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I spoke of self-esteem and a relation with God ( see “Self-Esteem and Faith” ). Now I wish to speak of what self-esteem means to me and what works.

The world provides a lot of advice about boosting self-esteem, but the main problem with worldly advice that it does not work well for the faithful, those who abide with God and want to keep themselves spiritually healthy. When I spoke of self-esteem and a relationship with God, I spoke against worldly opinions, ideas and thoughts because they work contrary to gospel principles and faith. I understood what self-esteem meant in regards to faith and from that I understood what it meant to myself in life, both spiritually and temporally

Not long ago, I thought I had good self-esteem, until the Lord led me to see I did not. When I spoke of self-esteem to another, I was also seeing myself and when the Lord turned the light bulb on, I realized that my self-esteem was not what it should have been. In this I realized that God does care about self-esteem and he does teach that low or lower self-esteem is bad for faith because it hampers the person from actually giving their best to God. Sure, God loves us either way, but God loves to see that we perceive ourselves rightly and his love cannot work for us when we allow ourselves or give excuse to lower our self-esteem. Simply, when we reject ourselves, we reject God also because we are in his image and the rejection is of his own image. It is the same as a loving parent feeling rejected when their son or daughter, who are born in their image, rejects themselves. Thus, God loves us to learn to love ourselves in the right way.

What then can we do to raise self-esteem and include our faith in it?

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Everyone deals with shortcomings about their self-esteem or self-image. How they perform at work, at home, in relationships, in their personal or public performances, whether they feel worthy or unworthy. At one time or another, if not repeatedly, everyone has some issue with their self-esteem, but in this struggle, has there been any concern about self-esteem versus faith?

When it comes to faith, it is a matter where each person must take account of themselves and evaluate the nature and degree of their self-esteem and then see how this affects their faith.

Faith is the expression and act of love, devotion and obedience to God and for him. It is the trust in his will and trust that he will help and bless. Faith is also the expression of oneself to God, the who and what we are. In this expression of oneself comes the value of oneself. This personal value is the gift that we, as sons and daughters of God, give to God.

IN the scriptures God speaks about the value of how we give a gift where he said, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.” (1 Cor 2.9:7). Gods speaks of the value of the heart and mind in things that we give to him and to others. Giving our faith grudgingly, is not faith at all. To exercise the commandments of God because you believe you have to, what value is this to God and his kingdom?

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The end goal. Is commitment all about the end goal? I found that commitment is not about end goals, I found that commitment always comes before the end goal, especially if faith is the a goal. If a person wants to have good faith in God, to establish a relationship with God that works and is faithful, then commitment to faith must occur first, else the end goal of faith cannot occur.

Commitment, in itself, does not automatically denote or become faith. Commitment is a “trait of sincere and steadfast fixity of purpose” toward something or in something. Once the object (faith) is chosen to pursue and achieve, then commitment will be “the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action”. Once this is established, then faith, being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  is exercised. The binding of oneself, intellectually and emotionally to the act of faith causes faith to be true and does not end up as just a word or lip service.

Let’s take a life example. A boss makes promises that he will do this or that, saying that to do those things are required and needed. Those things are good to hear, even if they are things that you had hoped for at work, but the results, or fruits of his labor proves otherwise. The things promised never manifest and in fact the old status quo remains or the things done were so inadequate, they proved as useful as doing nothing. The result for you is disappointment and discouragement. The problem with all the promises and things said, even if they were great to hear, was the absence of commitment. The failure to bind oneself to the course of action, to be sincere and steadfast.

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When someone looks at the world of Christianity, there are diverse beliefs about God and the scriptures. It is no different in regard to the range of beliefs about how God answers prayers. I could write a book about it, but my purpose here is to address only a concern about how prayers are answered.

It can be hard for a floundering member of this Church when he/she doubts the doctrines taught by the apostles and prophet, then go out, investigate and compare the doctrines and beliefs of other Christian denominations, especially in terms of how God answers prayers, leading themselves to think that another church or another Christian denomination or group knows more about prayers and God. This usually happens through accounts given by other Christians of how their prayers were answered.

I have heard and read personal accounts of prayers answered from a range of people, both in and out of this Church. I have heard accounts of the results from prayers that range from the mundane to the impressive. From all of that, I heard other Christians claim that God’s Spirit is therefore always within them, as they explain about their answered prayers, believing wholeheartedly that God is working in their life and guiding them. With all the differing accounts, especially from people outside the Church, how can a member discern if what was said is true and prevent getting pulled into the deluge of false claims about God and his Holy Spirit?

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The new YouTube channel named “Mormon Messages” is online. It has quality videos, excellent messages and teachings. It is good to see the Church is taking advantage of media sources as YouTube. Here is a presentation of hope, to have hope, to endure with hope, to live with hope. When listening to this message, it shows me that unless we have hope, faith will falter.

Hope is not just having a manner of faith that all will be OK in the face of despair, but hope applies to every part of life and faith. Hope is to have the intent that things will be fulfilled and I can see in this, that hope to receive spiritual guidance from the Holy Ghost is that very thing, or hope that you will receive a true spiritual testimony, or to receive further spiritual testimony and understanding of the gospel.

To some these things are easy, to others they need to make the effort, but when there is a loss of hope, a different kind of despair occurs and I will call it the faith of despair, which is despair in faith. Without hope a person will fall from faith and loose their connection with God. Sort of makes one wonder if that is what happened to members who left the Church?

Here is the video on hope from the Lord’s apostle Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

The link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbsU3b2srQA

There is no work that God does that is not by or for faith. Any work that is by popularity, or by fame or by popular acceptance is not the work of God but is the work of man. God requires faith and to have this faith, the gospel, its truths, faith must be present. Anything other than that is not of God and not of his gospel, which is the basis of calling something another gospel.

