Conclusion—Never Give Up

Remember Your Covenants

The path back to God is well lit on how to study the gospel and strive to bring the Holy Spirit into our lives. Through our covenants, we have promised God, our Heavenly Father, that we will try to be like Jesus in all that we do and say.²Every Primary, youth and adult lesson teaches from the scriptures the words of Jesus and His holy prophets, and we are instructed on how to apply them to our lives. Come Follow Me is designed to help families study together daily and discuss the principles taught. We must never forget the promises we have made.

Elder Spencer W. Kimball taught: “When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be ‘remember.’ Because all of you have made covenants—you know what to do and how to do it—our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day—to take the sacrament and listen to the priests pray that they ‘may always remember Him and keep His commandments which He has given them.’ Nobody should ever forget to go to sacrament meeting. Remember is the word.”³ If we will remember our covenants and work to be worthy, we will receive the full blessing of the sacrament prayer that we will always have His Spirit to be with us.

You cannot claim that you “sin ignorantly, for (you know) the will of God concerning (you), for it (has) been taught unto (you).”⁴ Alma invites you to “imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God.”⁵

What a horrible image comes to mind if you did not have the Infinite Atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ to rely upon. His boundless love is there for all to receive. “He sendeth an invitation unto all men (and women and children, including you) for the arms of mercy are extended towards (you), and He saith: Repent, and I will receive you.”⁶ He will receive you!

“When we stumble, we need to remember that we can become clean through faith in Jesus Christ and sincere repentance. Repentance is joyful because, ‘though [our] sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’ (Isaiah 1:18). The Savior will not only forgive; He will forget our sin. What more could we ask: help when tempted [and] forgiveness when we repent. Repentance should not be feared even though Satan does try ‘to block us from looking to Jesus Christ, who stands with open arms, hoping and willing to heal, forgive, cleanse, strengthen, purify, and sanctify us.’⁷

Through your baptism, you have the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide you through life. You have the atonement to call upon to strengthen you. Your Savior can save you from this addiction if you are willing to commit 100% to change your thoughts and change your behavior. Changing your behavior will save your soul! Never give up!

How many times have we heard the admonition that repentance requires a mighty change⁸ of heart? How can your heart be changed when you feel so weak, so vulnerable to temptation?

Elder Kyle McKay explained it beautifully:

“Here we should pause and acknowledge that this mighty change of which we speak is wrought in us; it is not wrought by us. We are capable of repenting, changing our conduct, our attitudes, even our desires and beliefs, but it is beyond our power and capacity to change our nature. For this mighty change, we are wholly reliant on Almighty God. It is He who graciously purifies our hearts and changes our nature “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). His invitation is constant and sure: “Repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal [you]” (3 Nephi 18:32). The effect of being healed from sinfulness is that we become “changed from [our] carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness … becoming his sons and daughters; And thus [we] become new creatures” (Mosiah 27:25, 26). Our countenances radiate the Light of Christ. Moreover, the scriptures tell us that “whosoever is born of God sinneth not” (1 John 5:18). This is so, not because we are incapable of sinning, but because it is now our nature not to sin. That is a mighty change, indeed. It should be remembered that experiencing a mighty change of heart is a process over time, not a point in time. The change is usually gradual, sometimes incrementally imperceptible, but it is real, it is powerful, and it is necessary”.⁹

Elder McKay taught that it is beyond our power to change our heart alone. We need the Savior to cover our weakness, our temptation and vulnerability. We will feel the change come gradually as we stay the course. The process of losing the desire for sin may begin imperceptibly but it will grow. Keep feeding this “new creature,” nurturing it with wholesome thoughts, seeking the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, and He will guide and strengthen you.

Helaman fervently taught “O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.”¹⁰

The Lord already carries your sins whether you accept His help or not. He has already paid the price of your redemption. You simply have to invite His Spirit into your life, into your heart to allow Him to make the mighty change you are seeking. Never give up!

What Does Pornography Offer You?

Viewing pornography changes your brain in a destructive way. It destroys your personal love relationship. It could break apart your family. This is Satan’s plan. You may have started on this path innocently enough, but Satan does not care how naïve you may have been. Satan is a deceiver in every vile sense of the word. In darkness, he disguises himself as something beautiful, only to be revealed as revolting when the lights are turned on again.

