Ye Must Be Born Again Elder Bednar

My boyhood home in California was located relatively shut to large orchards of apricots, cherries, peaches, pears, and other succulent fruits. We also lived near fields of cucumbers, tomatoes, and a diversity of vegetables.

Equally a boy I always looked forward to canning flavor. I did not like scrubbing the canning jars or working in our hot kitchen. But I did like working with my mom and dad. And I loved eating my work! I am certain I ate more fruit than ever fabricated information technology into any of our canning jars.

My memories of time spent in the kitchen with Mom and Dad are stirred every time I see a bottle of habitation-canned cherries or peaches. The basic lessons I learned about temporal self-reliance and provident living while picking and canning produce have blessed me throughout my life. Interestingly, elementary and ordinary experiences often provide the nigh of import learning opportunities we ever have.

As an adult I take reflected upon the things I observed in our kitchen during canning flavor. This morning I want to talk over some of the spiritual lessons we can acquire from the process by which a cucumber becomes a pickle. I invite the Holy Ghost to exist with u.s. as we consider the significance of those lessons for me and for you as we come unto Christ and are spiritually reborn.

Cucumbers and Pickles

A pickle is a cucumber that has been transformed co-ordinate to a specific recipe and series of steps. The first steps in the process of changing a cucumber into a pickle are preparing and cleaning. I call back many hours spent on the back porch of my home removing stems from and scrubbing dirt off of the cucumbers we had picked. My mom was very particular about the preparing and cleaning of the cucumbers. She had high standards of cleanliness and ever inspected my work to brand sure this of import task was properly completed.

The next steps in this process of change are immersing and saturating the cucumbers in salt alkali for an extended period of fourth dimension. To gear up the brine, my mom e'er used a recipe she learned from her mother—a recipe with special ingredients and precise procedures. Cucumbers can but go pickles if they are totally and completely immersed in the brine for the prescribed time catamenia. The curing process gradually alters the composition of the cucumber and produces the transparent appearance and distinctive taste of a pickle. An occasional sprinkle of or dip in the brine cannot produce the necessary transformation. Rather, steady, sustained, and complete immersion is required for the desired change to occur.

The concluding step in the process requires the sealing of the cured pickles in jars that have been sterilized and purified. The pickles are packed in canning jars, covered with boiling hot alkali, and processed in a humid-water-bath canner. All impurities must be removed from both the pickles and the bottles then the finished product can be protected and preserved. As this process is properly followed, the pickles tin be stored and enjoyed for a long period of time.

To summarize, a cucumber becomes a pickle equally information technology is prepared and cleaned, immersed in and saturated with salt brine, and sealed in a sterilized container. This procedure requires time and cannot be hurried, and none of the essential steps tin be ignored or avoided.

A Mighty Change

The Lord's authorized servants repeatedly teach that one of the principal purposes of our mortal being is to be spiritually changed and transformed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Alma declared:

"Marvel not that all flesh, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born once more; yea, built-in of God, changed from their lecherous and fallen state, to a land of righteousness, beingness redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;

"And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they tin can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God" (Mosiah 27:25–26).

We are instructed to "come up unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness" (Moroni x:32), to go "new animate being[due south]" in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), to put off "the natural man" (Mosiah iii:19), and to experience "a mighty alter in us, or in our hearts, that we take no more disposition to practise evil, but to exercise skilful continually" (Mosiah 5:2). Delight notation that the conversion described in these verses is mighty, not minor—a spiritual rebirth and fundamental change of what we feel and desire, what we call up and do, and what we are. Indeed, the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ entails a primal and permanent modify in our very nature fabricated possible through our reliance upon "the claim, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi ii:eight). As we choose to follow the Chief, nosotros choose to be changed—to be spiritually reborn.

Preparing and Cleaning

But as a cucumber must be prepared and cleaned earlier information technology tin can be changed into a pickle, so y'all and I can be prepared with "the words of religion and of good doctrine" (ane Timothy 4:6) and initially apple-pie through the ordinances and covenants administered by the authority of the Aaronic Priesthood.

"And the lesser priesthood connected, which priesthood holdeth the key of the ministering of angels and the preparatory gospel;

"Which gospel is the gospel of repentance and of baptism, and the remission of sins" (D&C 84:26–27).

And the Lord has established a high standard of cleanliness.

"Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they tin in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell in that location, or dwell in his presence" (Moses 6:57).

Proper preparing and cleaning are the first basic steps in the process of beingness born again.

