Author: Chauncey Riddle

Sacrament Meeting Talk-26 May 2002-Oak Hills 5^th Ward

1960’s bomb shelter. We must prepare spiritually against the power of Satan.

Checklist for the family: You do the following with fasting, prayer and scripture study.

1.   Husband and wife: Unified in the Lord.

Test: Whatever problem arises, agree on a solution that works. And never get angry with one another.

2.   Family: Lead your children to Jesus Christ through regular family home evening, family prayer, family work and play activities.

3.   Testimony: Unshakable knowledge that the Restored Gospel and Church are true and that the General Authorities, your stake president, and your bishop are appointed of Jesus Christ.

Test: You move with the church as the dispensation unfolds.

4.   Building the Kingdom: Make a significant contribution toward the establishment of Zion each week in your callings. You are concerned about the poor.

Test: Someone else is more faithful and more blessed because of your labors.

5.   You are a missionary: You bear testimony of Christ wherever, whenever the Holy Spirit prompts you.

Test: You distribute Books of Mormon and your testimony regularly.

6.   You are a genealogist: Your four generations have been submitted, and you are working on ancestral lines.

Test: You are doing family names in the temple for someone connected to you.

7.   You are financially responsible:

Test: You pay a generous tithing and offerings, and spend less than you take in.

8.   You care for your physical tabernacle:

Test: You have a regular exercise routine and eat for health, not just for taste.

9.   You are ready to be reassigned to the next world.

Test: You are properly insured and have an air-tight estate plan. And you have repented.

10. You have a pure mind and heart:

Test: You do not countenance pornography, evil influences, or light-mindedness, but garnish your thoughts with virtue. You systematically root out all selfishness from your soul.

11. Your house and belongings are in physical order. You own only what you need, and all is neat, clean, and functional.

Test: You can find and use whatever you need quickly.

12. You are civically responsible.

Test: You take an active interest in bettering your community, state, nation, by getting good people into office.

If you do these things, you will be very close to loving the Lord with all of your heart, might, mind and strength, and you will have power in the priesthood.

This is the way to Christ: it is strait and narrow, a few there be that find it. But those that find it inherit everything.

19 May 2002

Being overwhelmed by circumstances recently, I have found that the best way out of my situation is to prioritize, then work with vigor on the Number One Problem until it is sufficiently resolved that it is no longer Number One, then move on to the new Number One Problem. The problems are mowed down, and suffering seems to be minimized by this strategy.

Finding this success in temporal things, it occurred to me to apply this same strategy to spiritual matters. In so doing, I found it easy to see that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ has to be my Number One Priority; I take this to mean that I must look to Him in every thought and circumstance and try to do His will above all else. I also understand that the first fruits of faith in Jesus Christ is repentance; I take this to mean that I must be about the business of changing every sin and bad habit into an act of faith in Jesus Christ. But what would be priority Number Three?

It occurs to me that the first step of repentance is to forgive others their trespasses against me. I remember that the Lord says in the Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 63:8–11, the following: “My disciples in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”

The Lord also says in 3 Nephi 13:14–15: “For, if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”

Understanding that forgiveness of sins and the companionship of the Holy Ghost are inextricably linked together, and that I cannot enjoy the guidance of the Holy Ghost to repent and have faith if I am not forgiven of my sins, I see that my first task of repentance is to forgive all others their trespasses against me. Then I can be forgiven, then I can enjoy the companionship of the Holy Ghost, then I can effectively work on the next steps of repentance under the expert guidance of the Holy Spirit.

It is plain to me that forgiveness of others is a clear priority in my life, my key to repentance and to faith in Jesus Christ, and thus my key to spiritual progress.

OH 6th Ward, 23 September 2001

The sure formula for success in this life and eternal life in the world to come:

1.   Increase faith in Jesus Christ:

• Always remember Him, and do it with love and gratitude.
• Pray mightily in His name.
• Plan each day under the guidance of His spirit.
• Listen to conscience, which is the voice of His spirit.
• Study the scriptures daily to learn of Him.

2.   Love and serve those around us:

• Have a smile and cheery greeting for everyone we meet.
• Care about others: go out of your way to help them.
• Give service: be found doing good things.

3.   Set our stewardship in order:

• Order our hearts, that our priorities are correct.
• Order our minds, that we fill them with holiness, not worldliness.
• Order our bodies, nourishing and caring for them properly, that we will have the health to carry out our assignments.
• Order our might: Be out of debt, be frugal, pay tithing, save money, be a good employee, have our home and properties in order so that we are ready for the coming of the Master.

4.   Move the work of the Kingdom: Use our priesthood power and other abilities to:

• Do missionary work when we can.
• Be engaged in saving our kindred dead.
• Be faithful in our tasks of perfecting the saints.

Our first priority should be to purify ourselves.

Our second priority should be to strengthen our own family.

Our third priority should be to strengthen the Church.

