Tag: following the path

Go about doing good

You should not look directly into the sun.  Whenever you do, your eyes are unable to adjust to the intensity of the light.  It is possible to even do damage to your eyes by looking directly at the sun.
Everything in mortality is a type or symbol of eternal things.  All things bear testimony of Christ and His great plan.  (Moses 6: 63.)  The sun bears testimony of the Son of God.  It is a great symbol of Him.
Our approach to gaining a relationship with the Son should be like that of our enjoyment of the sun – indirect. That is, entering into His presence is a by-product.  It is as a result of the way you live.  It is not the “goal.”
To approach Him, you must live as He did.  You must “keep His commandments.”  You must love others.  You must live the way He lived.  When you are walking in the same path He walked, you will find that He is walking there still.  He will come alongside you, as you are “in the way” and will open to your understanding all things which He would have you know.  (Luke 24: 13-32.)  I’ve written about this in the talk in the Appendix to Eighteen Verses and will not repeat it here.  But I would remind you that the account of those two disciples is a type of how He appears to those to whom He will minister.  He will see you as you are in the right way, and then join with you.

Go about doing good.  You will find Him as you do.  Do not think you will be able to find Him without setting about to do the things which He bid you to do.  There is a law irrevocably decreed which governs these things.

The Nephites were keeping the appointed times with the Lord in His year-end festivals.  In that process, He came to them.  Set about doing what He bids you to do and He will likewise come to you. (This is described in The Second Comforter: Conversing With the Lord Through the Veil.)  Keep His ways.  He will be able to walk with you as you walk with Him.
One clarification that I think needs to be understood by those who have not read what I have written.  I have never revealed anything sacred that has been revealed to me. I have taught the path.  It is not necessary nor desirable to reveal personal matters, and I have not. It is important to teach the right way.  Read what I’ve written and you will find that nothing improper or even difficult is taught there.  It is taken from the scriptures.  The scriptures are sufficient to teach you the way to eternal life.  I only teach what I find in them.

Forward or backward

I got asked about loss of teachings or practices within the LDS community.  My response is as follows.

 
It makes no difference whether it is an individual or a community, we are all on a single path that goes two ways – forward or backward. We are either gaining, or we are losing.  We cannot stand still.
 
Whether a group or a person, we are either gaining (restoring) light and truth, or we are losing (apostatizing) from light and truth.  This world is a world of change.  Nothing remains the same.  Everywhere you see either growth, or decay.  These forces are at work everywhere. They are also at work within you.
 
You either search out new truth, find it, live it, and thereby become restored to truth, or you back away from it.  If you are backing away, losing it, neglecting it, and discarding it, you are in the process of apostasy.
 
In a restoration process, there are moments along the way which are marked and notable.  Having the inspiration of the Spirit, or feeling the remission of your sins, or receiving revelation, or having a visit of an angel are notable.  The culmination of the restoration would be to return to God’s presence.  Should that happen, through the Second Comforter’s ministry, then you have been restored in full.
 
In an apostasy process, you also have a few momentous events.  Having a loss of sympathy for others, feeling progressively more critical of others, becoming neglectful of prayers, failing to associate with fellow saints, neglecting the sacrament are early along the path.  Ultimately asking to have your membership terminated, engaging is drug abuse, patronizing the sex industry, are strong signs someone has departed from moving in one direction and has begun to move quickly into the other.  (I’m not saying that these are related, nor that someone who leaves the church voluntarily is doomed to addiction, immorality or worse.  There are many people of good faith who struggle with the church.  That is a different subject.)  It is clear, however, than when a person has become a murderer, seeking to kill the saints, as we have seen in history, such a person has finished the course of apostasy and is beyond feeling.
 
These are examples which try to quickly illustrate the point on a personal level.  Quickly, at the institutional level, we have at one end of full restoration, a return to Zion, and the Lord dwelling among them.  At the other we have a society whose wickedness and abuse of children is so far spread that fire comes down from heaven to destroy them.  Complete restorations and complete apostasies are rare.  What history is made up is the description of struggling along the path.  We ebb and flow back and forth, without becoming fully ripe either way.
 
Christ promised at the end of time there there would be a ripening.  “Wheat” and “tares” will ripen.  Then there will be a harvest. (Matt. 13: 37-42.) However, the haphazard manner of the harvesting makes a full return of Zion before His coming seem unanticipated by the Lord’s teachings. (Matt. 24: 39-40.)  Modern revelation gave us that opportunity.  We clearly have not done so, and at present seem clearly not interested in doing so.  That is a subject for another time, however.  As Christ put it, we need to seek for our individual, complete restoration because the group will not.
 
There are two ways – forward or backward.  It is not required that you finish the course in a day; but times are coming in which the environment will require of you a greater commitment as “wheat” on the one hand, or leave you to descend into becoming a “tare” on the other.  So the direction you are on now is quite important.  Either you are restoring truth or you are discarding it.