Simple but true

One day I was studying the scriptures and I came across a verse that really stuck out to me.  It is 2nd Corinthians 11:3.  It reads, "But I fear lest by any means...your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."  It really stuck out to me how Paul was worried that the Corinthians would make things more difficult than they really are. 

I have often pondered on the simplicity of the gospel.  I have met so many people who for whatever reason try to over complicate the truths of Christ.  They get so worried about other things then the basics that they let it distract them.  To explain this idea, I will compare the gospel to a bulls eye.   Let's say the inner most circle is the things that a person must know about the gospel; things such as the fact that Jesus is the Christ.  The next red circle could represent things that we should know, but are not necessarily the most important for us.  The outermost circle represents those things that are nice to know and everything outside of the bulls eye represents the things we do not need to know or really have no impact on us and our salvation.  In the long run of things, there is a lot more on the outside then there is on the inside.

Another account from the scriptures I like that goes along with this principle is found in Jacob chapter four.  Jacob is prophesying about the Jews in Christ's time and giving an explanation for their rejection of the Savior.  He says in verse fourteen "[They] killed the prophets and sought for things they could not understand.  Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it."The Jews' bulls eye could be shown with the following picture; their arrows far from the center of the gospel, far from Jesus Christ. 

 I hope that my bulls eye of faith as we could call it is not like that of the Jews but of those faithful who have lived through the ages.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple; He came and lived and died and rose again so that we may all have Eternal Life.  We must exercise faith, repent, make covenants with God, live worthy of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end.  Simple, but true none-the-less.