Thursday, November 14, 2013

"How to Succor Them Who are Tempted"


D&C 62:1 states "Behold, and hearken,…saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, your advocate, who knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them that are tempted."
He then goes on to say some very wonderful things and give great blessings. This section is full of wonderful things that you really should take the time to study out and really learn. But what I want to focus on is how He is our advocate, He knows out weaknesses and knows how to succor us that are tempted.
I have talked a lot lately about how He gives us the strength through trials and difficulties because He has been there before. I have a strong deep testimony that Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior knows has felt every pain, sadness, trial, temptation and sin for each and every one of us. He suffered not only to allow us to be back in the presence of our Heavenly Father, but He also suffered so that we wouldn't be alone. He knows perfectly where we have been so that He knows perfectly how to help us. 
He knows our weaknesses. We have them to us so that we can be humble and learn how to make them strong (Ether 12:27). Do we have to learn how to make our weaknesses alone? No. We could try. But how easy is it for an addict to become clean by themselves? Not very. He knows perfectly so that we do not have to work hard alone. We don't have to fail. We just need to turn to Christ.
He knows how to succor them that are tempted. Have you ever made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for an activity and have some left over? They just sit there. Calling your name. Enticing you to just have one bite. Every time you pass them in the kitchen, you can hear your name just a little bit louder until you finally succumb. Then the next thing you know, the extra ten cookies are gone. You could say that they were tempting. How do you keep yourself from eating the ten extra delectable goodness? Well there are many strategies, but my favorite is to just not have them. I try to give them away. Or just not bake them in the first place. Now I'm not saying that chocolate chip cookies are bad. They are wonderful. Whenever I am feeling nostalgic or depressed, trust me, it hits the spot. But we have temptations that we really have a hard time with. It may be chocolate chip cookies. Or saying biting remarks as retaliation. Or pornography. There are lots of things out there, sitting there, calling our name, getting louder each time we pass. And we pass them all the time. We don't have to try to resist by ourselves. 
Christ is there, ready to help us say no to temptations. He will be the person in our ear saying, "You don't really want that cookie." That may not be actually what happens, but He really will be that added extra strength that we need to resist temptation. There is a scripture in the New Testament that says that we won't be tempted above that which we will be able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). But it doesn't exactly say how. Alma 13:28 gives the exact key. Humble yourselves before the Lord. Call on His holy name. 
It is my testimony that He truly is there. He wants to help us. I know I talk about this a lot but I just want to shout it out from the rooftops that I know. I KNOW that this life doesn't have to be as hard as we make it out to be. If we turn to the strength of Christ, we will have the ability to make it through all of the difficult things that we are asked to pass through in this life.

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