“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19). God has stated that His work and His glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of each of His children. Anything that opposes the fullness of joy that results in the spirit and flesh united together and never to be separated again is therefore an enemy to God and His purposes. The problem with pursuing the desires and whims of the flesh for their own sake is that it causes a separation of our natural, carnal, physical self from our eternal, spiritual, celestial self. Our challenge in this life, our great test, is to find the way forward through all of the options available to us that integrates more tightly and completely our natural and our spiritual selves. The fullness of joy comes when our natural and our spiritual halves are united in purpose. To give into temptation is to attempt to yank apart our spiritual and natural selves, eking out whatever crumbs of pleasure and happiness remain when our natural and spiritual halves have been divided.If we fully understood and were sensitive to the real impact of splitting our natural and spiritual selves, we would cry out, as Jesus did, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? We would see any attempt to divide our eternal nature into discrete parts as an enemy to ourselves and to God. By reigning ourselves in and submitting ourselves to our Father and His wisdom, we can become a saint - our natural and our spiritual selves completely and inseparably united in a fullness of joy.