Our fourth priority should be to strengthen our community.

Our fifth priority should be to strengthen our nation.

To be on the strait and narrow path is to live for others, not for our own gratification. Living for others under the direction of our Savior is the only sure way to happiness. Then there will be no later regrets.

6 May 2001

Brethren, I commend you for being here this afternoon. It is only the faithful who come to a Stake Priesthood Meeting at 3:00 p.m. on a spring Sunday.

My assignment is to speak to all of us about the character pattern of a man of God, a worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood. I approach this topic by breaking it down into four segments, each of which will be treated separately. The four segments are:

1. the essential characteristics of a worthy son of Jesus Christ.
2. The essential characteristics or a worthy bearer of the Aaronic Priesthood.
3. The essential characteristics of a worthy bearer of the patriarchal priesthood.
4. The essential characteristics of a worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

I hope to paint a word picture of a godly character, and invite each of you to paint you own word picture, hopefully stimulated for the good by what I present. Do not take what I say as final word on the subject. But do think about what I say and improve upon it as you can.

Before treating the four segments, it is important to say a word about the overall process of achieving a godly character. First, our character is our habits. Habits are built by making consistent deliberate choices. It sometimes takes fifty to a hundred unbroken choosings of a good action to make it a habit, so that we do what we have previously consciously chosen as a matter of habit, without having to re-choose. But since it only takes one deliberate contrary choice to shatter a habit, so what we have to make the fifty or a hundred good choices again until the habit is re-fixed.

Acquiring a good character is simply a matter of fixing many necessary good habits. Since we are agents, no one but ourselves can fix our own habits. This no one but ourselves can save us from ourselves, that is to say, from our bad habits.

Bad habits come with being mortal. We are in a fallen world, and every one of us partakes of bad habits to some degree at some time. Our challenge is to come out of the fallen world and take upon ourselves the habits, the character, of Jesus Christ. Our goal is to rise to the stature of His character, to the fulness of the perfection that He is. His grace makes it possible for us to become as He is, and thus we are saved by grace. But it is our own hard work to control our thoughts, feelings, words and actions that actually saves us from ourselves. His grace alone will not and cannot save us from ourselves.

The essence of the Christ-like character is not to be selfish, to state the goal negatively. To say it positively is to say that we must come in the end to attain and habitually manifest the pure love of Christ. This means that in any situation in life we do not consider what will best feather our own nest; but being a child of Christ, our only concern in any situation will be to do what is right, which is to say, to do the action which will most help and bless everyone around us. Our goal is thus to overcome selfishness by taking upon ourselves the habits and attributes of Jesus Christ until we do everything we do in that perfect love that comes only from Christ. The indispensable means to overcoming selfishness and growing to the full stature of the pure love of Christ is to be humble. If we go before our Heavenly Father, humbling ourselves as a little child all of our days and doing it in the name of Jesus Christ, we open the doors of grace that it may come down and bless us with the wherewith that we then can make the changes in ourselves which need to be made.

Armed with humility, seeing the opposition as selfishness, and having as our goal attaining the pure love of Christ, or charity, we are ready to set out on our quest for salvation.

The first step in salvation from ourselves is to be baptized, to be born again as a son of Jesus Christ, and make covenant with him. If we make the baptismal covenant, we set out in pursuit of four special character traits to fix them so permanently in our nature that we can never be shaken from them. The four are to be honest, true, chaste and benevolent.

To be honest is to admit it whenever God speaks to us. To ignore the spiritual promptings to do good which come from God is the essence of worldliness, which is selfishness. Thus our missionaries can only help the honest in heart, because when they pray and receive answers from God, they are humble before Him and are willing to admit that He has spoken to their souls. Knee-jerk honesty is always found in those who love Jesus Christ and serve Him.

To be true means that we keep our word, our promises. If we say we will do something, our word becomes our bond, and we do it, even if it is not convenient. A knife edge is true when it is straight; a person is true when their actions line up perfectly with what they have said they will do. The most important promises we ever make are the promises of baptism: That we will be willing to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, that we will keep all of the commandments He gives us, and that we will remember Him always. There is no salvation nor spiritual progress toward salvation without making and being true to those three promises. That is why baptism is our most important covenant, and partaking of the sacrament to renew that covenant is a great key to the life of a Latter-day Saint.

To be chaste means to recognize that our bodies are fashioned in the image of God Himself, and that these mortal tabernacles are not ours to do with as we selfishly please, but these bodies are “loaners,” temporary gifts from God to see what kind of a body we will be worthy of in the resurrection. The most important power these mortal bodies have is the power of procreation, one of God’s great gifts to man. But God is very jealous of His gift and wants it used only as He directs, which is to say, using our power of procreation only in marriage. This is chastity; to guard jealously the gift of God and use it only as we are given permission to do so. The world teaches us selfishness, to use this precious gift as we please, to pleasure ourselves according to our own desires. But that is not the way of Christ.

