Knowledge of the Lord begins with the covenants we make at baptism. As we remember the sacrifice of body and blood Christ made for us, and keep His Commandments, and follow Him, we qualify to be taught more perfectly by His Spirit. Through the Lord’s Spirit we come to know Him through faith, until we finally see His face, know that He is, and He then becomes the finisher of our faith, by introducing us to the Father.
Why is mere belief in Christ insufficient and why must we come to know Christ and the Father and what is this path of redemption that enables us to do just this? Let’s consider the important process that enables individuals to receive Christ as their Second Comforter and to be succored by Christ until ready to be introduced to the Father.
What follows is the process for asking questions and receiving answers directly from God; more importantly, it is the process for moving God’s power and influence from behind the veil into your physical world to shape and impact your life. It is the process for submitting your will to God's will with perfect faith in Him in order to grow unto salvation.
The process is true and faithful to any soul who will apply it, turning neither from the left hand, nor to the right hand, but going forward precisely as the Lord commands. The process begins by forsaking sins and continues with the other principles included below. This entire process is repetitive and circular. It enables a person to grow line upon line unto salvation and eternal life. Let us begin with the first step in the process:
1. Forsake Sin: The ability to easily receive God’s perfecting influence is conditioned upon cleanliness and obedience to His commandments and to revelations given to you. Cleanliness and obedience prepare us to call upon God, and to recognize, hear, and heed His voice. If we would enjoy His influence freely, we must forsake all sin, come unto Him, call upon His name, and keep His commandments. We must be worthy to easily and freely receive His perfecting influence. Uncleanliness greatly inhibits our ability to hear, receive, and act upon His voice.
2. Come Unto the Lord: What does it mean to come unto the Lord? Have you ever seen a child demand something of a loving parent? A wise parent does not respond to demands that will not serve the best interests of the child. By comparison, when a child recognizes a need and humbly approaches the parent, ready to learn, the child is then in an attitude where he/she can receive the parent's wisdom and help. If a child is determined to do things their own way, even the wisest parent is helpless to make a difference for the child until the child becomes teachable. Wise and loving parent stand ready to help a child the moment that child is ready to receive help. The phrase, “Come Unto the Lord” suggest that we prepare ourselves to be teachable and to be ready to learn from the Lord. Our intent to act upon His counsels must be real.
3. Call Upon His Name: After coming unto the Lord in such a manner, we then call upon His name in prayer and discuss, reason with, and learn from Him. There are many ways the Lord speaks to us. These range from insubstantial but real feelings and impressions, to having pure intelligence come into our minds and hearts, to hearing His voice in our minds and hearts, to being able to carry on two-way conversations with Him, to receiving visits from angels and celestial beings who are sent to teach us, to parting the veil, seeing His face, and speaking to the Lord as one man speaks with another man. The greater and more direct the revelation received, the greater responsibility we have to act upon it. By receiving revelation, without “real intent” to follow it, we bring condemnation upon ourselves and our progression ceases until we repent.
4. Receive Revelation: The universal pattern to learn truth is: Desire to know; Believe the Lord can make it known to you; ponder or think deeply and prayerfully about that which you desire and, Fast and pray over many days. Finally, you must inquire before the Lord will reveal Himself to you. Time taken with God in prayer enables you to overcome disbelief. What do you want to know, and do you believe God will tell you? As you accept become obedient to His voice, what specific help can He offer you? Belief must extend beyond hope to an assurance or certitude God will answer your prayers and provide the help you need. God hath not revealed anything to prophets, but what He will make known unto you, and even the least person may know all things as fast as he or she is able to bear them. When you ask for any blessing, be prepared to receive God’s Spirit and to act upon His voice to you.
