Area Leadership Message
Our Divine Potential
There is a popular experiment mentioned in motivational books1 where scientists have discovered that they could train fleas not to jump high. They placed fleas in a glass jar with a lid. Initially the fleas tried to jump out of the jar but each time they did, they would hit their heads on the lid, causing them discomfort and pain. To avoid this, the fleas began to adjust their jump to a level just below the top of the jar. The scientists discovered that if they left the fleas in the jar for several days, this adjustment became permanent—the fleas would never jump higher than the level of the jar, even when the lid was removed. More interesting was that their offspring would do exactly the same thing, even though they had the potential to jump much higher.
Are we sometimes like fleas who have been conditioned to the environment which surrounds us? Do we truly understand who we are and the capacity we have to become like our Heavenly Father? As President Russell M. Nelson has taught: “The challenge for you and me is to make certain that each of us will achieve his or her divine potential. Today we often hear about ‘a new normal.’ If you really want to embrace a new normal, I invite you to turn your heart, mind, and soul increasingly to our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Let that be your new normal.”2
Like fleas we can also adjust our normal but in a higher and holier way. Elder Peter M. Johnson taught: “You are elect sons and daughters of God. You have the power to overcome the adversary. The adversary, however, is aware of who you are. He knows of your divine heritage and seeks to limit your earthly and heavenly potential by using . . . deception, distraction, and discouragement.”3
The good news however is that our Heavenly Father also knows who we are and is in the details of our lives. We are His children and His divine purpose is to “bring to pass [our] immortality and eternal life.”4 Because He knows and loves us, He sent His Only Begotten Son to die for us that through His mercy and grace, we will all be resurrected and given the opportunity for eternal life with God.
As we partake of the sacrament each week, we are reminded of our divine potential which is made possible through the sacrifice of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. As we partake of the bread we remember His body, physical suffering, death, and Resurrection. He overcame physical death and blessed us all with the gift of everlasting life. As we partake of the water, we remember His blood which was shed for us not only on the cross but also in the Garden of Gethsemane. There, He suffered intense spiritual pain and anguish as He took upon Himself the sins, sorrows and pain of all people. Through His infinite Atonement we can receive a remission of sins as we exercise faith unto repentance and make and keep sacred covenants.
Discipleship brings changes into our lives as we “come unto Christ, and [are] perfected in him.”5
Remember, however, “that perfectionism is not the same as being perfected in Christ . . .
“Becoming perfected in Christ is . . . the process . . . of becoming more like the Savior. The standards are set by a kind and all-knowing Heavenly Father and clearly defined in the covenants we are invited to embrace. It relieves us of the burdens of guilt and inadequacy, always emphasizing who we are in the sight of God. While this process lifts us and pushes us to become better, we are measured by our personal devotion to God that we manifest in our efforts to follow Him in faith. As we accept the Savior’s invitation to come unto Him, we soon realize that our best is good enough and that the grace of a loving Savior will make up the difference in ways we cannot imagine.”6
As we approach this Christmas season, we join with Christians throughout the world in remembering the birth of the literal Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father. The circumstances of His birth were not glamorous, yet the heavens rejoiced, and choirs of angels sang. This was the commencement of the perfect life which would conclude in that great and last sacrifice, which was infinite and eternal, enabling each of us to reach our divine potential.
“And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.
“And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”7
In the words of C.S. Lewis: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses. . . . There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”8
Each of us are immortal beings with unlimited capacity to become like our Father in Heaven. Therefore, let us joyfully bind ourselves to the Saviour Jesus Christ as we make and keep sacred covenants. It is through Him that we can overcome this world and truly achieve our divine potential.