To be benevolent means to have good will toward all men. It means that we seek peace, not strife; we seek to help others, not to take advantage of them. In a world where might often is the only right people recognize, the servant of Christ can be counted on to do what is right and fair; he will not seek to improve his own lot at the expense of another. Whatever benefit the Saint is willing to receive, it is because others benefit also and everyone is better off. The Saint does not think of feathering just his own nest. He continually ponders how to feather everyone’s nest, that all around him might be better off. He works tirelessly to see that others enjoy the advantages he has, that all might be blessed.

To summarize the character of the child of Christ: He is honest, true, chaste and benevolent, which is to say, he will not lie, he will not break his promises, he will not commit fornication or adultery, and he will not allow harm to his neighbor to be the means of getting any benefit.

We turn now to the character traits of a worthy bearer of the Aaronic Priesthood. The principal concern of the Aaronic Priesthood is with temporal things. The Aaronic order is the power and discipline by which we who are servants of Christ subdue the earth, earn a livelihood, and recreate the Garden of Eden on earth. My suggestions as to the essential character traits of a Son of Jesus Christ who has received the Aaronic Priesthood are as follows: He is responsible, productive, well-organized, and skillful in what he does.

To be responsible means to be able to be given a task to perform, to complete the task well, and to report back to the giver of the task that the work has been accomplished. This trait of being responsible is the backbone of all priesthood functioning, at any level. The Savior pointed out that he had little use for a servant who accepted a command but who then did not do what he was told. To be responsible is to be trustworthy. President McKay said that it is more important to be trusted than to be loved. And it is indeed. The essence of being a worthy priesthood holder is to be trustworthy.

To be productive means to be a hard worker. The lazy person cannot be a profitable servant unto Christ. The profitable servant works and wears away his life and strength in doing the tasks the master has set, even when he seems to be making no progress, even when the odds or opposition seem to be overwhelming. The productive servant of Christ throws all he has into the fray, not fearing for his life, for his health, for the feathers in his nest. He only seeks to do the will of the Lord because he knows that whatever his Lord commands is right. So he works hard to produce all that he reasonably can, be he seeking a harvest of grain in the field or souls in the mission field.

To be well-organized means that the servant of Christ is orderly. He keeps his possessions in order. He keeps his tools repaired and sharpened. He can lay his hands on the possession he needs in the dark, because he is so well organized that everything is in its place. With this order goes cleanliness, for dirt and mess are forms of disorder which destroy the worthiness of his stewardship and of himself as a steward. He strives to order his mind, his heart, his body with the best food and exercise, his words with the best things to say, his actions with the works of a disciple of Christ.

And the worthy bearer of the Aaronic Priesthood is skillful. He sees who does things well and learns from them. If no human source of help is available, he goes to his Father in Heaven and boldly seeks instruction from angels, if necessary. His is so anxious to do his work well that he is willing to do it over and over until he gets it right. Be he translating or tracting, planting or harvesting, reading or writing, singing or dancing, he wants to do each act the very best that it can be done, and he is willing to sacrifice both to learn and then to perform well.

To summarize the worthy Aaronic Priesthood steward over temporal things: he is responsible, trustworthy; he is a hard worker; he is orderly and well-organized in all things; and he does what he does very well, skillfully. He will not tolerate an undischarged command. He will never be lazy and unproductive. He will never deliberately have or leave things in a mess. And he will never be slothful or careless in his performance. Because the light of Christ is in him, he seeks excellence in all things.

We turn now to the Patriarchal Priesthood. The Prophet Joseph Smith pointed out to us that there are three orders of priesthood: The Melchizedek, the Patriarchal, and the Aaronic (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Deseret Book, 1976, p. 323). We do not often discuss the Patriarchal Priesthood, but this seems to be a good time to say some obvious things about it.

When a man and woman are sealed in the Holy Temple of God, they receive the Patriarchal Priesthood to preside over their family, which priesthood is a branch of the Melchizedek Priesthood. The character traits a person needs to learn to be a worthy family patriarch are to be understanding, to be tender, to be inspiring, and to be exemplary. These traits focus on how we relate to other people, specifically those in our own family.

To be understanding is to seek the spiritual gift of discernment, to be able to observe another person and sense when they are hurting and what their needs are. To be a husband and father in a family is to be one who administers to needs, first of his wife, and then of his children. The more pure (unselfish) his own heart is, the more the Holy Spirit can help the father to minister to the needs of his family. This may not come naturally; he may need to pray, fast and ponder long and hard to understand the persons in his family.

The father needs to be tender as he ministers to the needs of his family members. Sometimes the person in his family who needs the most help is the most resistive. Whatever help he gives must be done in long-suffering, with love unfeigned, in all humility, to be effective. Helping someone often hurts them, as when we go in with a needle to extract a deep splinter of wood, or when we find someone in a fault and gently try to reason with them about it. Brute power and force are seldom the answer to minister to the needs of the ailing soul, so sympathetic tenderness is necessary for every father.

