Friday, September 13, 2024

B. J. Allen on Christ's Experiential Knowledge

  

Trials alone do not improve us. To these trails must be added Christlike attributes, such as patience, love, and openness, which the scriptures teach are gifts from God (see Doctrine and Covenants 46:1; 1 Corinthians 12). These gifts of God help us take negative inputs (trials) and create positive outputs (a more Christlike person). It is certainly possible that people who suffer alone, without our Savior, can become stronger, but they will not reach their Christlike potential without turning to Him and partaking of His power. Consider the people of Nephi after a long war-torn period. The people had drastically different responses to their difficulties. Some “became hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God” (Alma 62:41). Our hardships are just as likely to lead to hardened hearts as they are to lead to useful learning unless we invite Christ to teach us.

 

Consider why Christ knows how to use these experiences to instruct and improve us. Suffering the vicissitudes of mortality is the same process by which He learned “grace for grace” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:13). Paul wrote, “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:8-9; emphasis added). Christ’s perfection was learned by suffering through the lessons of mortality. Paul further taught that Christ’s compensation is greater than any trial we endure. He wrote that Moses “[chose] rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward” (Hebrews 11:25-26; emphasis added).

 

Without Christ, we will not optimize the learning and refining process that could be ours if we would turn to Him. Often as Christians, we speak of suffering begetting faith, compassion, and improvement. The difficulties of life may be the school for instruction, but Christ is the teacher. AL of us will visit this school periodically; however, unless we invite the teacher to train us, we will not learn much of anything. Without Christ, the trials and heartache of life would simply be something to bear—like performing an arduous chore. However, with Christ, these experiences, although like ashes, can turn into something beautiful. (B. J. Allen, The Compensating Power of Christ: How Christ’s Atonement Rights the Wrongs of an Unfair World and Imperfect People [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2024], 129-30)

 

 

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