Dear James,
I am pleased you are enjoying your labors as a missionary. In the most recent women's conference, Sister Julie Beck said that the ability to receive and to act upon revelation, is the single most important ability that we can acquire in life. This capacity alone assures us our ability to be able to know and do the Lord's will daily in our lives, which is the only sure path to exaltation. It is through acting in faith according to God's will for us each day that we obtain the incremental growth in light, truth, knowledge, and faith that leads to our exaltation. Also, if we are to fulfill our individual missions in life, we must be able to ask and receive or knock and have things opened to us as we progress along the path.
Grandpa Simmons, sent me a letter while I was in college that forever changed my life and defined in a sense my life's mission. He said, “There are two drummers who offer temporal security to us, one is Christ and the other Satan.” He wanted me to learn to follow the beat of the Divine Drummer when it came to my temporal needs and told me that he had not understood the difference between the two as he had sought to meet the temporal needs of his family. His letter caught my attention for I was in college seeking to gain a competitive career advantage so that like my father, I too would be enabled to provide well for my future family. His letter surprised me and caused me great concern.
Dad was exceedingly intelligent, quiet, thoughtful, and was not prone to exaggeration. When he spoke, it was relevant, direct, sound, and often humorous! He challenged me to learn to receive my temporal needs by learning to follow Christ more perfectly than he had done. I was confused by his letter, for he was a good man and a wonderful father.
Over time I have come to understand the laws that governed temporal security in ancient Israel. Similar to their receiving manna in the wilderness, each family was commanded to keep only sufficient each harvest season to see them through until the following year’s harvest. All excess was to be given as a freewill offering to be used to bless those who did not have sufficient for the year to come. Thus the only retirement plan available in Israel was to secure the Lord’s promises through obedience to covenants. Then, as statutes and covenants were obeyed, an inheritance of land, posterity, protection, and the blessings from heaven were secured for another year. Through disobedience Israel was trodden upon, scattered, and smitten.
The Book of Mormon also teaches how to secure our temporal needs and sheds more light on the subject. Through applying the Lord’s higher laws, the Nephites enjoyed a 165-year utopia wherein there were no contentions and disputations among them and every man did deal justly one with another. They had all things (goods and substances) common among them and did not buy, sell, traffic, or trade their goods. This led to a society wherein there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free and partakers of the heavenly gift, which is to be redeemed and to receive eternal life as you live. (See "Redemption".)
This happy condition continued for 165 years. At the height of their prosperity some began to be lifted up in pride, such as in the wearing of costly apparel, all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world, at which time they ceased to have all goods and substance common among them and began to traffic and trade their goods. This led to division and classes of rich and poor and to false Christian churches that were built up to get gain. While professing to know Christ, they suffered inequality to enter among them. Yet, to be equal in heavenly things we must become equal in earthly things (D&C 78:6). They also began to administer that which is sacred to those who were unworthy.
About ten years after I received Dad’s letter, I was invited into Great Uncle President Ezra Taft Benson’s office, where he taught me that we labor under condemnation as a church because we “say” but do not “do” that which is taught within the pages of the Book of Mormon (D&C 84:53-62). What is it we do not do? I don't recall exactly what he said, but this much I know we read every time we read the Book of Mormon: there were exceeding many Nephites who entered into the Lord's rest and became partakers of the heavenly gift during their lifetimes. The Book of Mormon also teaches us about a successful blueprint for living the higher laws of heaven (see 4 Nephi 1). We discussed what He could do to help the Church come out from under condemnation. Two weeks later I heard him repeat to the Church in General Conference some of what he had discussed with me. I was inspired by his concern and read the Book of Mormon cover to cover each month for the next two years and began to recognize the full invitation of this book. First is to qualify to enter into the Lord's presence and to be redeemed during our lifetimes. Second is that we live according to the higher laws, which lead to a Zion society.
All the Law and the Prophets
We become sanctified and enter into the rest of the Lord to become heirs of our Father in Heaven as we come to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds and as we love our neighbor as ourselves. Heaven’s choicest blessings rest upon these two laws. For example, the Widow of Nain, who fed the last of what she had to the prophet Elijah while preparing herself and her son to die, received blessings from her sacrifice which enabled an endless supply of food for her and her son. Jesus turned water into wine and He multiplied a few fish and loaves of bread into enough food to feed 5,000. By these same two laws He qualified to act with God's power and He walked on water, healed the sick, the blind, the lame, and the deaf, and He raised the dead. Perfect love and virtue enables us with God's pure knowledge or the doctrines of the priesthood, the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and an unchanging scepter of righteousness in our lives, which is the basis for receiving God’s power in our lives.