The father is a leader, and as such, he needs to be inspiring. He will best be inspiring if he is inspired himself. As he humbles himself before the Lord, knows the path his family should go, then leads them on to where the Lord would have them go, he will be inspiring. The power of the Holy Ghost in him will inspire his wife and children to follow him, to make the sacrifices necessary to spiritual progress, and to progress toward being a celestial family.

And finally, the father needs to be an example of a servant of Christ unto all of his family. He needs to lead our in scripture study and family prayer, in church attendance and participation and in family meeting, in fulfillment of callings and sustaining those in authority, of supporting his wife and other family members in their church callings, in being a good neighbor, in being a faithful ministering brother and a warm receiver of ministering brothers, of being politically responsible, of being a good provider, of instructing and organizing his home so that there is order, cleanliness, and many happy occasions. He cannot set this example without the help, cooperation and example of his wife. But he will see to it that both he and she are converted to the ways of the Lord and that they then set the pattern for all of their children and grandchildren.

The worthy bearer of the Patriarchal Priesthood thus is a concerned family man. He tries to relate to each person in his family as he should, to entice them to come to Christ. He knows that the most important relationship he has is with his wife, and does everything he can to forge a strong bond of love and commitment with his wife, knowing that only then can they maximally help their children. He will not be a tyrant, he will not ride rough-shod over feelings, he will not lead by force, and he will not give aid to the enemy by setting a bad example.

Now we turn to the character traits of a bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood, one who serves in the Kingdom of God, the Church of Jesus Christ, to bring souls to Christ. A true servant of Christ is cooperative, he is a leader, he is visionary, and he is powerful. Let us enlarge on each of these.

A worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood is cooperative because he knows that the ultimate purpose of all priesthood action is to bring all who bear the priesthood into a oneness with Christ and the Father. Thus he is anxious to cooperate, to bear part of the burden, to help see that the work succeeds, to be a part of the success of his quorum, presidency, or committee. He is a student of the manuals of the Church, striving to bring all into conformity with the desires of those who preside, who represent our Savior. He cooperates as a follower and as a leader, striving to make the body of Christ, the Church, sound, whole, and productive at every turn.

He is a leader, and when it is his turn to lead, he leads by the Holy Spirit, seeking counsel of those who are his counselors and those who preside over him. He leads with kindness and love unfeigned, with pure knowledge, not asking blind obedience but giving informed direction. He is constant, commendatory, quick to praise and slow to reprove, ready to instruct and encourage. He knows that the enemy is not flesh and blood but is a spiritual force, and he counters with all of the power of God to lead away from the ways of the enemy into the ways of godliness.

As a leader, he must be visionary, even as Father Lehi. Father Lehi had a vision of the work of Christ and of the promised land which his children would inherit. Lehi’s “visionariness” was a trial to his unfaithful children, but a blessing to them nevertheless. And it was a great inspiration to his faithful children, leading them to Christ also.

Finally, the worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood must be powerful in the Holy Spirit. He leads not for gain or glory, but for the sake of the cause of Christ. Because he is humble before Christ, Christ fill him with power, and using that power he inspires, guides and blesses all who are in his stewardship. He fears no obstacle, knows no defeat, and is not discouraged, in spite of the raging of mobs or the powers of hell. For he knows whom he serves and that the cause of Christ will prevail over all in this world and will reach into heaven and to the expanses of eternity.

So, in addition to all of the other characteristics gained being a son of God, a bearer of the Aaronic Priesthood, and a bearer of the Patriarchal Priesthood, the worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood is priesthood “broke”: he knows how to follow, obey and to lead in the Church of Jesus Christ, and he leads with vision and power unto establishing the Kingdom of Christ on the earth that it will be worthy of being joined by the Kingdom of Heaven when our Savior comes in the Second Coming. He does not criticize those who preside, he does not shirk leading out when so called, he does not substitute his own ideas for the visions of God, and he never seeks the evil gift or to accomplish the purposes of God.

Brethren, I testify that this work in which we are engaged is the true work of Jesus Christ, that his power and authority are in the priesthood of this church, and that the most intelligent thing we can do is to learn both our priesthood duty and our priesthood opportunity, and to be found being a faithful servant in all things. For “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man” (1 Cor. 2:9) the blessings the Lord has in store for those who love Him and serve Him with all of their heart, might, mind and strength. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Oak Hills Stake—18 April 2001

(Note: This talk hearkens back to the olden days before the High Priests and Elders were united into one group.)

I rejoice at this opportunity to speak to you. In the last ten days I have had a personal conversation with every bishop, every high priest group leader, and every leader of a stake program concerned with the changes we are making in this stake. In these interviews I have been impressed with the spiritual strength which you possess as a group. That bodes well for the future of this stake and its work.

