Mormon Direction

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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We know of good intelligence and bad. We usually equate intelligence with science or some scholarly knowledge about some subject. Intelligence, people believe, is the ability to figure out problems or devise things that no one else cannot. Intelligence is even equated to those who are crafty, smarter than another to overcome obstacles or make intricate plans. Intelligence is even attributed to the ability to figure out the Rubrics Cube on the first try.

There is one intelligence that no one really pays any attention to and in fact would consider this one as foolish or useless. This is because, this particular intelligence does not seek to “gain” something as the other ones will. With the others, there is notoriety, fame, appeal, importance, even financial advantage. The intelligence that speak of here in this article gains none of those things, because the moment you do, it is no longer that intelligence.

I speak about Intelligence of Good. The ability to know true good and exercise it no matter the circumstance.

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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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In the recent General Conference, Vicki F. Matsumori gave a talk about recognizing when the Spirit, or Holy Ghost speaks to us. The examples and descriptions she gave of how the Spirit “whispers” are exact and true. One of the descriptions given was from the words of President Henry B. Eyring, where he said, in effect, “Almost always I have also felt a sensation of light.” ¹. The description that immediately followed was the experience by an eight-year-old boy, “It felt like sunshine”.²

All of the descriptions I recognize, having experienced the Holy Spirit many times. The latter two descriptions given by Ms. Matsumori as the experience of “light”, like “sunshine”. The mind is enlightened, gaining clarity of understanding and perception, being able to understand and perceive the scope and breadth of the subject, topic, matter or issue at hand. All doubt is erased and sureness of thought is accomplished. So long as one moves within that frame of sureness, once moved by the Holy Ghost, peace and success is assured. To some, this may also describe the experience of “being in the spirit” or “feeling enlightened”. The experience that seems to be like a bright light that has shined brightly within the mind and heart. Hand in hand with this is the feeling of peace or how peace exists in it. Such is quite distinct and in contrast to having a “sudden idea”.

Vicki Matsumori was correct when she said that it can be hard to discern these “sunshine” moments. The inability to recognize these moments is because of the lack of experience and knowledge of the Holy Ghost or worst, from a disbelief that these experiences and feelings are from the Holy Spirit.

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( Always a bad apple somewhere)

Remember the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, where some Church members killed many innocent souls? Now, jump to these current days, where on occasion there is a member who committed serious crimes.

These events can be discouraging to members, to see some foolish or outright wrongs committed by a small few and how it reflects on the Church as a whole. These wrongs and foolish actions, when found by ex-members and Anti-Mormons, play up the bad image upon all good members and the Church. It is wrong by them to do this, unethical and even unfair, but because they desire to discredit, they will make any opportunity they can.

Many members know this already, so this not news, why then is this entry important? The importance is for those members who are questioning their faith and membership in the Church because of these events that have happened, who make the interpretation that something is wrong with the Church.

When I view these unsavoury events, I keep in mind a fact that some members seem to ignore. This fact is that God’s true Church invites all people to his salvation. Everyone is to be given this opportunity to accept the restored gospel and this acceptance is one of faith and belief. The problem that occurs are people who join this Church with questionable characteristics and ethics and make no effort to change them. These are people from the world, the converts, who were born and raised in worldly ideas. We all know the tendency of the world to love corruption so people (converts) who join the Church carry this corruption within them.

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Have you had trouble sustaining local church leaders or even anyone of the leaders in the General Authorities of the Church? Some things you dislike or disagree with that held you back from raising your right arm to signify that you sustain them? This kind of issue in our membership is more common than you may think. It was such an issue that concerned the leadership of the Church, they spoke on the matter by making it part of our study books, “Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith – Sustaining Those Who Are Called to Preside“. The issue of sustaining those who we disagree with can be quite a challenge, because our personal feelings about the person can be so strong that it disallows us to raise our right hands during the sustaining call and to some, this becomes a problem in their interactions with that person during Church services and classes.

In that study book I listed just above a statement was made that I agree with, it said,

It is a serious wrong in the presence of the Almighty for one to vote to sustain the authorities of the Church and then to go away and oppose them and trample under foot the counsels that they give; and we will be judged of the Lord for it.

In short, this would be called hypocrisy, to claim we sustain them and then oppose them at every turn. I understand that we have the freedom to disagree and have our own viewpoints on matters, maybe even view doctrine a bit differently, but to be hypocritical is a sorry state to be in as it negatively affects personal state of righteousness and worthiness. If there is something about the person that is seriously wrong that the other leaders have overlooked or did not know about, then speak to your Bishop. If the matter is serious enough (means beyond differences of opinion and beyond personal affronts) and the Bishop does nothing or little, go to the Stake President, but this article is not about serious errors, this article addresses those who, at a personal level, feel adverse toward leadership and have trouble sustaining them.

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Not long ago, I was in conversation with a fellow who quit the Seventh Day Adventist church because he was against it’s membership in the World Counsel of churches (WCC). He claimed that he believes in Jesus Christ, yet he quit his chosen church which preached salvation by the Bible. This saying that he quit what he believed was his chosen church and his means of salvation because of his personal disagreement with his church. 

Our conversation began about the false traditions of other Christians where he spoke of his short findings about the WCC, but when he asked me if I belonged to a church and I told him, his tune quickly changed, hypocrisy and ignorance began to rear it’s ugly head. 

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When I was approached by the LDS missionaries, I felt the Holy Ghost confirm that meeting was important. The Holy Ghost later confirmed that my membership with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was good and true. At no time did I have any concern about any “alledged” immoral actions of other Mormons.  My attendance to this Church was led by the Spirit, not by personal judgements of other people. 

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