The's lesson was on The Final Judgment. I had never connected the fact that the Final Judgment is the FINAL judgement of judgements made as we move through life. That was absolutely fascinating to me. I mean we are judged worthy to receive the baptismal ordinance, as well as judged worthy to receive a calling, temple recommend and in the case of the men, the priesthood, etc. I love it.
I'm sure you've heard Matthew 7:1 where it reads "Judge not, that ye be not judged." It's used all the time. It tells us not to judge others. That being judging is a bad thing. But the interesting this is the Joseph Smith Translation for this verse which reads:
"Now these are the words which Jesus taught his disciples that they should say unto the people. Judge not unrighteously, that ye be not judged: but judge righteous judgment."We have to judge righteously, which means having the Holy Ghost with you. Each individual is different, with their different circumstances. In order to have a righteous judgement you have to have to Holy Ghost as your companion. It doesn't mean that you are mean or anything, you have to have Charity (the love of God). But it means you judge righteously.
Anyways, that little portion had not much to do with the lesson in the manual, but I found it fascinating so I shared it. Another interesting part of the lesson covered what we would be judged on. Often, in the world, we think it has to do with just "accepting Christ" or good works outweighing the bad. In a way that's correct, but there's more too it. Accepting Christ doesn't just mean you announce that you've accepted him. But rather that your life follows his. You've accepted him in your heart to a degree that you shy away from any evil or bad thing. It is true that your good works should be outweighing the bad. But it's only those that are 100% good that'll make it into the Celestial kingdom. How is that possible you ask? We all make mistakes right? Yes, we certainly do. But there was one person who never made a mistake and suffered and died for all of ours, this way we could be made perfect. We can be 100% good through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
We are judged "according to the desire of our hearts" (Alma 41:3). We are judged according to our words, works, and thoughts (Alma 12:14). Goodness. We are judged on all that. That's scary. I mean, our actions, sure. Understand that. But our thoughts? That's what would frighten me. But that's also why I am so grateful for the Atonement. Through it we can repent and be 100% pure and clean and good. Through the Atonement it is possible for us to change. It is possible to change our hearts totally around. However, could you imagine what it would be like to not have a perfect slate when the Savior comes? You'd feel like the rest of Alma 12:14:
" . . . and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence."It would be hard to face Christ with a guilty conscious. You'd really want to hide it you didn't repent. So to prepare for the final judgement, the best way is to do it is "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little" (2 Nephi 28:30). It's doing those simple things every day that we are instructed we should do: pray oft, scripture study, repent, etc. I love how somebody in class put it. We should make each day a Celestial day. It's now on my list of mottos along with "Good thought? Do it!" and a few others.
We have the agency to choose the path that leads us. We can choose to follow the path to the Celestial, Terrestrial, or Telestial. To take the path that leads to the Celestial we should be doing the things that lead us there. So, wake up every morning thinking "This is going to be a Celestial day" and do the best you can to make it that way.
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