In my previous entry, I spoke of baptism. Baptism is only one of the steps on the path back home to our Heavenly Father. Often the hardest work comes after that wonderful moment when you’ve risen from the water and everyone is smiling at you.
For that single moment, you are perfect. But when the service is over, you leave the chapel and go out into the real world, where challenges and trials await. Your trials don’t end because you’ve chosen to commit your life to serving God. Satan certainly has no plans to leave you alone after you’ve made such an eternally significant decision. No, he’s going to work hard to convince you to change your mind.
The Book of Mormon gives us guidelines as to our responsibilities after baptism:
Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Nephi 31:20)
These are wonderful, inspirational words, but they aren’t platitudes. They are an outline for the rest of our lives, and they involve hard work and diligence. Enduring to the end is harder than it seems. It involves becoming a true disciple of Christ, a term meaning Pupil, and continuing the process all your life. Great bursts of faith are exciting and make for inspiring legends. We all love to read about those who were martyred. Within the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we praise Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum for their willingness to die for God. There were, in fact, many martyrs in our religion during the early years of the church. However, James E. Faust, an apostle of God, made this critical point:
For most of us, however, what is required is not to die for the Church but to live for it. For many, living a Christlike life every day may be even more difficult than laying down one’s life. I learned during a time of war that many men were capable of great acts of selflessness, heroism, and nobility without regard to life. But when the war was over and they came home, they could not bear up under the ordinary daily burdens of living and became enslaved by tobacco, alcohol, drugs, and debauchery, which in the end caused them to forfeit their lives.” (James E. Faust, “Discipleship,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 20–23)
What does it mean to live for your faith? It means that in the small, every day choices, we take into consideration the will of our Father. His choices, not ours, are the foundation for our everyday lives, all the large and small choices we make all day long.
It’s often said that Satan can’t capture us in one spectacular moment. He leads us away in small steps, increasing our comfort level with sin. Once Satan can get us comfortable with the little sins, he can convince us that slightly larger ones are okay as well. Soon, our baptismal covenants are forgotten and we’ve fallen far from where we belong. So it’s in the small moments of life that we have to be particularly vigilant, to be certain it isn’t the little, seemingly harmless, sins that are setting us on the wrong path. “It’s just a little lie.” “It’s only a cup of coffee.”
Remaining steadfast and enduring to the end may become the hardest challenges you face, even harder than making the choice to convert will be. The rewards, however, are beyond measure, and worth the vigilance and dedication to faith and truth.
To learn more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the lives the “Mormons” live, visit Mormon.org.
The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.