God does not gain faith through popularity, exciting things, fanfare, celebrities, neither does he entice anyone toward him through or by any of those things. For God to use those things means that God is a god of fanfare, or popularity, celebrity show or any of these kind of things.

The first commandment should have made that clear to people, but sad to say that people are still believing that all those things are part of God’s Church, gospel or his doctrines. I speak in a general application to the communities of Christians, not specifically to this Church.

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There are some who believe and feel within the Christian communities that we are not to judge other beliefs or faith. When something is said about someone’s beliefs or faith, the retort given is “we cannot judge them”. This can be especially disconcerting when the matter at hand has to do with determining the value or truth of another person’s faith or beliefs. It seems by this, that nothing can be said or determined in order to avert false beliefs and false faiths, that we would then, by this restriction of not judging another, would likely have to accept false beliefs or faiths.

It is true, in the Bible, that we are to be careful about judging one another, as per Romans 2:1, but this passage does not prohibit judgement, it clarifies bad judgment. In Romans 2:1, Paul is speaking to the Romans and as anyone should see, the context which Paul is addressing are bad judgments from wicked people. In another part of the Bible, John 7:24, we are to make righteous judgment. So what of this concern by some that we are not to judge the faith or beliefs of another? In particular, if these faiths or beliefs are subject of condemnation?

The idea or philosophy that we are not to judge others because that belongs to God, goes against the Bible itself. The dilemma occurs when a person fails to understand the scriptures and what God has really done in what he has revealed to us. Poor interpretation, poor understanding, abiding in false doctrines or personal philosophies cannot and will not allow that person to properly understand the word of God, his gospel and what God has given as his will through revelation.

This shortcoming of many, both in and out of the Church, causes many to falter and fall from faith and even fail a good relationship with God. Failing in a good relationship with God occurs when a person falls to false beliefs, doctrines or personal philosophies that are of the world and because of these things, a relationship of God is affected and diminished (John 8:47), all because that person is not able to exercise God’s judgments against false beliefs, doctrines, philosophies and ideas!

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Outside of this Church, how many Christians believe that the Holy Ghost continues to give revelation, which is direct communication? That has become a crucial question in light of worldly events that are happening and due to happen in these last days on the earth. Biblical prophecy dictates that a storm of evil is forthcoming. War skirmishes, unknown diseases and encomomic collaspe are but a small example of what this world is to suffer, which Christians agree.

Christendom has repeatedly claimed that all we need is the Bible and nothing else. They claim that the Holy Ghost is in them and all revelation they need is in the words read in the Bible. Many other Christians believe that they get all the guidance they need for their life from the Bible, but is this true in all respects? It is true the Bible holds God’s wisdom for the common aliments of life and gives counsel of what we are to do and believe, in general, but a serious problem arises in light of the ongoing fulfillment of prophecies for these last days. Will the Bible be able to provide the right counsel for these times, at the right moment, to tell or warn you of things not yet seen and give the right counsel and direction? In fact, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine of Covenants and Pearl of Great Price face the same problem. What then is the answer to this concern?

In Christendom, there are more than 34,000 different Christian denominations across the world. All are different and they do not all have the same beliefs in Christ and salvation. In other words many have differing doctrines about the same thing. Some believe in baptism by water, others believe baptism by sprinkling, others baptism by desire and others, no baptism at all. Some believe Jesus Christ is a real person and others merely an expression from a greater single being. Some believe the Holy Ghost still communicates, others claim such communication has ended with the end of the early Christian Church and believe that the Holy Ghost is no longer needed since we have all we need in the Bible. Yet there are many different Bible versions which exclude scripture, added scripture, mistranslated the original Hebrew and Greek texts or purposely left out some things for some unknown reason. It is these Bibles that other Christians claim are sufficient.

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While I was visiting another Christian church, the pastor opened the pulpit to any person in the congregation to step up to speak for a few minutes. One elderly man stepped up and said that he was impressed with a question as to how we can return to God like Enoch in the Bible. He commented to the question saying, “I did not know how, I guess sin now blocks the way“. It was interesting to hear this, but the fellow Christian could not determine, by the Bible, as to how or why God took Enoch up into heaven without mortal death. This fellows Bible was no different than mine, but his only answer as to why translation does not occur was because of sin.

For some reason this spurred an interest in me, to reflect on the account of Enoch in the Bible and study the question. For some reason, for me, it became important to review the reasons why Enoch was raised.

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The author, Mike Thomas of “Mormonism, A Gold Plated Religion”, posted on his blog site his article of why he believes Mormons are misunderstood. After reading it, I was disappointed, expecting more, but I was not surprised. He gave only one reason as to why Mormons are misunderstood. That reason proved to be a personal and biased one and it failed to address the real cause as to why Mormons are misunderstood.  His rationale to his personal reason came out halfway down his article, where it began with a question, “So why are Mormons so misunderstood?”. Mr. Thomas first referred to an official Mormon News Service of June 5, 2007 ( http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-centrality-of-christ ), where he quoted from the article,

“What is it that people find so difficult in accepting Mormons as Christians? – While others have their opinions, ‘in our terms,’ President Hinckley said, ‘we worship Christ.’”

I attended and read the LDS news article. I found that Mr. Thomas focused on one small part of the LDS news article, selecting only one quote, in an attempt to discount what he calls “The Mormon View” of why other Christians have difficulty in accepting Mormons. Before I comment on Thomas’s claims, allow me to provide more from the same LDS news article.

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