Nephites who followed Christ’s perfect example and lived in harmony with the two higher laws of heaven (love) healed the sick, raised the dead, caused the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and they performed all manner of miracles among the children of men. While such services are sold in Satan’s economy for money, they are given and received without money and without price in the Savior’s economy.
While Satan says, “You can buy anything in this world with money,” the Savior teaches the higher laws whereby all our needs may be met without money and without price. Although few today qualify to receive their needs in this manner, it is possible because the requirement to receive any blessing from God is the same -- to obey the laws upon which those blessings are predicated. How then do we follow the Savior’s example to secure food, housing, education, medical care, protection from enemies and other temporal needs without money or price? This is a foreign concept to most members of the Church today, yet it is a condition to which many saints of various dispensations have attained unto through God's laws.
The Lord has taught that everything has its opposite, including the ways in which our temporal needs are to be met. In order to understand how to secure your temporal needs without money or price you must first come to understand the two laws upon which hang all the laws and the prophets. Let’s consider these two laws more fully.
Law #1: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
What is it to so love God, and how do we attain such love?
I am pleased you are enjoying your labors as a missionary. In the most recent women's conference, Sister Julie Beck said that the ability to receive and to act upon revelation, is the single most important ability that we can acquire in life. This capacity alone assures us our ability to be able to know and do the Lord's will daily in our lives, which is the only sure path to exaltation. It is through acting in faith according to God's will for us each day that we obtain the incremental growth in light, truth, knowledge, and faith that leads to our exaltation. Also, if we are to fulfill our individual missions in life, we must be able to ask and receive or knock and have things opened to us as we progress along the path.
Grandpa Simmons, sent me a letter while I was in college that forever changed my life and defined in a sense my life's mission. He said, “There are two drummers who offer temporal security to us, one is Christ and the other Satan.” He wanted me to learn to follow the beat of the Divine Drummer when it came to my temporal needs and told me that he had not understood the difference between the two as he had sought to meet the temporal needs of his family. His letter caught my attention for I was in college seeking to gain a competitive career advantage so that like my father, I too would be enabled to provide well for my future family. His letter surprised me and caused me great concern.
Dad was exceedingly intelligent, quiet, thoughtful, and was not prone to exaggeration. When he spoke, it was relevant, direct, sound, and often humorous! He challenged me to learn to receive my temporal needs by learning to follow Christ more perfectly than he had done. I was confused by his letter, for he was a good man and a wonderful father.
Over time I have come to understand the laws that governed temporal security in ancient Israel. Similar to their receiving manna in the wilderness, each family was commanded to keep only sufficient each harvest season to see them through until the following year’s harvest. All excess was to be given as a freewill offering to be used to bless those who did not have sufficient for the year to come. Thus the only retirement plan available in Israel was to secure the Lord’s promises through obedience to covenants. Then, as statutes and covenants were obeyed, an inheritance of land, posterity, protection, and the blessings from heaven were secured for another year. Through disobedience Israel was trodden upon, scattered, and smitten.
The Book of Mormon also teaches how to secure our temporal needs and sheds more light on the subject. Through applying the Lord’s higher laws, the Nephites enjoyed a 165-year utopia wherein there were no contentions and disputations among them and every man did deal justly one with another. They had all things (goods and substances) common among them and did not buy, sell, traffic, or trade their goods. This led to a society wherein there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free and partakers of the heavenly gift, which is to be redeemed and to receive eternal life as you live. (See "Redemption".)
This happy condition continued for 165 years. At the height of their prosperity some began to be lifted up in pride, such as in the wearing of costly apparel, all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world, at which time they ceased to have all goods and substance common among them and began to traffic and trade their goods. This led to division and classes of rich and poor and to false Christian churches that were built up to get gain. While professing to know Christ, they suffered inequality to enter among them. Yet, to be equal in heavenly things we must become equal in earthly things (D&C 78:6). They also began to administer that which is sacred to those who were unworthy.
About ten years after I received Dad’s letter, I was invited into Great Uncle President Ezra Taft Benson’s office, where he taught me that we labor under condemnation as a church because we “say” but do not “do” that which is taught within the pages of the Book of Mormon (D&C 84:53-62). What is it we do not do? I don't recall exactly what he said, but this much I know we read every time we read the Book of Mormon: there were exceeding many Nephites who entered into the Lord's rest and became partakers of the heavenly gift during their lifetimes. The Book of Mormon also teaches us about a successful blueprint for living the higher laws of heaven (see 4 Nephi 1). We discussed what He could do to help the Church come out from under condemnation. Two weeks later I heard him repeat to the Church in General Conference some of what he had discussed with me. I was inspired by his concern and read the Book of Mormon cover to cover each month for the next two years and began to recognize the full invitation of this book. First is to qualify to enter into the Lord's presence and to be redeemed during our lifetimes. Second is that we live according to the higher laws, which lead to a Zion society.