5. Decide and Plan: As you receive revelation from God concerning those things you ask Him, begin to make decisions and plans based upon the initial inspiration received. Pay attention to your feelings as you make decisions to go forward. Do you feel uplifted and joyful with attending feelings of excitement and high adventure, or do you feel burdened and confused. Right decisions regarding how to act upon the inspirations you receive will bring peace, anticipation, excitement, and happiness, while poor decisions lead to confusion, a lack of peace, and to feeling weighed down. As you recognize right decisions, pause to imagine, see, and feel how the outcome of such decisions will shape and alter your world. See it, believe in it and as you receive God’s Spirit, impressions, visits, and visions, record them in your journal. Then, create “to-do” plans as the foundation for immediate and future action. Ask for whatsoever you need to support right decisions and right plans and move forward.
6. Act: After learning new truth and making right decisions and plans, you must act upon revelations received, or your ability to move forward will weaken and your faith will grow dormant. Be up and about and anxiously engaged in bringing your inspired plans to fruition. I received specific revelation on a Sunday; I created my plans and on Monday morning I acted with certitude and great assurance regarding those plans. I knew with certitude that all I had to do was act according to the pattern God had given me and His promises to me would be fulfilled…, and they were.
7. Share: An essential part of grounding truth within you is to share truth learned with others. Some will believe you; others will doubt you but will seek to know if what you say is true, and others yet will oppose you, criticize you, and think you foolish. This can be painful, but is intended to cause you to reflect more deeply and to learn more fully the truths you must master. Some close friends observed the apparent changes in my health that came to me as a result of following a pattern of eating God revealed to me. After sharing my experience with them, they went home and did the same thing. The mother and three of her diabetic children became free of diabetes, after determining to do as I had been inspired to do. This strengthened my faith. Since then I have seen this pattern repeated with all who covenant with God in like manner concerning their diet. Whatever it is you are commanded to do, do it, experience the blessings, and share them with others--under the following condition.
As you receive revelation from God, God alone should determine what you impart and share with others—always trust Him. Sharing the sacred with the unprepared causes damage to you and to the unprepared and turns off the conduit of revelation in your life—until you repent. Christ taught “give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under there feet, and turn again and rend you.” Remember, that it is through repentance alone one is made worthy of what is holy. The sacred is not for unrepentant dogs and will never belong to unclean, unrepentant, and unholy “swine” that are unwilling to do what is needed to qualify for the Lord’s presence.
8. Opposition: Some mocked me for what I had done; this caused me to reflect and to more fully recognize the reality of the revelation regarding diet I had received and the reality of its benefits to me, both spiritually and physically. Whenever you approach heaven and succeed in receiving revelation, you must also experience opposition. For example, Moses was transfigured and beheld God’s Glory, but then Satan came to confuse and deceive him. Through this experience Moses recognized that Satan had no glory and learned to discern between God’s glory and pretended glory. Opposition causes us to ponder and search more deeply; it is the catalyst that enables us to understand the full range of truth being taught to us and to embrace each personal revelation on any subject more fully. Recognize opposition for its important role in helping to achieve saving knowledge—by causing you to think, ponder, pray, and to learn more deeply and fully.
9. Christ-like Conduct: How we react to opposition determines whether or not we are ready to receive more light, truth, and increased faith. The Savior taught in the Sermon on the Mount that we are to pray in behalf of our enemies. The natural man shuns enemies or opposition. If we desire further revelation and help from God, then we must conduct ourselves as Christ toward those who oppose us. Love them and pray earnestly for the best possible outcomes in their lives. It is difficult when those we love criticize and think us to be deluded. However, many times, as we pray for our enemies, the very people whom we earnestly pray for come to embrace truth. One of God’s prophets prayed and taught sinful people of his day for more than 300 years. Through his patient, loving, and righteous influence they became translated. By comparison, when we are not a type of Christ toward enemies (anyone who opposes us), our hearts harden and we close heaven’s conduit in our lives until we repent. As you become a type of Christ and conduct yourself rightly toward opposition, you pass the test, secure faith, and are consequently entrusted with more light, truth, knowledge, and greater faith.
