal or denial of love for the other. … I testify that no one of us is less treasured or cherished of God than another. I testify that He loves each of us —insecurities, anxieties, self-image, and all. He doesn’t measure our talents or our looks; He doesn’t measure our professions or our possessions.”

Just as Christ loved all He came in contact with, the sinners, the sick, even those who tortured and crucified Him, God loves all his children. Regardless of those things which Satan and the world would have us use to judge our worth, God loves us all equally.

3.LIE: I need to prove that I’m worth loving by being perfect. Only when I’m perfect will I be able to experience love from God and from others.

TRUTH: Even though I’m not perfect now, I can have constant access to divine love.

I guess God wanted to give me a little reminder about this one today. In the original talk, Sister Bonnie D. Parkin is quoted as saying, “Do we frequently reject the Lord’s love that He pours out upon us in much more abundance than we are willing to receive? Do we think we have to be perfect in order to deserve His love? When we allow ourselves to feel ‘encircled about eternally in the arms of his love’, we feel safe, and we realize that we don’t need to be immediately perfect.”

I say the Lord was speaking to me because many years ago, when I was feeling extremely low and worthless, I entered the seminary building and said a little prayer. I asked the Lord to please show me some sign that He or anyone loved me that day. I open my scriptures at random to D&c 6:20 which reads; “Behold, thou art Oliver, and I have spoken unto thee because of thy desires; therefore treasure up these words in thy heart. Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love.”

Whenever I am feeling low, I remember that moment, insert my own name for Oliver's and feel the warmth I so needed that day over a decade ago. Even today it has to power to heal my aching heart.

4.LIE: I’m a terrible failure. I’ll never be good enough because I keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

TRUTH: I’m not perfect, but the desires of my heart are good. I can feel inspired to progress.

We will all fail. A lot. Since our marriage nearly 8 years ago, Daniel and I have had the opportunity to teach the youth, ages 11-14, 3 different times. I have told each class, “You are entering the age where you will push boundaries, question what you have known your whole life, and you WILL make mistakes. From now until the end of your time on earth.”

It may sound dark, or upsetting, but in all reality, it is a blessing. Without those many, many mistakes, we cannot learn. Without those early mistakes, we would not have the expirence later in life, when consequences are often much greater.

A few months back, my Mother-in-law gave me a parenting book called Love and Logic. At one point the book said something that surprised me, “Love and Logic parents love it when their children make mistakes. Why? Because the price tags for mistakes made by young children are smaller than those made by teens.” and adults.

Our own mistakes are much like this. We can learn from them, grow stronger. And with the Lord, even our greatest mistakes can be forgiven and He will “remember them no more”. What a great gift we have in the atonement.

But still many of us struggle deeply with the burdens of past mistakes, we labor under the burden of our misdeeds, feeling that until we fully repent and commit our sins no more, we cannot partake in the love of our Father.

Not so. Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “May I speak to those who carry their own load and more, to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short. … There is a difference … between being ‘anxiously engaged’ and being over-anxious and thus underengaged. … We can distinguish more clearly between divine discontent and the devil’s dissonance, between dissatisfaction with self and disdain for self. We need the first and must shun the second, remembering that when conscience calls to us from the next ridge, it is not solely to scold but also to beckon.”

Again, as stated before in Heleman, “he chastened them because he loveth them.”

5.LIE: I have too many issues, hang-ups, and past mistakes to be blessed and happy.

TRUTH: No mistake, no personal challenge, no past circumstance is outside of the healing and redemptive power of the Atonement.

Sister Nickols expanded on this much better than I could, she said “The anti-Christs in the Book of Mormon tried to convince people to renounce their faith in Christ. Even though we may profess belief in Christ, when we tell ourselves that we are outside the redemptive power of the Atonement, we are falling prey to a common deception of the greatest anti-Christ, Satan.

In contrast, President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve teaches that “save for those few who defect to perdition after having known a fulness, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no offense exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. … Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of the atonement of Christ.”

In The Miracle of Forgiveness, by President Spencer W. Kimball, it says, “There is a glorious miracle awaiting every soul who is prepared to change. Repentance and forgiveness make brilliant day of darkest night...The essence of the miracle of forgiveness is that it brings peace to the previously anxious, restless, frustrated, perhaps tormented soul...[and] those who heed the call [to repentance] , whether members or non-members...can be partakers of the miracle...God will wipe away from their eyes, the tears of anguish, and remorse... and smiles of satisfaction will replace the worried anxious look.”

But the most important thing is to remember to call upon the Holy Spirit when questions of self doubt, like the 5 listed in the talk, and others come into your heart and mind. Ask by the power of the Spirit to know the truth, for “the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be”.

Brothers and sisters, I bare unto you my testimony that Lord does love all this children. That Christ died for us. I would like to leave you with this thought:

“if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee,...The Son of Man hath descended below them all” for us. He has suffered for us. He has made ready our mansions, He eagerly awaits us. We have but to come unto Him and accept His sacrifice and repent.

If we were not worth it, why would He have ever suffered so greatly for us? I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

(If you know someone who might need this message, feel free to share)