The work of this stake is the salvation of souls. The Church breaks its work into three parts: teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every soul on earth, perfecting the saints, and redeeming the dead. These three can be considered as one: our work is to prepare the world and the Church for the personal presence of Jesus Christ again on the earth. The salvation of souls is to prepare them to enjoy standing in the personal presence of our Savior when He comes.

So we call upon our high priest group leaders to be saviors on Mount Zion. It is your calling and opportunity to invite and enable every soul in your stewardship to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. This involves missionary work to see that all really understand. There is as important a missionary field within the Church as there is outside the Church. If we could convert every member to actually put his or her faith in Jesus Christ and in nothing else, our task within the Church would be complete. The perfecting of the saints is actually missionary work; taking each soul from limited faith to full faith in Christ. And of course no one can have full faith in Christ without laboring mightily to find the records of his or her deceased relatives and doing the work for them in the temple.

So our priesthood goal is simple. It is to invite, entice, persuade and enable every soul to come unto Christ and be perfected in Him. As we do our work well, we will establish the Lord’s pavilion so that all will be in readiness for Him. He will have a dwelling place for Him to come to, Zion, and the world will have been made ready for His judgments and blessings. Our Savior will come as a thief in the night; he will not make an appointment to see us. “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of; And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 24:44–51) Let us then be good stewards, giving meat in due season.

The high priest group leader is the leader and advocate of all persons assigned to the high priest group. His task is to prepare each person to be worthy to receive the full blessings of Jesus Christ. As a priesthood program manager, he sees that the Gospel is taught, he makes callings and programs available to all in his stewardship, he conducts personal priesthood interviews to ascertain progress and readiness, he entices each person to serve with sacrifice, that each might become worthy of the full blessings. If he does his job well, he will be able to recommend every soul to the bishop for a temple recommend, and the bishop will question the person by the Holy Spirit and see that the high priest leader has done his work well.

There are three keys to this work: 1. Accomplishment, 2. Flexibility, and 3. Accountability.

1. We are to use the programs of the Church to accomplish the task of bringing every soul to Christ. We do not just plan and talk: we get the job done.
2. We are flexible as to how to delegate the work. It may be done in a hundred different ways. For instance, the high priest group leader himself may focus on missionary work, one of his assistants may have charge of family history and temple work, and the other assistant may be in charge of extraction for the ward. Or the committee chairman for missionary work might be the ward mission leader. Or all of the persons called to be family history consultants in the ward may be members of the high priest temple committee.
3. But however the work is delegated, the responsibility cannot be delegated: The high priest group leader remains responsible for manning and assuring the success of each program in his stewardship. He will discharge that accountability by having personal priesthood interviews and other personal contacts with every person who reports to him, and he will in turn report that success to the bishop as he meets with the bishop.

And in all this he will work closely with the Elders Quorum President. Remember that the Elders President is also a high priest group leader in training. The work of the elders and the high priests is very similar, and must be correlated in every way.

It is possible to do all this and do it well. We remember the saying of the apostles of Christ when he explained how narrow the way, how strait the gate. They said, “Who then can be saved?” Our Savior answered, “With men [by the power of men] this is impossible. But with God [by the power of God] all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25–26)

We are children of Jesus Christ, and all of His power is available to us to bring this great work off triumphant. I pray that we will do so with due haste, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Easter, 15 April 2001

When I was a young student of the scriptures, I quickly learned the importance of having the Holy Ghost with us to do good, to do the work of the Lord. I virtually made emphasis on this topic my theme song.

But as I have grown older, I have realized that there is something more important than the companionship of the Holy Ghost. I learned that you can have the Holy Ghost with you and still fail. I finally heard the words I had known most of my life: “Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:1–2). One must have the gift of the Holy Ghost to speak with the tongue of angels, to prophecy, to understand the mysteries and have all knowledge, to have faith to move mountains; but all these marvelous and supernatural powers are nothing compared with the one special gift—the pure love of Christ. Unless we specially seek and gain and master the gift of charity, all else we do is relatively in vain. The companionship of the Holy Ghost is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient; we must press on to the end, which end is to receive and reflect charity, the pure love of Christ. To be able to show forth that love is eternal life.

That love is what makes the Kingdom of God on the earth prosper. Those leaders who give it draw their flocks to Christ. Those missionaries who have it draw their contacts into the Church. Those husbands who have it draw their wife and children into the celestial kingdom. It is the sine qua non of all good work in Christ.

So in this Easter season, I wish to turn our minds to that greatest of all manifestations of pure love, the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He who knows all truth makes sure that all humans are invited to know all truth. He who was sinless suffered for the sins of all humans so that they too might have the opportunity to become sinless. He who never would have had to die gave up His own mortality in order to assure that you and I would also live eternally. There is nothing necessary or desirable for your salvation and for my salvation that our Savior has not done or will not do to share all that He has received from the Father with us.