10. Repeat Pattern: God wants to bring us back into His presence; we do that by attaining sufficient knowledge through faith to part the veil and enter His presence. Inspirations received enable us to receive added faith and knowledge as we act upon those revelations. No matter how many revelations we receive; or how faithfully we act upon them, or even how Christ-like our conduct remains amidst opposition, the next step of personal growth is as if we are learning to walk all over again. It is designed by God to stretch us and to increase our faith further and to help us grow further in knowledge. As we encounter new doubts, as we will, the pathway through them is the same. We begin by calling upon the Lord with a desire to believe; we make right plans and decisions, we act in faith, and we pray for the Lord’s choicest blessings to be upon those who oppose us.
11. Earn, Establish, and Maintain Trust: Often when we receive revelations from God we initially receive seemingly insubstantial communications, but as we are faithful to the process described above, revelations change in nature according to the trust we earn with God. They progress from insubstantial but real impressions, to hearing God speak in our mind and heart, to conversing with Him, to receiving visits from angels and from celestial beings, to parting the veil to enter Christ’s presence and to receive Him as our Second Comforter. While the beginning of the path is humble by comparison, continuing in the pathway enables us to converse through the veil with the Lord. This redemptive process is the same for Saints in all dispensations and whether we seek revelation to enable greater health or for other matters, this is the ordained process for rending the veil to receive a fullness of truth in any matter under heaven.
12. Trials and Crossroads: Trials are given to us even when we seek faithfully to heed God’s voice in our lives. We must persist through our trials, even when we have no idea how we will fulfill God’s commands and expectations. Trials and opposition lead us to a broken heart and a contrite spirit. When you reach a crossroad and you are unsure what the next step is or which way to turn, remember that God answers prayers as we offer them with broken hearts and contrite spirits and with a “real intent” to follow Him. Often, while in such a spirit, we receive more than we anticipate, just as those who have heard His voice or who have been taken to a high mountain and shown marvelous things. As we increase in our ability to deal rightly with information given to us by God, He becomes more liberal in sharing information with us—however, He refrains from providing more than we can handle. Revelation given can bless, but can also work to condemn us if we are unwilling or unready to respond. For example, do not ask for improved health or any other blessing without “real intent” to heed His counsels to you.
A client had been obese for over 20 years; because of repeated failures to maintain her ideal body weight, she struggled to believe God’s dietary pattern would work for her. She came to understand that living in a manner to enjoy her best health is actually a part of a covenant she made with God as a young Christian girl. As we earnestly strive to keep our covenants with God, no matter what they are, God has promised that He will help us keep those covenants. She learned to recognize when she was struggling to eat according to God’s ordained eating pattern. She called them her crossroads and learned that if she would pause at her crossroads, share her struggles with God and ask humbly and earnestly for His help, He would strengthen and teach her. She came home from a long day at work and cried because she didn’t have the strength to make a good dinner for her family. She wasn’t even sure if she had any healthy food in the house. She recognized she was at a crossroads and asked God for help. She felt prompted to look in her refrigerator and pantry. She saw some healthful food choices; then an inspired idea came to her for combining those food choices into a healthful and tasty meal. She related to me that it took her just five minutes to make dinner and to get it on the table for her family. After dinner, each of her children told her it was the best dinner she had ever made. Persist and ask for God’s help in the crossroads! Anything of deep importance to you is of deep importance to God. Do not trivialize what is important to you. Christ taught his apostles to pray for that which they desired and it would be given. He also taught them that even their desires would be given to them from the Holy Ghost. Therefore, if you are striving earnestly to do good in your life, trust your desires and the inspirations you receive concerning them. The spirit of joy and high adventure that comes from pursuing righteous desires is a sign that your desires are of the Spirit.
