Almost - thou persuadeth me to be a Christan.

To me those are heartbreaking words. Almost thou persuadeth me to be a Christan. I have heard them before. Maybe the individual  believes that Christ lives and yet they are unwilling to lay aside prestige, wealth, lifestyle or whatever and come unto Christ.To me those words are so sad. Maybe they say, Oh, I believe in Christ but I believe that in he loves everyone so much that he will forgive me and let me come and live with him anyway. Do they not understand that no one gets to heaven except by Christ and Christ said If ye believe in me keep my commandments.We all backslide along the way, that's why we have repentance -- why we have the atonement. But we have to be trying, have to be making the effort.

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night.

"And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying come over into Macedonia, and help us." Acts 16:9  Do people still get night visions? Yes, they do. Acts 2:17"And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God . I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old man shall dream dreams." So here we are in the last days and a young man went to a grove of trees and knelt to pray and a vision was open to him. He also had night visions even as the apostles of old - even as Paul did.     

Pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, John 15:10

John 15:10 says, If you keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love.
 Does that mean that if we do not keep the commandments that God will not love us? Far from it. God, loves us unconditionally.
 Matthew 5:44 & 46 tells us "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you and persecute you : For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not the publicans the same?
Does that mean that I will allow you to degrade me, put me down and be mean to me? No. Unconditional love is respect, for yourself as well as for those you love.They hung Jesus on a cross until he was dead and yet he said, "Father forgive them. They know not what they do." and that is true. If we truly understood who we are we would be the most kind, loving people you can imagine. We would indeed be one with Christ or Christ like. "Greater love hath no man that this, that a a mam lay down our lives for his friends." (John 15:13)

What does that mean? That we would die for our children, our spouse, for what we believe in? Yes. Men give their lives in war that our nation will be free. Mothers and Fathers give hours of their lives in thankless jobs to feed and clothe their children. Sometimes they ruin their health doing so. They give their lives teaching ungrateful children gospel truth. True sometimes we sabotage ourselves with bad habits, but that is a subject for another day.
Unconditional love is Christ like love.
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We cannot know if a thing is right unless we ask of God.

We remember Saul who was struck down on his way to Damascus and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him and said, Saul, Saul why persecuteth thou me, and Saul was made blind. He was already blind spiritually speaking but, now he became physically blind.  I cannot make it clear enough that the Lord does actually speak to individuals. Here was Saul going about “making havock of the church,” the scriptures tell us, he was an evil man according to man’s view point, but, the Lord knew Saul’s heart. In another scripture the Lord says, I would that ye were either hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm I will spew you out. Well, Saul was not lukewarm. He believed these Christians were the scum of the earth and he was doing what he thought was right and good. Unfortunately, many of us make the same mistake. I say again we cannot know of ourselves if a thing is right or good unless we ask of God.

Love one another as I have loved you, John 15:12

Love one another sounds simple enough, but in reality it is very complex. Doing  research a long time ago for a paper on abuse, I read the work of a psychologist who said that in all his years of practice he had never met a parent who didn't loved their child. They might be abusing the child but they still claimed they loved that child. They only wanted what was best for the child they always said. That reminds me of the story of the Father who seeing his child climbing on something held out his arms as if to catch the child and said jump. When the child let go and jumped the father stepped aside and let the child fall. "Let that be a lesson to you. You  can not trust anyone in this life,"  he said.

Think of the implications. If you are taught that you can't trust anyone, either verbally or by experience how can you possibly trust your Father in Heaven and his Son Jesus Christ? How can you truly love anyone?  Is it easy to love someone that loves you? You'd think so wouldn't you, but sometimes when we treat someone kindly fear comes upon them and they wonder what we want from them.
Now you and I know that is not what Christ meant when he said love one another.  We know that what he said was love one another AS he has loved us.
How does Christ love us? He says, "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you ... If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love"
The lesson here is that we must learn to love as Christ loves and as the Father does. How do we do that? By keeping the commandments and by learning to listen to the Holy Ghost. By obeying that prompting from the Spirit, by studying the Scriptures and seeking to know Heavenly Father's will for us and doing it. 

Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?

The story of Saul is an interesting one as recorded in the book of Acts 9. Saul, it says, went about “breathing out threatening and slaughter,” against the disciples of the Lord. On his way to Damascus to bring in more of those horrible Christians he saw a light. He fell to the earth and heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecuteth thou me?”  And Saul came face to face with Jesus. What is so interesting is that he had to have the Holy Ghost in order to see the light, to hear the voice and to see Jesus.  So the  question I have is do we sometimes feel the Spirit and yet misinterpret what it means? Well, it has happened to me and it happened to Saul and I bet it has happened to others as well.

 It is a learning process rather like the game of hot and cold. “What are you trying to tell me Lord? Should I go to Damascus?”

“Cold.”  

“Slaughter the Christians?”

“Freezing!”

But he went anyway. He had not learned to listen.

Eventually we learn what things are cold and what things are warm, hot, and burning up. Reading the scriptures, praying,  helping others, forgiving, preaching that Christ lives today and that he will return. All of these thing bring us closer to the Spirit. The thing of it is that Paul/Saul really was on fire, and he wanted to do the right thing, but he was working for the wrong side and just didn’t know it. So just because we feel the Spirit and run off to do what we think is right doesn’t mean it is. We have to be sure that the Spirit continues with us in the doing.The Holy Ghost is a teacher, and some of us are slow learners.

Is God still in control? Does he even know what going on down here?

The views on this blog do not necessary represent those of for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For information what they believe please go to https://www.lds.org/?lang=eng Especially, read or listen to a talk by Dieter F. Uchidorf  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/come-join-with-us?lang=eng  

As a child I was taught  that when Christ died the veil was rent and God no longer spoke to man. When Joseph Smith had his vision, he happened to tell a minister of a church about the vision, he was told that such things were of the devil.  The minister said there were no such things as visions or revelations in these days, that all such things had ceased with the apostles and there would never be any more of them.

We know from reading Acts that when Christ died and was resurrected the Holy Ghost became our teacher but Christ is still the head of his church which he organized on the earth. When Christ finished his work here “He was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfast toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, ‘Ye men of Galiee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.’”  

Let us be logical here for a moment. Christ went to all this trouble to sit up His Church even to the point of dying for it. I ask you was not the death of Christ foretold?   It was. And I ask you if Christ death was not part of the plan could not Christ, the son of the only begotten of our immortal Father have lived forever? Doesn’t God have power over all the earth, over life and death? Does it make sense then that Father would allow his son to die for naught?  It does not! Does it make sense that He would establish his church and say, That’s it! Let them do as they please. Let them make up whatever that want and follow the best they can. Then in that appointed day unknown to all, I’ll send my son down and send them all to hell? Does that sound like a loving heavenly Father?

God is not a god of confusion. The original church was lost due to unbelief. The Apostles were killed. Judas was replaced as were others, but eventually unbelief won out and we went through the dark ages. Gradually, people began to have faith again. They began to search the scriptures and set up churches. All of that was good. It prepared the hearts of men to again receive Christ. The authority Christ left on the earth was gone but in these latter days that authority has been restored.
 I was raised as a good old Southern Baptist. Those are good people who love the Lord. They read the Bible and live by its precepts. There are many, many other denominations that do the same. There are probably as many or more of them than Mormons who are going to heaven. So why  do the Mormons have the arrogance to say that they are the only true church upon the earth?

Simple. Because they are the only church on the earth at this time that has the authority of the original church of Christ. The second coming of Christ is nigh at hand and it is time for Christ to a return to His Church. It does not mean than any one Mormon is better than any Baptist or etc. What it does mean is that God is in charge and he knows what he is doing. He has always known what he was doing.  He is not asleep not is he dead.      

