Hello, my friends. Welcome to another Follow Him Favorites. My name is Hank Smith. I'm here with the incredible John, by the way.

If you've been following Follow Him Favorites this year, you know that we take a single question from each week's lesson.

John, the lesson we're on this week is Ezekiel, the whole book, the whole book of Ezekiel.

And there's a point in the manual where it makes a very simple statement. It said,

the Lord wants to forgive. And then it points us to a couple of verses in Ezekiel, like Ezekiel 33, where the Lord says,

I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways. And it also points us to Ezekiel 36, right in the middle of verse 26.

He says, I can give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put my spirit in you. And going back to the manual, the Lord wants to forgive.

So John, the question is, does the Lord really want to forgive us? It says it right here in the manual that he does.

He says it, but how do I convince a young person, a young single adult, someone that the Lord does want to forgive you?

Wow, such a good question. It's so hard to miss in the scriptures. I don't think the Lord would invite us to repent,

unless he intended to forgive. Every time he asks us to repent, it's, I want to forgive you.

But you just need to ask and acknowledge that. And I want to forgive you. I think the fact that the sacrament table is there every week is evidence that he wants to forgive us.

Anybody reading the scriptures will see the Lord is inviting us to repent. The first principles of the gospel, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second, what?

Repentance. If it's the second thing talked about, I'm pretty sure he assumed we were going to need us.

Right. And I remember last year, Hank, when we were studying the doctrine and covenant, seeing just a sermon in a sentence, five words, section 64, I think, I the Lord forgive sins. That's what he does.

And that's one of those verses to write in your heart and to let you know what he's like, what God is like. He is a forgiving God.

In fact, on Joseph Smith thought that God's chief characteristic, not one of his chief characteristics, not one of many, but his one chief characteristic is mercy.

That God is merciful when we go to him and in sincerity, ask for forgiveness. I think he is quick to forgive. I think Elder Holland called it a satanic sucker punch to think that it takes eons and eons to be forgiven of your sins.

No, you can repent as quickly as you can sincerely pray that quick to be forgiven of your sins. The Lord wants to forgive you. He wants to be able to bless us.

Now, he says, I can't save you in your sins, but I can save you from your sins. And I want to save you from your sins.

Hank, we're both dads of children and one of the things that, boy, I learned so quickly, you have a child come to you with their lower lip quivering and dad, I made a mistake.

I spilled something. I did something wrong. I'll tell you, it melts your heart. You are so eager to, oh, it's okay. It's so eager to forgive in that moment.

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