What is the Gospel for?

     In my religion class last week, as we discussed about many of Jesus’ miracles, my professor asked us the following questions: Why did Jesus heal the people spiritually right away, if He knew that they would sin again? And why don’t we wait to be baptized and do our covenants right before we die, so we can die clean? As a kid I had thought about the second question before, and my conclusion was “because we don’t know when we are going to die”. That is right! But it is not all!

For a long time in my mind I thought of the Gospel as the way to exalt me. That is not false, it is true. In fact, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the way to lead us back to our Heavenly Father’s presence. However, that is not the only purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is not the only reason why we do covenants with God. It is not the only reason why Christ forgives us. I came to a better understanding of two other reasons why is important to start living the Gospel of Jesus Christ as soon as we can in our lives and do not wait until before we die to do so.

REASON #1 – God is not only concerned about where we are going or what we are doing. In my own opinion, what concerns God most is who we are BECOMING. Exaltation is the possibility to BECOME as our Heavenly Father is. Can I become as God, full of intelligence, wisdom, self-control, and charity towards everyone, from night to day? Will I be ready to be exalted if I repent a night before I die? NO! It requires time, a looooooong time. It requires effort. It requires hard work. And it requires repentance, which means that it requires failing – of course, if we do not fail there is nothing to repent of. But not failing by itself. It requires to try again, and over and over again, until we can overcome our bad habits. As we keep exercising faith in Christ; repenting of our faults; making, renewing, and keeping covenants with God; keep consistently seeking the guidance, comfort and inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and persistently continue throughout this process until the end – which means forever -  our weaknesses will turn into strengths, our bad habits into good habits, our natural man into spiritual man. Eventually, what once was a weakness will become a strength. The divine attributes will become part of who we are. And that is the ultimate goal of God, that through all the difficulties of our lives we may learn and develop the divine attributes He expects us to develop. And that is why He will forgive and clean us, even though He knows that we will mess up and get dirty again.

REASON #2 – The Gospel is not something only to bring joy in the future, after we die, when we can return to the presence of our God. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was designed to accomplish God`s plan, that “man may have joy”. And we don’t have to wait for an eventual Salvation to feel the joy that the Gospel can bring to us. We all can feel that joy RIGHT NOW! As Elder Nelson taught, “when the focus of our lives is on Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives.” When was the last time you recognized a blessing, even a little one, in the middle of all your trials, and recognized that you didn’t had to wait until the trial was gone to feel real joy? If it has been too long ago, maybe you should take a break now, and dedicate some time to think about what you are missing on applying the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because this life is the time for man to have joy, the Savior performed the Atonement, to give relief, hope, and joy to all mankind, so we all can feel true joy not only in the next life, but still in this one.

     I know that God is our Heavenly Father and Christ is our Loving Savior, and that what matters most is not where we are going, but WHO WE ARE BECOMING through the journey back to Him