Immersing and Saturating

But as a cucumber is transformed into a pickle as it is immersed in and saturated with salt brine, so y'all and I are built-in once again as we are absorbed by and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Equally nosotros honour and "observe the covenants" (D&C 42:13) into which we accept entered, as nosotros "banquet upon the words of Christ" (2 Nephi 32:3), every bit we "pray unto the Begetter with all the energy of centre" (Moroni 7:48), and as we "serve [God] with all [of our] heart, might, mind and strength" (D&C 4:2), then:

"Because of the covenant which ye have fabricated ye shall exist called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and accept get his sons and his daughters" (Mosiah 5:7).

The spiritual rebirth described in this verse typically does non occur quickly or all at once; information technology is an ongoing process—not a single result. Line upon line and precept upon axiom, gradually and nearly imperceptibly, our motives, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds go aligned with the will of God. This phase of the transformation process requires time, persistence, and patience.

A cucumber simply becomes a pickle through steady, sustained, and complete immersion in salt brine. Significantly, salt is the key ingredient in the recipe. Salt oftentimes is used in the scriptures as a symbol both of a covenant and of a covenant people. And just as salt is essential in transforming a cucumber into a pickle, and then covenants are central to our spiritual rebirth.

Nosotros begin the process of being born again through exercising faith in Christ, repenting of our sins, and being baptized by immersion for the remission of sins by one having priesthood authority.

"Therefore nosotros are buried with him past baptism into decease: that similar as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Male parent, even so nosotros also should walk in newness of life" (Romans half dozen:4).

And after we come out of the waters of baptism, our souls need to exist continuously immersed in and saturated with the truth and the calorie-free of the Savior's gospel. Desultory and shallow dipping in the doctrine of Christ and fractional participation in His restored Church cannot produce the spiritual transformation that enables the states to walk in a newness of life. Rather, allegiance to covenants, constancy of commitment, and offering our whole soul unto God are required if we are to receive the blessings of eternity.

"I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy I of State of israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and suffer to the terminate; and equally the Lord liveth ye will be saved" (Omni ane:26).

Total immersion in and saturation with the Savior's gospel are essential steps in the process of being born once more.

Purifying and Sealing

Cured cucumbers are packed into sterilized jars and heat processed in order to remove impurities and to seal the containers from external contaminants. The boiling-h2o-bath process enables the pickles to be both protected and preserved over a long period of time. In a similar way, we progressively go purified and sanctified as yous and I are washed in the blood of the Lamb, are born over again, and receive the ordinances and honor the covenants that are administered by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

"However they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and alleviation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh considering of their yielding their hearts unto God" (Helaman 3:35).

The word sealing in my message today does not refer exclusively to the ordinance of eternal marriage performed in the house of the Lord. Rather, I am using this particular word as explained in the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants:

"This is the testimony of the gospel of Christ concerning them who shall come up along in the resurrection of the only—

"They are they who received the testimony of Jesus, and believed on his proper noun and were baptized subsequently the mode of his burial, beingness buried in the h2o in his name, and this according to the commandment which he has given—

"That by keeping the commandments they might be washed and cleansed from all their sins, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this ability;

"And who overcome by organized religion, and are sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which the Father sheds along upon all those who are just and true" (vv. 50–53).

The Holy Spirit of Promise is the ratifying power of the Holy Ghost. When sealed past the Holy Spirit of Promise, an ordinance, vow, or covenant is binding on earth and in heaven. (Meet D&C 132:seven.) Receiving this "postage of approval" from the Holy Ghost is the result of faithfulness, integrity, and steadfastness in honoring gospel covenants "in [the] process of time" (Moses 7:21). Even so, this sealing can exist forfeited through unrighteousness and transgression.

Purifying and sealing by the Holy Spirit of Promise constitute the culminating steps in the process of being born again.

"In the Energy of My Soul"

My beloved brothers and sisters, I pray this parable of the pickle may assistance the states to evaluate our lives and to better understand the eternal importance of spiritual rebirth. With Alma, "I speak in the free energy of my soul" (Alma five:43).

"I say unto yous that this is the order after which I am chosen, yea, to preach unto my honey brethren, yea, and every one that dwelleth in the state; yea, to preach unto all, both old and immature, both bail and free; yea, I say unto you the aged, and as well the heart aged, and the rising generation; yea, to cry unto them that they must repent and be born over again" (Alma 5:49).

I witness the reality and divinity of a living Savior who invites us to come unto Him and exist transformed. I prove His Church and priesthood authority accept been restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith. Through faith in Christ, we tin can be spiritually prepared and apple-pie from sin, immersed in and saturated with His gospel, and purified and sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise—fifty-fifty built-in again. In the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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Source: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/05/ye-must-be-born-again?lang=eng

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