Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Love or Fear?

We've all heard, in some form or another, that you're either motivated by Love or Fear. My question to that is: How? and/or Why?
In observing the individual words, I began to wonder what both Love and Fear was.
        Here is what I've found...
Charity vs Selfishness.
  • Charity is the purely sincere love for ones fellow man. 
  • Selfishness is the antitheses of that noble a virtue, choosing to look out for ones self, often without the consideration for others. 
Love for yourself, or for others? Selfishness, or selflessness?

Fear vs Faith.

  • Fear, when translated to English from the Bible (specifically the Old Testament, from Hebrew translation), doesn't translate over 100% accurately. In many cases it can be replaced by the word 'Respect'. 'Fear':Respect::tails:heads. One's negative while the other is positive.
In one case, acting out of respect for ones parents can be done because you Love them, or because you are afraid (Fearful) of the consequences that may result by you not doing as they direct. Perhaps you are already aware of what the outcome of obeying a specific rule, request, or command will be and you're just doing so for-- not entirely selfish reasons, but for some personal reason all the same.
  • Faith is not just a passive thing that one believes. Faith, of course, is a form of action. It's an active and consistently moving forward entity in all of our lives. When Faith is present Fear is gone. 
 Faith is the light of the burning candle amidst the enshrouding fear of darkness. Fear is the absence of Faith, just as darkness is the absence of light. With Faith, you and I can overcome the fears that inhibit and restrict our potential.

So it's clear to me that in the end you either have positive, or negative motivators.

Monday, May 14, 2012

The Storm Tossed Soul

     When things are out of balance in nature, a storm is created; and ofttimes that storm is exactly what puts nature back into balance. I think as humans, when we are out of balance, we sometimes have what I call an emotional storm. And sometimes that emotional storm is exactly what we need to help put ourselves back into balance.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Repentance

Repentance is a fundamental change in a persons understanding of ones self, others, and of God. It's a paradigm shift in ones understanding of the Atonement of Christ and how it truly works for them in their lives, as well as in the life of others.