The difference between believing and knowing

It is by the Holy Ghost that we believe in Christ, that we seek Christ, that we find Christ, that we know Christ, that we testify of Christ, and that we see Christ. Faith and believing has been compared to a seed. When a seed is planted in the ground and is watered it swells up until it burst its’ shell. It then it begins to unfold and moving up through the ground toward the light. It burst through the ground and comes unto the light. We can see it then. That seed might get stepped on and crushed, or dry up from lack of water or nourishment, but if it continues to grow in the light we know that it is real. That it lives. The seed will continue to grow becoming stronger and stronger.  This is exactly like our knowledge of Christ. Even after we know that he lives if we don’t nurture that knowledge like we water and nurture the seed it will die. Some day if we continue in growing we can see Christ.

One such account of a visual witness of Christ is recorded in Acts 7:55  “But he (Stephen) being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”  

The Holy Ghost shall teach us all things

John 14:26 states that the Holy Ghost shall teach us all things. I love the rest of that sentence. "and bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." Jesus is speaking here to the disciples about his time with them, but doesn't that also apply to us in our day? The purpose of the Holy Ghost is to testify of Christ. In other words we cannot learn of Christ except through the Holy Ghost. We can read the scriptures night and day. We can go to Church, or whatever, but unless we have that grain of faith, unless we believe in Christ it is for naught.With that tiny grain of faith the Holy Ghost will bear wittiness to us of Christ. If we expand up on that wittiness and want to learn more of the Christ we can become filled.
It does not matter who you are or what you have done this is always true. Otherwise there could not be repentance nor growth.
Christ said "If ye love me, keep my commandments." He said that if we would do this and be filled with the Spirit He would manifest himself unto us. Do you realize that if a person does not have the Holy Ghost with them this would be extremely frighting to them? In other words the same verse or quote that brings so much peace and love to someone with the Holy Ghost just heaps guilt, and condemnation upon the person with out the Holy Ghost or the Spirit. We need to be sensitive to this fact and not force Jesus on them. Love is the answer. Love them as Jesus does. Pray for them and wait. Don't give up, but be patience and wait and pray that in the end The Spirit will help them remember.     

I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter

Acts begins, "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, (friend of God, to whom the book of Acts was written.) of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen." 

As a child I didn't know much about the Holy Ghost. Grandmother Stearnes would talk of the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost coming upon people. Sometimes I heard reference of speaking in tongues but I really did not have a relationship that I was aware of, with this most holy being. In John 14 Jesus says that he is going to the Father and that he will pray unto the Father and he will give unto them another comforter -- even the Spirit of Truth.  We can learn two things here.

First is Jesus’ role in the Godhead. He organized THE church, His church, the only true Church, He sacrificed and made the atonement, and then His work on earth was done. In making the sacrifice for us He bought us, purchased us if you will, with his blood and if we choose to accept this atonement we become his. We then become his, and just as a parent calls the school, or the neighbor and speaks for their child, Christ speaks, prays to the Father for us.  He becomes our advocate with the Father – IF we allow him to.

We are sometimes like the teen whom the parent, enrolls in school, buys the books and the clothes and whatever is needed and send the child to school. It is up to that teen to engage in learning from the teacher, do the homework or whatever. Sometimes we go through the motions,( I admit that has been me at times, ) and sometimes we don’t even show up. We lose our books, the dog ate our homework, the jeans got ripped into a more acceptable manner. The appropriate shirt somehow got replaced with something more acceptable to peers and less acceptable to the parent. The parent tries but at some point the teen either changes or makes a break with their advocate.  We do the same thing.  

The second thing we learn is that He will give us another comforter.  As Jesus had been a comforter for those he healed and taught, the Holy Ghost now becomes our teacher, and healer. In other words, having set thing in place Christ took his place in Heaven on the right hand of the Father and the Holy Ghost or Spirit took His place with us.  

Before Christ came to Earth and set up His Church the Holy Ghost was here among us to inspire the prophets and all those who believed that Christ would come.