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Thursday, July 31, 2008

WE BELIEVE: Second Article of Faith

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God has paid us the ultimate compliment: He holds us responsible and respects us as free, rational beings. He has given us this freedom through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The concepts of individual freedom and personal responsibility are at the very center of the Atonement. As Lehi [a prophet in the Book of Mormon] noted, the sacrifice of the Messiah removed from us the consequences of the Fall of Adam, which bound our bodies to death and our spirits to hell. Being redeemed from the Fall, we are “free forever, knowing good from evil; to act … and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day. … Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man” (2 Ne. 2:26–27). In the words of the second article of faith, “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.”
By: Elder Robert S. Wood, March 2002 Ensign

My Thoughts:
To be free and to have choice is a great freedom we have and it is God-given. Because someone made the choice to partake of the fruit of the tree, Adam, we his posterity, are NOT responsible for that choice. The Atonement of Christ took care of that. The thing that we must remember though is that we ARE responsible for our own choices. I have so appreciated the fact that I don't have to bear the responsibility of the choices of another, only for my own and through the atonement of Christ, I can repent and be forgiven for those choices I have made. I don't have to repent or be reponsible for something that I did not do, namely Adam's choice.

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