All the Law and the Prophets
We become sanctified and enter into the rest of the Lord to become heirs of our Father in Heaven as we come to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds and as we love our neighbor as ourselves. Heaven’s choicest blessings rest upon these two laws. For example, the Widow of Nain, who fed the last of what she had to the prophet Elijah while preparing herself and her son to die, received blessings from her sacrifice which enabled an endless supply of food for her and her son. Jesus turned water into wine and He multiplied a few fish and loaves of bread into enough food to feed 5,000. By these same two laws He qualified to act with God's power and He walked on water, healed the sick, the blind, the lame, and the deaf, and He raised the dead. Perfect love and virtue enables us with God's pure knowledge or the doctrines of the priesthood, the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and an unchanging scepter of righteousness in our lives, which is the basis for receiving God’s power in our lives.
Nephites who followed Christ’s perfect example and lived in harmony with the two higher laws of heaven (love) healed the sick, raised the dead, caused the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and they performed all manner of miracles among the children of men. While such services are sold in Satan’s economy for money, they are given and received without money and without price in the Savior’s economy.
While Satan says, “You can buy anything in this world with money,” the Savior teaches the higher laws whereby all our needs may be met without money and without price. Although few today qualify to receive their needs in this manner, it is possible because the requirement to receive any blessing from God is the same -- to obey the laws upon which those blessings are predicated. How then do we follow the Savior’s example to secure food, housing, education, medical care, protection from enemies and other temporal needs without money or price? This is a foreign concept to most members of the Church today, yet it is a condition to which many saints of various dispensations have attained unto through God's laws.
The Lord has taught that everything has its opposite, including the ways in which our temporal needs are to be met. In order to understand how to secure your temporal needs without money or price you must first come to understand the two laws upon which hang all the laws and the prophets. Let’s consider these two laws more fully.
Law #1: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
What is it to so love God, and how do we attain such love?
- Faith in God: Come to understand God’s divine characteristics, attributes, and perfections which enable great faith in Him. I've written two articles on faith that help to more fully understand how to lay hold upon great faith. Great faith in God enables us with great love for Him. (See “Faith” and “Mustard Seed”.)
- Obedience: As you secure faith in God, learn to recognize His voice and to obey it with exactness. As you do, you will come to recognize His unfailing and perfect love for you and His hand in your life and you will feel great reciprocal love towards Him.
- Sacrifice: As you obey God’s voice, you will be called upon to make certain real sacrifices for the benefit of others. As you do so, you will come to receive blessings, even an hundred fold, to exceed your sacrifices. This will cause you to find even greater love and trust within your heart, soul, and mind for God.
- Law of the Gospel: Through faith in Christ’s atonement, repentance, and a covenant between you and God, you enter the process of sanctification, which is the steady putting off of the natural man to become as Christ, attribute for divine attribute. As you so strive in faith, God sends His Spirit to teach you more perfectly. As you walk this path of holiness (see “Holiness”), you will find in God, His Son, and His Spirit a refuge wherein you can entrust your entire heart, soul, and mind. As you keep God’s will, varying neither to the left nor the right, you will grow in faith and knowledge and He will never forsake you and you will recognize and love Him for it.
- Prayer and a Hungering Soul: The further you trod this path, the greater the hunger you will feel to learn and do all that is required in order to enter into the Lord’s rest and to see His face. You will love Him even more deeply as you discover that this hunger leads to great confidence before Him in prayer, and you will discover that you receive light and knowledge from Him just as fast as you are willing and able to receive it. You will feel the hunger for and be directed in the very things to ask of God. As we come to Him as little children who are eager to learn, He withholds nothing from us and delights to bless us. We cannot help but love Him with all our hearts, souls, and minds . (See “Prayer”.)
- Gratitude: As you pray and walk this path, the Holy Ghost will open your eyes to see what God has done and is doing for you and you will feel great outpourings of love and gratitude to the Lord that cause your heart to swell. You will feel pure love for Him and in turn will feel His pure love reciprocated back to you. You will increasingly thank Him for every blessing and will feel it from the bottom of your heart. I thank Him for being able to hug my children yet one more day; I thank Him for the food we enjoy; I thank Him for allowing me to write; I thank Him for His unfailing patience with me; and I especially thank Him for a noble companion who walks with me through life and who shares my thoughts, dreams, and prayers. (See “Gratitude”.)
