Baptism, Repentance, and Priesthood

What about those people who were not living LDS standards but want to change their lives and eventually go to the temple? 

Well there is excellent news.  So far as I can tell, there are 3 Main Paths for Repentance

While it is true that you cannot un-drink what you drank last  year, or un-smoke the tobacco that you smoked last week, or take back the virginity that you lost in high school, your past decisions do not have to determine your future ones.  I have written before about the atonement in my life, but I wanted to write a little bit about it in general and the wonderful means we have to repent. By repent I mean we can apologize to God and start over with a clean slate.

There are MANY Mormons who were adhering to a very different standard before they were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  They may have involved themselves with drug abuse, or living with their significant other before marriage.  There are many ways to sin and I don’t feel the need to outline the ones that come to mind, however, the wonderful thing about the atonement of Christ is that just because we have sinned, doesn’t mean we have to keep sinning. We have the opportunity to recognize that our actions were not in line with the commandments.  We can repent of our sins through prayer. We can repent as we partake of the sacrament (like communion) and the big way to repent is to be baptized. 

While many churches baptize, when someone decides they want to join the LDS church, they must be re-baptized. (Members who were baptized and then left the church and then decided to come back, do not need to be re-baptized.)

This is not because we think we are better and that other people who baptize were bad people.  I bet that those people who go around baptizing individuals into their churches are good people with good intent, but we do not believe that they hold the priesthood; the power and authority to act in God’s name.

The commonly used example is this.  Say I am flying down the road at 75miles per hour and the speed limit is 50. I am in the wrong. So, a wonderful driver of a ice-cream truck comes up behind me, turns on his music and asks me to pull over.  Even if I do pull over for this ice cream truck and listen to him inform me that I am a danger to myself and those around me, he cannot give me a ticket. This is because is not a police officer- he doesn’t have the power or authority to give me a ticket or take away my license.  He is well intended person but however wrong I am and however right he is, he doesn’t have the power/authority.  This is how we  try to make the power of the priesthood better understood. 

When we take the sacrament on Sunday (bread and water), we renew the promises/covenants that we made at our baptism. The sacrament is blessed by men who hold the priesthood- the same priesthood that was used at baptism and the same priesthood that Jesus sought when he wanted to be baptized. He could have gone anywhere to any body of water but he went looking for John because John had the proper authority from God. 

It is this power of the priesthood that seals families together forever in the temple.  There is a saying in our church about when you get married make sure it is "At the right time, to the right person, in the right place".  But along these same lines of marriage, there are lots of righteous people who join the Mormon chruch and for whatever reason, their spouse does not want to join the LDS church.  While they cannot go into the temple to be married for time and all eternity, the baptized member can attend church, worship at do temple work, and enjoy full membership.  They have no negative repercussions except that their husband/wife cannot go into the temple with them to be sealed in the temple. 

If they are married in a botanical garden or on a lovely hilltop or the church their parents were married in, goodness sake they are married!  I have heard people who think that because they were not marred in the temple, Mormons dont think they are legally married. Thats ridiculous! Married is married be it in Vegas or in the air skydiving. I do not believe that those marriages are sealed by the priesthood authority to continue beyond death, but they are married; legally and lawfully!  

The difference between LDS baptism and LDS marriages is found the in power of the priesthood.  This page talks about the restoration of the church and the restoration of the priesthood power.  http://mormon.org/restoration