So far as I can see, there is really only one thing to live for on this earth: to live to promote the cause of Christ in the earth. Which is to say, to promote the cause of the pure love unfeigned, the cause of peace, the cause of health and happiness. Anything else is a distraction, an investment unworthy of our time or effort. For as we lose ourselves in that great cause of Christ, He provides for our needs and desires so much more fully than we could wish for that there is no contest. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the blessings God has prepared for them that love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9)

May the Kingdom of God on the earth prosper. May the Oak Hills Stake be a stake which is Zion, not only a stake of Zion. May each of us find that fulness of blessing which the Lord has in store for each of us as we ever more humbly and diligently reach out in the pure love of Christ to our wives, to our children, to our stake members, to our friends outside the Kingdom, as we thusly love and serve our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

20 January 2001

Brothers and Sisters: I humbly ask an interest in your faith and prayers, that someone might be helped by what I say, and that no one will be harmed. I am speaking to myself as much as to you.

To understand the universe we live in, it is important to have a firm grasp on three ideas:

1. Righteousness: Righteousness is not arbitrary. It is built into the very nature of social existence. It is the way powerful people must act to live together in peace and happiness.
2. Agency: Agency is the knowledge of choices and the power to carry out what is chosen.
3. Power in the Priesthood: Power in the priesthood is the greatest prize in the universe, for it is that which creates and controls all existence.

The interconnections: Complete righteousness freely chosen by a being having agency is the only access to power in the priesthood. There is no righteousness without agency, there is no power in the priesthood without righteousness. Every agent may choose between good and evil (good is righteousness, blessing others; evil is unrighteousness, selfishness). If the agent learns to choose good and nothing but good, he or she can obtain all righteousness, and through all righteousness, obtain all power in the priesthood. That power then enables the person to do even greater works of righteousness.         

The Gospel of Jesus Christ invites every human being on earth to seize his or her agency, choose and do righteousness, and to attain the full power in the priesthood that God has. If the person uses his or her agency to choose righteousness, power is delivered to the person through the New and Everlasting Covenant. The focus of that Covenant is the temple ordinances.

The temple ordinances are not an appendage to the Gospel of Jesus Christ: They are the principal focus of the work of the Church and the indispensable means to full righteousness and power in the priesthood. Missionary work, ward and stake functions, genealogy activity—all point to the temple. Because it is in the temple that the full blessings and powers of God are revealed and bestowed upon the children of Jesus Christ. We are there taught very particularly what the path of righteousness is, and if we use our agency to keep our covenants, all of them, we gain power in the priesthood that enables us to do full good in this world and empowers us as exalted beings in eternity.

It is important to understand that the war in heaven was all about power in the priesthood. Lucifer wanted that power but was not willing to use his agency to be righteous and gain that power in the regular way open to all of Father’s children. So he pretended to be able to save everyone. But his plan would not have given power in the priesthood to anyone but him. That is because he would have denied everyone their agency; thus denied, they could not choose good or evil. Not being able to choose, they could not become righteous through choosing good, and thus could not inherit power in the priesthood. Satan wanted that power for himself, but for no one else. When he said, “Give me thine honor,” he was really saying, “Give me the godly power in the priesthood, and I will save all men.” But what he proposed was impossible as well as unrighteous.

Our older brother, Jesus, agreed to come to earth, pass the test of mortality himself, then suffer and die for all men. This would fulfill the Father’s will and make the way possible for every child of Heavenly Father to inherit the full power of the priesthood. To do Father’s will, it was necessary for Jesus first to receive for himself the full power of the priesthood, for he could not be the creator of heaven and earth and be the redeemer of mankind without that power. Using that power, he created the earth and everything on it, then came to earth, chose good over evil at every choice, suffered for the sins of all men, died so that he could seize the keys of death, and now sits on the right hand of Father to plead the cause of each human being. For those who have accepted the New and Everlasting Covenant and have learned through Him how to be truly and fully righteous through the temple instruction and ordinances, to those who are valiant in fulfilling the priesthood work of the kingdom, he will have to say very little, for they will already have entered into their eternal blessings.

The temple ordinances were administered by God to Adam and Eve. They accepted the New and Everlasting Covenant, lived it and were redeemed from the Fall during their mortality. They sought to help all of their posterity gain these same blessings. But Satan came among their posterity and convinced them that the physical, social, and psychological powers of this world were all they needed to get gain, and convinced them that there was no hereafter in which to enjoy power in the priesthood. Satan’s message was: dominate others now, and I will give you power to rule over them and gain all the earthly delights you desire. Most of them bought this message, despised the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the New and Everlasting Covenant, and built evil kingdoms on this earth.