It is sad to realize that viewing porn is taking place across the globe. Think about the implications. If this plague has infiltrated your life, and you have the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, imagine how it must be affecting the people who do not have the benefit of the gospel in their lives. Imagine the damage to individuals and families. What if your neighbor is viewing porn and these things are happening over there? What about your doctor or your lawyer? Your child’s teacher? Or youth leader? Your own child? His friends? What about government and world leaders? Sadly, its evil effect has infiltrated mankind on every level, in every country, and at every age.

Your task now is to keep your mind focused on your path of repentance. It is time that we all stand together in our fight against this evil. The best way to stop it is to cut off its “food supply”—starve it to death—stop viewing it! Teach your children to not view it. Talk with your neighbor, your doctor, your lawyer, your congressman. Be a brave voice. Stand up as a “witness of God in all times, and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life.”¹¹

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Plan of Happiness

Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness is so vastly different from what the world and pornography are offering. It centers on the joy of serving others. Think about it: You are baptized for yourself the first time, and then every other time is for someone else. You go to the temple for yourself the first time, and then every other time is for someone else. You are given the priesthood for the purpose of blessing the lives of others. You never use it to bless yourself. We are to serve like our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave His life for us that we might have joy.

In Satan’s plan with pornography and self-stimulation, there is no one but yourself with whom to bond. It offers only isolation and sadness. In contrast, joy is found as you deepen your true connections with the people in your life. You feel joy when you share experiences. You feel joy when you share learning processes. Your joy grows when you build faith in one another.

Human Bonding is Desired by All

All mankind has a shared eternal human history. Before we were born, we lived in heaven within a loving family. Love, guidance, and perfect parents were the only thing we had ever experienced. Our very souls yearn for this loving relationship to continue. As humans, we are designed to bond to others. We are placed in family units as a method of binding us to a nuclear group for love and support. Home and family are meant to be a safe place to appropriately love and touch one another.

Experiments have been done to see how children would develop if they were deprived of language and all but the most basic human touch. Would the children have spontaneous language and speak the dialect of their biological parents? Would they speak ancient Hebrew, Greek or, perhaps even the Adamic language? What happened to those innocent babies is tragic and very telling. In all cases, the infants failed to thrive. Despite being fed and kept clean, without human interactions the will to live failed. Human beings fail to thrive without loving touch and interactive communication with others. Infants deprived of these interactions grow sickly and, in some cases, even die. Every child is born with the instinctive desire and need to interact with those who will love and protect them.

As humans, we intuitively reach for love and connection. Consider the things people do in the name of love. They go to work every day. They clean toilets and wash dirty laundry. They change their names. They move across the country. They stay up late waiting for their child to return home safely. They clean dirty bottoms and wipe up late night vomit. They lose sleep to calm another’s nightmare. When necessary, people put their own lives at risk to save another from a burning building or frigid waters. All in the name of love.

The need for love is so powerful that sometimes we will pursue any thing to feel connected to someone, anyone, even when that involves impersonal, pornographic images on a screen. However, unlike real relationships, when the images end, there is no lasting, reciprocal connection. No one to laugh with or cuddle. No one at all.

Study after study shows that pornography does nothing to enhance your real-world love making. Porn users report that they feel less and less love for or even satisfaction with their partners. They become more critical of their appearance and are less able to perform sexually. They become more aggressive and disrespectful of committed intimacy and less willing to stick around in the relationship. It has been scientifically proven that pornography is a guide to poor relationships in every way. Not only does it change how you see and feel about your real-life partner, but it also changes how you are able to express your love for them. Porn use leaves you empty and alone. No machine, no image on a screen or magazine, can replace your basic human need to bond with another human being.

Choose Love—Real Love!

Mortality is filled with challenges, trials, and tests. But it is also designed to bring us great joy. That lasting joy is found when we choose the love Jesus has to offer. Christ came into the world to take away the sins of the world, “the sins of every man (including you) who steadfastly believeth on his name.”¹² His love is there for you. You can overcome this behavior if you are all in 100%. Then you, too, will be able to “look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands.” You will be able to look upon His face and see that “the image of God (is) engraven upon your countenance”¹³ and your heart will be filled with joy!

The path back to cleanliness may be difficult. You may have times when you feel far away from your Savior, that the pull of temptation is almost drowning you. Remember this counsel from Helaman: “And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.”¹⁴ Your shafts in the whirlwind may come in various disguises and the mighty storm that beats upon you may feel greater than you can handle. But remember that you are not alone. You are built upon a sure foundation. You are a Child of God. Never Give Up!

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­How Can You Know?

Years ago, I found this measurement¹⁵ of how you can judge for yourself if you are in tune with the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. It is a wonderful, quick review of how you may feel when you are on the Lord’s path.