13. Heed All Revelation: Revelations come in many forms; learn to recognize, revere, and respect every revelation. For example, through a dream the wise men were warned and the infant Jesus was saved from King Herod. It was Joseph’s dream that brought young Jesus back from Egypt and that warned Joseph to flee Judea to Galilee for the safety of Jesus. As we accept, heed, and act rightly upon God’s communications with us—in their myriad forms—He shares more instruction with us. To the extent we don’t act with faith, we are not accepting revelation and will receive no more revelation until we repent.
14. Certitude: As our faith is tested with each new revelation, and we learn to respond to God’s revelations without hesitation, God always helps us to accomplish what He asks of us. This leads us to gain greater confidence before Him. For example, David grew in faith as a young shepherd while defending his father’s flocks against a lion and a bear. He learned these threats were nothing when he acted with God’s strength. Because of his seasoned faith in the Almighty, when he faced Goliath, he was certain of the outcome before entering the conflict. Similarly, as you accept and respond to God’s Spirit in faith, your faith will grow by degree and you will be made ready for each new step of growth you will need to make. My client learned that now was the time for her to attain the Lord’s promised blessings of health. She, like young David, was called upon to bring God’s power from behind the veil to enable her to slay her Goliath. God’s power is brought from heaven to assist you, only as you act upon revelations received. As you approach your own Goliath as David approached his Goliath, do so with certitude. Until you confront present challenges in such a manner, you are not ready to proceed further, or to receive more light and truth. We must take the feelings, the dreams, the impressions, and the insubstantial communications from God and bring them into our physical world in which we live and act. We part the veil by applying spiritual commandments from God in heaven—here on earth. Our challenges grow in proportion to the faith we attain. It is by attaining added faith during each step of the redemptive process that we lay hold upon sufficient faith to part the veil and bring God’s power into our lives with today’s challenges. This is the heart of the process that enabled Saints from each millennium to lay hold upon sufficient faith to take up their abode with Christ while in the flesh. As you enable the process with any matter under heaven, it is the same process.
15. Endure: Trials, setbacks, and temporary failure do not mean the Lord has abandoned you. Be tenacious as you do according to the Lord’s Spirit. God never forgets a promise and as you record His promises to you in your journal, and as you persist, you will attain confidence in the promised outcomes. As we remain faithful, no seeming Goliath will prevent ultimate success. Through persistent and tenacious endurance, we become further enabled to develop into the person(s) God wants us to become.
When you choose to endure and move ahead in the face of failure, you reap dividends. Whether you are 200 pounds over weight, or are suffering from disease, or are facing a business or marriage challenge, you must look Goliath in the face and say, “He is God’s problem, not mine.” My problem is to persist in faith—without hesitation and to overcome any doubts I may come to face. Pause, as needed, to ask for help. There is an outcome of increased growth and faith associated with every commandment we keep. Attaining the faith sufficient to take up one’s abode with Christ requires enduring and overcoming apparent imminent failure. Even Christ, while on the cross, endured the temptation of apparent imminent failure before His ultimate triumph, a triumph that enables man to overcome death and to return to God.
In moments where all seems lost, hold to the promises made to you by a perfect God who cannot and does not lie. Remember that even though the heavens and earth shall pass away, His promises to you will not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled. His promises are as the nail in a sure place, and secure you to Him. The path to heaven passes through hell. Just as Christ received angels to minister to Him, after “the tempter came to him,” so too can you. Remember, the higher you reach toward heaven, the lower you will also experience, until the opposed extremes enable you to discern all that exists between the extremes of heaven and hell. Required faith to part the veil cannot be obtained by any other means. We must choose between apparent failure of our faith and best efforts, and persistence if we are to rend the veil. “The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out.” “Thy mind, O man! If thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God.” (DHC3:295; TPJS, p. 137) Both Heaven and Hell court us in our journey. These extremes alone enable us with a fullness of knowledge.