- Love Thyself: As you recognize your worth to God and His perfect love for you and your love for Him, you will also love yourself more perfectly, in spite of your mistakes and shortcomings. You cannot love God and others perfectly until you so love yourself. Recognition of His perfect love for you in spite of your imperfections will enable you to love yourself and your imperfect neighbors as God loves you.
Law # 2: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
What is it to love our neighbor as we love ourselves? As you follow the divine process above for coming to love God and yourself with all your heart, soul, and mind, you will knock and He will open things unto you. You will ask and receive whatsoever you need from Him. And as you so proceed to put off the natural man and to become a new creature in Christ, your thoughts will turn to your neighbors: your children, your extended family, your neighborhood, and all other persons within your circle of influence. You will begin to recognize the following:
- Prayer: Whether or not your neighbor is a friend or enemy, you will desire the Lord’s choicest blessings to be upon him with the same kind of desire that drove Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah to teach the Lamanites. You learn as you come to love God more perfectly that as you first seek your own best interests in righteous prayer, He answers your every prayer and fulfills your every need. But then, just like Enos, whose prayers in his own behalf were first answered, after which his desires were drawn out to pray for his brethren the Lamanites, you too begin to love your neighbor as yourself and your heart turns from prayers offered up for self to prayers offered up for your neighbor. Therefore, you commence to love neighbor more fully as you pray and do for neighbor just as you pray and do for yourself. (See "Prayer".)
- Daily Consecration: Consecration of all one is and all one possesses means that whatever stewardship of gifts, talents, and resources the Lord has blessed you with or may yet bless you with, you will lay it all upon the alter before Him daily. You will use your “all” to bless, lift, serve, and to bring others fully unto Him -- according to His divine will today. It also implies that your security will remain in the Lord and not upon any possessions, which at anytime He may ask you to dispose of in order to do His will on behalf of a neighbor. You eagerly seek to know His will daily and to do it, knowing that upon the path of consecration alone you will enter into His rest, become redeemed, become an heir to the Father, and secure your exaltation.
- Obedience: As you obey God’s voice daily, He will guide and direct your efforts to serve, lift, and bless others. (See "I'm Available Lord".) Your heart will be poured out towards loving and doing for others in love what God desires you to do. As you thrust in your sickle with might, you will help many people, and you will thereby bring salvation to your soul through obedience. Faith, hope, charity, and love, with an eye single to the glory of God, enable you to love your neighbor as yourself. Whatsoever you ask you will receive, and as you knock it shall be opened unto you. Loving your neighbor as yourself then means that just as you pray to God for yourself and do as He commands you, you will also pray and obey His will on behalf of your neighbor.
How do we follow the beat of the Divine Drummer today and where is the pendulum that swings between the safety of righteousness and the destruction coming upon the wicked (Alma 16:17, Alma 12:36, Heleman 4:11-13)? The day of calling is past and today is a day of choosing, a self-selection process determined by our obedience to what the Lord has taught us about following Him (D&C 105:34-37). Consider the following we have been asked to do if we desire to come out from the condemnation under which we labor to become chosen:
- Are we qualifying ourselves to be chosen for Eternal Life by doing our all to live the Celestial law? (D&C 105:5)
- Are we fully consecrating ourselves to do the Lord's will daily? (Ex: 32:29)
- Have we truly forsaken class divisions among us? (3 Nephi 6:12, 4 Nephi 1:24, 26)
- Do we truly esteem all flesh as one? (1 Nephi 17:35)
- Are we familiar with all and free with our substance so that our brethren may be rich like unto ourselves? (Jacob 2:17)
- Are we pure in heart and are there no more poor among us today? (Moses 7:18)
- Do some possess that which is above another or do we share God's gifts equally today? (D&C 49:20)
- Are we true believers who have all goods and substances common among us so that there are no more rich and poor, bond and free, and have we ceased seeking to lay up in store wealth or to traffic (buy, sell, trade) in all manner of traffic? (Acts 2:44-47, 4 Nephi 1:3, 4 Nephi 1:25, 4 Nephi 1:46)
- Are we truly equal in earthly things so that we can be equal in heavenly things tomorrow? (D&C 76:4-7)
- Do we understand the significant difference between storing up retirements and great abundance unto ourselves such as 401ks, stocks and bonds, insurances, cash, gold, silver, precious gems, and so forth, whereby we seek to securitize ourselves (Luke 12:16-21), versus securitizing ourselves through covenant as we lay our lives, our gifts, talents, and earthly possessions upon the alter daily as we covenant to do the Lord's will today? Do we cleave unto the spirit of the manna principle wherein we trust the Lord's will daily, committing our all to Him, rather than trust in the accumulations of riches? (Exodus 16:14-36)?
