Alma 39:7-9

I have experienced the Holy Ghost harrowing up my sins for my own good, and I know that is a miserable experience, but even in the midst of it, I knew it was for my own good. Maybe that is because I am at the point in my life where I really want to be better and do things right. I want the correction, even though it is miserable and difficult and hard. But I am grateful for the prompting that understanding, that I have no more desire to sin. Sometimes I am only aware of my imperfections, and they are many. But I feel like maybe I am going in the right direction, on the right path at least.

The idea that some sins are more serious than others is a difficult one because God cannot look any sin with the least degree of allowance. I think sometimes when we teach about some sins being more serious we miss the point that any sin keeps us from the presence of God. We are all sinners and all dependent on the mercy of Christ. So what does it really mean that some sins are more serious? I think it must have to do with the difficulty of repenting and changing. There must be some things that harden our hearts more than others. If that is why, though, then why is sexual sin worse? How is it like murder? Maybe it comes down to treating people as less than people? The seminary manual defines abomination as something that is awful to the Lord. Does that add insight?

I tried to look up a definition for cross yourself that fit with this scripture, but I couldn’t find one. The only information I could find that defined it as self-control was the fact that the footnote links to that topic in the topical guide. My thought was that it relates to taking up our cross to follow Christ (Matt. 16:24). But I don’t really have a good sense of what that means either. I appreciated the clarification I found here:

Let him deny himself, and take up his cross.—Our common thoughts of “self-denial,” i.e., the denial to ourselves of some pleasure or profit, fall far short of the meaning of the Greek. The man is to deny his whole self, all his natural motives and impulses, so far as they come into conflict with the claims of Christ.

It is about the death of the natural man, and become a new person in Christ. I love that bit of understanding!

Alma 39:7-9