The challenges we face are customized for each of us; it doesn’t matter what our Goliath’s are; they each serve to help us grow properly. Even the experience of reaching for God’s promised blessings of health may only be attained perfectly through this process. God is uninhibited by the present stage in your life, and if you will allow Him to do so, He will use your present stage to help you prepare for the next one. Until you can endure discouragement, you are not ready to receive Him. Rising above discouragement and apparent failure is a part of the process of redemption and everyone who will be saved must pass through it. Great highs are paired with great lows. Ultimately, you must be wise enough to learn all there is to learn between the top “high” brackets and the “low” bottom brackets. You must believe that God wants you to succeed in your obedience to Him and that no creativity or effort should be spared in accomplishing the assignment. Be creative, resilient, persist and face your daily challenges with faith. This is the process that has enabled all prophets and saints to take up their abode with Christ. This process will help you do likewise.
16. Part the Veil Daily: As you act in faith according to the Lord’s Spirit, your physical world will alter dramatically through your faithful actions. As you implement the process described above, pay strict heed to the revelations and impressions you will receive. Act upon them immediately to enable greater faith and to prevent your faith from growing dormant. As you do so, you will do like David and will move aside the veil by bringing spiritual inspirations and power from heaven into your physical world, and God will quicken you to show you how to do what you’ve been asked to do. Record each such instance. The same redemptive principles you will learn from this process are the principles by which mountains are moved, seas are parted, and the dead are raised. As you master this process, nothing shall be impossible to you. As the Lord commands, you will be able to move the power of the Spirit from behind the veil into your physical world—through obedience. This pattern and process represents a shadow and type and a description of the process you are to enable each day of your lifetime. It is the formula every saint from every dispensation has employed to know God and to see His face. It teaches how faith, repentance (striving and forsaking sin), baptism (covenant making), and the Holy Ghost (God’s reciprocal covenant to us) work within us to bring the commandments of God from heaven into our physical world to render the veil and to shape our world. Only through covenants can we part the veil. As you keep your covenants, God keeps his, and His Spirit moves from heaven, through the veil to you; then, as you act upon inspiration received, God’s power and influence works to shape your world.
17. Today’s Stage for Growth: How do we know we are doing the right thing today? As you pray for that which you desire most, know that the Holy Ghost fills any clean vessel with the precise desires that are right for them today. As you strive to serve God, His Spirit will influence your desires and as you embrace them, you will find yourself on the right stage for today’s most important growth. Accept and move forward with those desires. Remember, the universal pattern for bringing heaven’s help from behind the veil into you life: Desire to know; Believe the Lord can make it known to you; ponder or think deeply and prayerfully about that which you desire and, Fast and pray over many days. Finally, you must ask before the Lord will reveal Himself to you; then, you must act upon the revelations you receive. What do you want to know, and do you believe God will tell you? Belief must extend beyond hope to a certitude God will answer your prayers. As your bowels are filled with charity and as virtue garnishes your thoughts unceasingly, you will enjoy great confidence that God will answer your prayers and the doctrines of the priesthood, or in other words God's pure knowledge, will distill upon your soul as the dews from heaven. Study and employ the universal pattern—as described above. It is the universal pattern that has been employed by everyone who comes to know God and who is redeemed from their fallen state in this lifetime. You are meant to become redeemed today, not at some point way off into the eternities. As you free yourself from sin and come unto the Lord with real intent and you call upon his name and discuss your concerns with him, his promises are sure that he will answer you. As you do his will today, tomorrow and so on, be heeding his will daily, you will come to see his face.
Too often we can become overly confused about what we should do today. Jesus taught that sufficient is the day... He was teaching us to keep things simple and to not go beyond the mark--to trust Him and call upon Him daily, to keep a prayer in our hearts at all times and to keep His Spirit with us always. Only in the present can we act according to the Lord’s voice to render the veil and to bring His power and influence into our physical world today, to help shape and mold the events of our lives and to endow us with more light and truth. We must trust His sweet and peaceful spirit and keep it with us always. As we do so, the Master will lead us just right and and will raise us up unto eternal life, just as a farmer raises up calves in a stall. It is senseless to attempt to get so far ahead of ourselves that we seek to micromanage a life that needs to be led peacefully and hourly, according to the Lord’s Spirit.