But there were righteous souls among the posterity of Adam who recognized the whisperings of the Holy Spirit as the voice of God. They chose the Gospel of Jesus Christ, entered the New and Everlasting Covenant, received their temple blessing and overcame the world.

Thus the temple ordinances were on the earth from the beginning, and every religion on earth had the beginning of its rituals in the temple ordinances. Let us point out some of the things we know about the temple ordinances in other cultures:

1. The tower of Babel was a counterfeit temple. God had provided a way for all men to get to heaven, but most despised it, for it required being righteous, which they did not want to do. So they went along with those who would try to force their way into heaven using the powers of this earth and whatever help Satan could give them.
2. The Egyptians stole the temple ordinances and practiced them. They did not have the power of the priesthood to make the ordinances effective, but they apparently gained some psychological comfort from the process. We can see evidences of their knowledge of the temple in the murals they left in their temples.
3. There were Christians in Egypt after the time of Christ who had received the true temple ordinances from the apostles of Christ. Our friend Wilfred Griggs excavated a Christian cemetery in Fayum, Egypt, and found that a very high percentage of the bodies exhumed had on the temple garments, marks and all.
4. The American Indians are heir to the temple ceremonies. A member of our stake has shared with me his experiences when he was a missionary to the Lamanites. In their kivas he saw many things which were obvious correlates with our temple ceremonies.
5. Tom Rogers spent sabbatical time in India, described how the priests in the Hindu religion wear their priesthood insignia on one shoulder when they are lower priests, and change it to the right shoulder when they advance.
6. My son has discovered in ancient Chinese literature a description of the four marks on the temple garment.

If you wish to see a full-blown account of the evidences of the temple ceremony in the religions of the world, please consult the works of Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos, for instance. If you wish to see a summary of what we know about ancient temples, consult the first chapter of Richard Cowan’s book, Temples to Dot the Earth.

Since Satan was denied any access to power in the priesthood, he has made it his business on this earth to see that no one else get it, if possible. He has three principal strategies to accomplish this:

1. Among the faithful, he tries to get them to be careless about passing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the understanding of the importance of the temple to their children. Since everyone on earth is a descendant of persons who were endowed in the temple and who had power in the priesthood, it is plain to see that Satan had done very well in fostering this carelessness.
2. Satan has created false religions which do not have power in their priesthoods, and which do not demand the rigors of full righteousness. They are often comfortable religions, giving men a sense of well-being but shielding them from the true gospel and from the temple ordinances and thus shielding them from power in the priesthood.
3. Satan diverts people from the eternal tasks and gets them to bury themselves in some worldly pursuit: making money, gaining political power, being artistic, being scientific, being a slave to appetite and passion. What he does is to get people so involved in these things that the spiritual side of their lives is mostly neglected. This is the case of the seed falling on good ground, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches crowd out the good seed which would have otherwise borne good fruit.

A good example of Satan’s use of false religion is the salvation envisioned by Christians in the world today. They see salvation as not having to go to hell to pay for one’s sins and to be ushered into bliss for eternity. The point of being a Christian for them is to do some good in the world and trust that God will save you from hell and give you the beatific vision.

Latter-day Saints have quite a different version of salvation. We see salvation as consisting primarily in an overcoming of all of the character weaknesses in our own souls. With help of the Holy Spirit and the ordinances of the Gospel, we work steadily, day and night, to try to perfect our character until we have attained the fulness of the stature of Christ: His character. Having His character, we can do the works of righteousness, profit from the temple ordinances, gain power in the priesthood for time and thus be ready for eternity of work in priesthood assignment in the hereafter. Salvation to the ordinary Christian is forgiveness; salvation for us is total repentance, overcoming every sin and weakness until we are made perfect through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

And how shall we become perfect? By fully utilizing the gift of the temple ordinances. Have we been through the temple and received the endowment and sealing? Well and good. But the real question is, Has the temple been through us? Is our life changing so that we are in earnest pursuit of perfection, of actually coming to the fulness of the stature of Christ?

Let us ask ourselves some questions, the answers to which will reveal something about how much the temple has been through us as individuals:

1. Do we understand the overwhelming importance of power in the priesthood?
2. Do we understand how power in the priesthood relates to immortality, eternal life, and eternal lives?
3. Do we understand the three steps for receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood?
4. Do we understand the process of gaining power in the Melchizedek Priesthood once we have received all of that priesthood?
5. Do we know what the word “endowment” means, and where the real “endowment” is, the heart of the endowment ceremony?
6. Have we received the special blessings of the endowment or only the promises of it?
7. Do we understand and obey the law of obedience?
8. Do we understand and obey the law of sacrifice?
9. Do we understand and use daily and fully the law of the Gospel?
10. Do we understand and live the law of chastity in heart, might, mind and strength?
11. Do we understand consecration and are we actually consecrated (as different from being potentially consecrated)?
12. Do we understand and use the essence of the true order of prayer every time we pray?
13. Do we use the power of the priesthood every day to strengthen our family and to prosper the kingdom of God on the earth?
14. Do we see every sign, token, gesture and covenant in the temple as a representation of Jesus Christ and His life and mission?
15. Do we really believe that it is possible to become perfect in Christ, or do we excuse our sins and say that Christ cannot save us from ourselves?