- Do we understand and live by the spirit of ancient Israel's freewill offerings, wherein they stored up only sufficient to last until the next year's harvest and consecrated their annual excesses to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and to the afflicted and not to enrich oneself? (Jacob 2:18-19)
- Do we understand and live according to Israel's Retirement Plan, which is to obey God's statutes and covenants, wherein temporal needs are secured by covenant? Or, do we rely upon the arm of flesh and seek to squirrel away excess, even more than the Lord requires of us, and in this are we justified or do we thereby commit idolatry?
- Have we forsaken all sin, and do we come unto the Lord and call upon His name with the real intent to obey His voice (do His will each day) and keep his commandments, that we may become sanctified and perfected in Him and come to see His face? (D&C 93:1, Moroni 10:32)
- Does our confidence wax strong as we come before God in prayer? Does His pure knowledge distill upon our souls as our bowels are filled with charity and our minds are garnished unceasingly with virtue? Is the Holy Ghost our constant companion? And have we received the unchanging scepter of righteousness that qualifies us to possess God's power and enables us to receive an everlasting dominion that flows unto us without compulsory means forever and ever? (D&C 121:45-46)
- Are there a great many of us today whose faith is so exceedingly strong that we cannot be kept from within the veil but truly have seen with our eyes the Savior and have entered into His rest? (Ether 12:19, Ether 12:19, Moroni 7:3, Alma 12:36-37, Alma 13:12, 16)
- Have we qualified to be presented to the Father by Christ to receive the heavenly gift, which is to be ordained by God’s own hand into His Patriarchal Order, or in other words to receive Eternal Life. (Read John 14:6, Alma 13 carefully to recognize this sacred ordination that comes only from God's own hand.)
- Do we understand that we receive all the above blessings by virtue of the two great commandments -- to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves which is enabled within us through consecration?
Because many today are caught up by the cares of the world and the honors of men, they become distracted from the purposes for which we are here and fail to consecrate themselves fully to do the Lord's will today, which is required in order to become chosen. Thus, as Hugh B. Brown taught in the 1950s, many are called to the priesthood, but few are chosen to enter into the Lord's rest and be made partakers of the heavenly gift. Similarly, of the 30,000 men who began the journey with Gideon, only 300 were chosen to finish the job. Those chosen after a long and dusty march, knelt by a river and with one hand forward, scooped up water to drink, and with the other hand, palm down, they balanced themselves, as they kept their head up and eyes forward and watchful. The men who were not chosen laid on their bellies and lapped up water from the river like dogs and did not remain watchful. So too, if we would be chosen to enter into the Lord's rest and to be made a partaker of the heavenly gift in our lifetimes, we must keep our eyes forward on the Savior at all times and remain watchful of our common enemy. As we remain ever watchful and do His will daily, there comes a time when we are chosen to be sealed up unto Eternal Life. This is the endgame, the target, and should be the focus of our existence.
Take time to study each of the above principles and then reread D&C 84:53-62 to fully understand the condemnation under which we labor and to know exactly what the Lord has said we can do to receive forgiveness and to become acceptable unto Him. The Lord called us to do these things in the early days of this dispensation. President Benson told our family that his mouth was closed to the Church when we failed to understand the condemnation under which we labor. The Lord stated in the early days of the Church that the calling had been made to do these things and then proclaimed that now is a time of choosing (D&C 105:34-37). Choosing is a self-selection process that occurs as we "do" rather than merely "say".
James, just imagine how wonderful it will be when we fully embrace these principles as a people. I believe that if we live to be so chosen, we will help to establish the New Jerusalem in our lifetimes. In the meantime, anyone who will live by the laws of heaven today and will come to love God and Neighbor perfectly will receive all the blessings pertaining to these laws -- even if he or she is the only person on earth to abide by them. We are to do what we do for others out of love of God and neighbor and not for money. What if we are the only people on earth to do this? Can we still receive what we need from God to exist? Brigham Young taught the Saints in his day that the Millennium begins for us the moment we choose to live by all laws that govern heaven, and so it will spread from one person to the next until it covers the whole earth. (JD, B Young, 1:198; D&C 130:20-21)
As we live by these laws we qualify for and receive the blessings that are predicated upon these laws. It is merely an act of faith and obedience. Let us then today enable the blessings of the Millennium in our lives and as we do so we will observe the ground beneath our feet become strengthened and yield forth in her strength. And like the Widow of Nain, all things necessary will be provided by God to us as we do His will each day. As with the mustard seed, nothing He asks of us will be impossible.
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