Satan has NO power!

This week the Beira District received copies in Portuguese of the 12 step addiction recovery workbook. At district council on Thursday, I mentioned how inspired and effective this workbook is in helping one who desires to repent, as well as those desiring to overcome addiction.

Satan has no power or influence over us, unless we allow him to. Adam "became subject to the will of the devil, because he yielded unto temptation." (D&C 29: 40) 

The apostle Paul taught that: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." (1 Cor. 10:13)

There is always a way for us to escape any temptation we encounter. Satan cannot tempt us beyond our power to resist.

A revelation given through Joseph Smith the Prophet states: “... I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation..” (D&C 95:1) (see also Alma 13:28)

Prior to his conversion, Alma the younger was guilty of "causing much dissensions among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them."(Mosiah 27: 9) 

Satan (the enemy of God) can only exercise his power if we don't keep the commandments. 

When Alma and Amulek were preaching in Ammonihah, Amulek "stretched forth his hand, and cried the mightier unto them, saying: O ye wicked and perverse generation, why hath Satan got such great hold upon your hearts ? Why will ye yield yourselves unto him that he may have power over you...?" (Alma 10: 25)  Satan has no power unless we yield ourselves to him. 

Moses was taught that: "he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice." (Moses 4:4) If we hearken to God and keep his commandments, Satan cannot deceive, blind or lead us captive.

C.S. Lewis said: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all...You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have always lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it; and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation really means—the only complete realist.”

 (Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 124-6.) 

We of course need to do our part and avoid temptation. President George Albert Smith said:"My grandfather [George A. Smith] used to say to his family, "There is a line of demarkation, well defined, between the Lord's territory and the devil's. If you will stay on the Lord's side of the line you will be under his influence and will have no desire to do wrong; but if you cross to the devil's side of the line one inch, {or today, we may add, ‘one click’} you are in the tempter's power, and if he is successful, you will not be able to think or even reason properly, because you will have lost the Spirit of the Lord.”   

 (Sharing the Gospel with Others, 1948, page 42-43) 

We went to this very nice ($150,000,000) Chinese hotel (Golden Peacock Beach Resort) the restaurant uses iPads to place the orders, but our waitress preferred to write the order on napkins. Sadly, she somehow lost Moms order.

 Little sister tending her little brother.

 

I Love You!