"The Continual Atonement" and "The Continural Conversion"

"The Continual Atonement" and "The Continural Conversion"

SMALL SYNOPSIS OF BOOK

"The Continuous Atonement"
The sacrament prayers have to be given word-perfect. Everyone knows that. But when the priest flubs it, what happens? Even though the expectation of perfection cannot be lowered, the person giving the prayer gets a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, if he needs them. No matter how many mistakes he makes along the way, when he does finally get it right, the outcome is counted as perfect and acceptable."God, like the bishop, cannot lower the standard that we ultimately become perfect," writes Brad Wilcox, "but He can give us many opportunities to start again. . . . Perfection is our long-term goal, but for now our goal is progress in that direction - continues progress that is possible only through the continuous Atonement."

"The Continuous Conversion"

These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God’s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must “put on the new man . . .” (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule— God must rule in us.To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.” We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

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Monday, May 13, 2013

The Continuous Conversion by Brad Wilcox
For some in the Church, the message of Christ does not fall on deaf ears, it falls on discouraged ears. Many of us feel defeated- like we can never do enough and are forever falling short. Brad Wilcox points out that some people see only two options-being perfect or giving up. But learning takes time and practice. This book helps us re-examine how we view the Atonement and the process of change. Critics sometimes argue that Church members think we "earn" our way into heaven. Brother Wilcox teaches that we're not earning heaven, we are learning heaven. We're not working our way to heaven, we're preparing for it- practicing for it. Through simple yet powerful analogies and moving personal experiences, he teaches that one of the grand miracles of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled, but that we can be transformed.
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