Mormon Direction

Many have said that God loves them no matter what, or God accepts them for what and who they are. Do these people who believe this know exactly what they are saying and why?

It is true that God loves us but the key to understand what he loves and what he does not resides in what he created and made. When people look if God loves them, they see it from their personal perspective and not from the eternal one God has. A person does not have to be like a god to have some understanding of what God loves from his eternal perspective.

When God the Father sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to give us the opportunity to salvation into his kingdom where he resides, that says God the Father is asking us to return to his kingdom. His kingdom is a place of perfection not imperfection, of incorruption not corruption. We can reside with him, but not as we are now, living in corruption, so God the Father set conditions by which we must abide in order we can reside with him.

The scriptures clearly set these conditions out. Faith and obedience are the two main ones. To have faith in God the Father is in spirit and in truth and to obey all his commandments, which his Son Jesus Christ has given. Without proper faith and obedience, no matter how much we believe God loves us, we cannot enter into his kingdom.

Doing our best for God becomes important and establishes the ground by which we stand and move toward God. Without this, how can we abide in God’s will?

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How many people complain about how this person did this or that, or how they should have done something differently? How many complained about the prophet or any of the General Authority?

When reading the scriptures, what pattern exists between God and his prophet(s)?

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From time to time, I hear fellow members of the Church express disappointment and discouragement about a lack of a testimony born from a spiritual experience. Another is the disappointment expressed in regards to the lack of personal revelations or the infrequency of them. For some time now, I wondered why other members had such a difficult time obtaining a testimony, or why they have such a lack of personal revelation while other members obtained a personal testimony by the Spirit and experienced many personal revelations.

We know that either a personal testimony or personal revelation are born of the Spirit and each full member has the gift of the Holy Ghost. We know that each member has the right to the counsel and guidance of the Holy Ghost, yet some members claim they do not receive such guidance while others have. So why is it that some members do not experience the Spirit of God?

I pondered this for some time and even prayed to the Father for answers until recently I felt impressed to write this particular article.

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Usually it is the simplest thing that eludes our perceptions such that, what we think we see or understand is actually not the truth.

Life holds many such experiences, yet people take these experiences and facts of life (in mortality) for granted. Not realizing that these simple things have profound affects on our minds and hearts.

One such event came into my life years ago when I was beginning my membership into the Church. At that time I had no experience with the gospel, but had my own ideas and beliefs about spirituality and life. Of course, these personal ideas and beliefs were born of the world.

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One day, when I was in the Sunday School Presidency, we had to find a replacement teacher for one of the Sunday school classes. We sat for about thirty minutes, making a list of names of members that would be able to take the calling. Then we spent more time to narrow the list down to three names, making a short list, but once done, we could not come to a decision as to who would be first on the list, which would be our recommendation to the Bishop.

We decided that each of us would silently pray to Heavenly Father as to his will. Once we each completed our prayers, we each silently and separately wrote down what our individual inspiration gave us.  Once done, we each revealed what our inspiration was and the first name we each wrote down was the same person. The second, third and fourth names, from each of us, did not match the order we each gave them.
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Prayer does work and when done properly it works very well. The workings of prayer are rather simple, but despite this simplicity, so many fail to understand how prayer works and many find that prayer works only sometimes if at all. The scriptures tell us that we are to pray often and diligently. This is not an idle direction from God neither is it contingent on personal preference. A person who prays rightly and often will find that his/her state of mind and heart will abide in the first commandment. Their faith will receive support and direction.

All faith that is not focused into proper works is a dead faith, but rather than getting into the doctrinal support and reason for proper and frequent prayer, I wish to write here a personal aspect of proper prayer.

Prayer has worked well for me, despite experiences where it appeared at times that what help I had asked for seemed to never come.

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One day, while in Church, a bishop, stake president or one of the General Authorities of the Church says or does something that upsets you or that you take issue with it. Before you know it you are at odds with the Church and even resign your membership.

Taking issue is dangerous to the health of your faith.
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