Proper Framework
Keep the following things in mind as you reflect upon the process for walking the path of redemption to receive the Fullness of the Gospel.
- Learn to keep sacred things to self unless the Spirit asks you to share and testify of the truth to others. Earn trust by sharing only what He asks you to share with whom He asks you to share it.
- Light is received according to how swiftly it can be received. Ask, receive, trust, act, and continue to allow light to grow brighter until it is perfect. More light is received only as we tend faithfully to light already received.
- Feeling comes before seeing, touching, or hearing. There is no veil to our feelings and we must act upon them rightfully, if we would rend the veil.
- Focus on one hard thing at a time—whatever most hinders you most today or is directed to you by the Spirit.
- Ask God concerning your desires with Sincere and Real intent. Ask for help to know when He is answering prayers. Unless we ask, He doesn’t give.
- Believe in and develop faith in Christ, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, keep the commandments, and renew baptismal covenants weekly and as well as other sacred covenants that are designed help to achieve another level of faith, preparation, and cleanliness. Disassociate with the world and associate with heaven. The adoption rites of baptism and temple ordinances help restore us to God’s family or to become an heir and a member of God’s family. He visits only members of His family—not strangers and foreigners.
- Study the scriptures to better understand the path of redemption and how to receive the Second Comforter. Scriptures help to enable a firm hope in God’s promises.
- Become familiar with what He wants you to do and then do it. Trust and do as He says.
- All of Christ’s intelligence came through obedience and submission to God and not through philosophy or the scientific method. He walked this path perfectly and can lead us to success upon the same path.
- Leave sins of the past and allow Him to guide and succor.
- Do not judge God as He elevates you to higher than you are now. Quiet fears, be still, and know that He is God.
- Worship God alone and not His messengers. Listen and learn from His messengers, but worship and follow God alone if you desire to walk the path of redemption.
- Believing on God’s words results in receiving manifestations of the spirit.
- Acting upon his words results in greater faith, light, truth, and knowledge.
- Do today what we already know is expected of us if we want to receive more light and truth. The miracle of Lazarus was restricted to bringing him back to life, not to the opening of the tomb or the unwrapping of the burial cloth. Reading the scriptures and solemn thought is akin to unwrapping the burial cloths. Do what is expected and find many answers and receive much revelation while searching the scriptures.
- Repent of iniquity or serious transgressions.
- Meet familial and church responsibilities before expecting to travel very far along the path of the Second Comforter. When balance is off we are more likely to fall aside rather than move in the right path.
- Enjoy redemptive process within my dominion. Great experiences in scriptures involved obscure and private lives; Lehi was a family man; Nephi had to flee is brothers; Abraham presided over his family and servants, perhaps the size of a Relief Society. One’s personal dominion is sufficient to walk the redemptive path.
- As you approach God on His terms and in the manner he established you will see Him.
- There is no veil to feelings; learning is good, to the extent you are able to feel through the veil concerning all things.
- We are tried until our hearts are broken and our spirits are contrite, and in our extremities we come to know God even better.
- Exercise patience, humility and meekness while in the path.
- The closer you come to God, the more you become a foreigner and stranger to others.
- Do not deny the power of God (receive personal revelation and gifts). Qualify to know the mysteries of God by doing the following: forsake sin, come unto Him, call on His name; obey His voice; and keep His commandments (D&C 93:1). To the extent you do not receive God’s power and gifts, you deny the power thereof.
- Humble self and be teachable and open to higher things. Call upon God to come. Live every principle He teaches me. Accept all true principles. Rely on no man to bring you to God, but upon a personal relationship with the Holy Ghost, the Savior, and with God.
May the Lord Bless and Be With You Always!
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