Mosiah 3

In this chapter in verse 19 it talks a little bit about the natural man. Something that inspired me was a quote by Daniel H Ludlow and this is what he has to say about the natural man: " The phrase 'natural man' is understood by latter day saints to be an unrepentant person; it does not imply that mortals are by nature depraved or evil, but only that they are in a fallen condition. Natural man describes persons who are without God in the world and they have gone contrary to the nature of God. the Lord declared to Joseph smith 'Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, Innocent before God". We know as church members we have the higher law of God, which means we must strive to be in the world but not of this world. This requires a lot of control since most of the time as church members we are going against the tide in things such as modesty, morality and standards. I read the ensign last night and it was interesting because Elder L. Tom Perry talked a little bit about a business cock tail party he went to. He remembered feeling out of place and a little bit disadvantaged because of the social situation. He finally looked around the room and decided to drink something that would be appropriate for his Mormon standards. He saw some soda pop in one corner of the room and decided it looked too much like the drinks that contained alcohol. He finally decided to go to the bar, he asked the bar tender for a cold glass of milk, puzzled the bar tender met his request and managed to find a glass of milk for elder perry. To elder perry's great surprise him putting off the natural man and sticking to his cold glass of milk got him a lot of business attention. In fact by the end of the night people were so interested in his peculiar choice of drink, that he had a group of high business man surrounding him by the end of the night. He said cocktail night he continued to drink his glass of milk every time and others joined in his choice of drink also. This is a great example of putting of the natural man, Gods ways are not are ways, but we strife to make it that way every day. I have a personal story about putting off the natural man and I myself was in the presence of members also. One night a group from our singles ward headed up into the mountains to go swim at the lake. After driving an hour we got up to the campground and I started to notice some signs posted around the lake. The signs said swimming hours between 8am and 9pm. One sign said area only open to campers, another sign said no parking after hours. Well you can guess that it was past 9pm swimming hours and we had no parking pass and we certainly were not campers. I wondered if anyone in the car had noticed the signs. I was starting to get a very clear view of something it said in my patriarchal blessing. "Sister wilcken do not participate in anything that is immoral unclean or ILLEGAL. Never participate in anything that would dishonor you or your family. I was hesitant to say anything....but I knew I had to, words from God were clearly being put into my head for a reason. It was hard to get the guts to say anything after our driver had driven an hour to get there..... I told him I don't feel it is right to go and that I would give him gas money to take me back home. The others were upset that they didn't get to go, I felt bad for maybe ruining someones night,but I felt good on the way back home knowing that I didn't go against what God had specifically warned me about. There is a natural man inside of all of us, but in order to live with heavenly father again we need to accept Gods law and plan for us because it will lead us live with heavenly father again.
EMILY BARKER