This is a great reminder of how we should be living our lives, no matter where we may be or who we may be around.
Are you ever guilty of “checking your religion at the door?” Are you ever guilty of dressing, and speaking, and acting like a faithful Latter-day Saint on Sunday when you are around your bishop and leaders, or at home around your family, but when you are at school or a social event and around your non-LDS friends you act and dress in a completely different way?
The prophet Alma had a son named Corianton who got caught up in the ways of the world and broke the law of chastity. Alma’s reminder to Corianton is as true today as it was more than 2,000 years ago, “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). As you watch those around you who disregard the commandments and engage in behavior that is not Christlike, it may seem on the surface to have no ill effects. I testify there is one very significant effect and it is serious.
When you choose to deliberately act in a way you know is not right, you offend the Spirit of the Lord. Can any of us afford to lay ourselves wide open to the world with all of its temptations and misguided philosophies without that sacred gift to protect and guide us? I know I would not want to forfeit that source of divine strength and help for even one minute. When you cross the line into Satan’s territory, it is sometimes hard to find your way back.
A few years ago I received a letter from a young woman named Cheyenne who understands what it means to be a disciple of Christ. She told of attending her first year of college in a school in Southern Utah. She met a young man in her English class her first semester who one day asked her, “Are you a Mormon?” to which she answered “yes.” He then asked her, “How Mormon are you?”