Repentance with Replacement

This morning a friend shared a scripture that had touched him. It is found in Romans 12:21: “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” It is a scripture that has also touched me. A few years ago I highlighted this scripture on the LDS Gospel Library app and added the following note, which supports and strengthens this principle.

“Do not try merely to discard a bad habit or a bad thought. Replace it. When you try to eliminate a bad habit, if the spot where it used to be is left open it will sneak back and crawl again into that empty space. It grew there; it will struggle to stay there. When you discard it, fill up the spot where it was. Replace it with something good. Replace it with unselfish thoughts, with unselfish acts. Then, if an evil habit or addiction tries to return, it will have to fight for attention. Sometimes it may win. Bad thoughts often have to be evicted a hundred times, or a thousand. But if they have to be evicted ten thousand times, never surrender to them. You are in charge of you. I repeat, it is very, very difficult to eliminate a bad habit just by trying to discard it. Replace it. Read in Matthew, chapter 12, verses 43 to 45, the parable of the empty house. There is a message in it for you” (Boyd K. Packer, That All May Be Edified (1982), 196).

We find some examples of this principle in the Book of Mormon.

In 3 Nephi 5:3, “[the Nephites] did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did serve God with all diligence day and night.” In other words the Nephites replaced their sins with service to God.

Another example is found in Moroni 7:45: “Charity . . . rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth.”

Lehi provides yet another example. In experiencing the vision of the tree of life, Lehi didn't notice something that Nephi later noticed when receiving the same vision. Subsequently, Nephi shared the following observation: "The water which my father saw was filthiness; and so much was his mind swallowed up in other things that he beheld not the filthiness of the water" (1 Nephi 15:27). Lehi didn't just remove from his mind a vision of filthiness. He filled his mid with "other things", the things of righteousness. This is an important lesson for all of us.

As we repent of our sins and replace them by “treasur[ing] up the words of life” (D&C 84:85) and “let[ting] virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly” (D&C 121:45) and “look[ing] unto [Jesus] in every thought” (D&C 6:36) and other worthy actions, we will find that repentance with replacement is one of the keys to success in enduring faithfully to the end. That we may do so with greater and greater consistency with the passage of time, is my humble prayer for each of us.