What does the Lord want? He wants Zion. What is Zion? Zion is a people who are pure in heart, so pure that He can come and dwell personally with them. Zion is His pavilion, His dwelling place. When the pavilion is ready, He will come and dwell in it, and all who are in that Zion will see and know Him personally.

But to have Zion we must be righteous. To be that righteous we must receive and keep all of the laws of the Gospel and the temple covenants. If we keep the laws of the Gospel and our temple covenants, we will have power in the priesthood. If we have power in the priesthood, we can perfect our families and finish our preparations for Zion and for the Savior’s Second Coming.

Will the Provo Utah Oak Hills Stake soon become a Zion? We shall see. How could it be done? It could be done if a thousand people in this stake would study the temple ceremonies, pray for understanding and strength, work with all their heart, might, mind and strength to be faithful to Christ in keeping their covenants, and never let down. What this stake needs is a thousand Enochs, husbands and wives who see eye to eye in the things of God and who work together to fulfill their godly potential. Is this possible? Certainly. With man it is not possible, but through the power of God and the blessing of the temple, it is completely possible for us to become Enochs and for this stake to be Zion.

It is my prayer that each of us will look into his or her own soul, see what needs to be done, and do it. We serve a master who looked into His own soul each day of mortality and lived a perfect life in order that He might save us, to bring us to the same perfection He enjoys. This is our opportunity and calling in life, and nothing else really matters. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and all else will be added to you. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

July 1999

Definition of Communication: Something communicates if it affects or relates to something else.

1.   To exist is to communicate. All existing things communicate with other things constantly.

2.   Affect can be considered both positively and negatively. What something does or doesn’t do.

3.   Affect can be considered both agentive and nonagentive; agent beings decide many affects.

4.   Agentive communication may be divided into messages. Each message has four defining variables:

• a.   Purpose: What the agent is trying to accomplish.
• b.   Main assertion: How the agent is trying to accomplish the purpose.
• c.   Support: The strength of the communication, internal (stated) and external (environmental).
• d.   Relevance: The importance (consequences) of the message.

5.   Agentive communication may also be internal (within oneself) or external (affecting others).

6.   Agentive communication may be non-verbal or verbal. The non-verbal is the basis of all verbal communication.

7.   Ordinary human agentive communications are a mixture of good and evil because we humans are both good and evil.

8.   Agentive power of attention gives one the ability to absorb some communications, reject others. We tend to become like the sources of communication we give our attention to.

9.   We agents shape ourselves by selecting the communications we receive and by meditating internally on those communications. We are also shaped by our environment. Some environments foster agency; others do not.

10. The purpose of the Restored Gospel is to give us the power to reshape ourselves into the kind of being God is, so that we can communicate with others only good, as God does. This can be done by communicating with God.

Conclusion: Our being (what we have been shaped to be and what we have shaped ourselves to be) is demonstrated by the communications we send to others. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:20 “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.” Matthew 7:18

Application: Our most important communications are with God, spouse, children, other people, and nature, in that order.

Language

Definition: A language is a mutually stipulated set of signs by which humans stimulate thinking, feeling and action in one another. A normal language has signs to represent things, actions, modifiers and connectives.

1.   All human communication is invented. There are no natural words or natural grammars.

2.   There is no such thing as “The English Language” (or any other colloquial language) though there are standard “Englishes,” hundreds of them. In a sense, each individual has a personal language unlike any other.

3.   Language is what makes a being a human and gives a person the possibility of agency.

4.   A first language cannot be learned if one begins after puberty (limit of 50–100 words).

5.   Each human being has a private thought-world of concepts: a mind-set. Words represent concepts.

6.   Linguistic communication is a complicated process.

Person #1 [Mind set: Speaker’s beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, likes, dislikes] Concept set > Word pattern > Utterance > Physical transfer > Person #2 Reception > Word pattern > Concept set > Significance. [Significance: What a communication does to the receiver’s mind set.]

7.   Human language communication is never complete and is often not accurate. It does not transmit ideas. Meaning is always invented by the sender and by the receiver and is always context dependent.

8.   There are levels of language development (Pidgin, Creole, Full) and usage (Common, Erudite, Specialty).

9.   The unit of communication is the assertion (message): there are four basic kinds of assertions:

• a.   Disclosure: The person expresses feelings about something.
• b.   Description: The person tells how something looks or acts.
• c.   Directive: The person tells another person what to do.
• d.   Declaration: A person of authority makes a change by speaking.

10. The best way to improve language communication is to clarify concepts. Example: Repentance.

• a.   Base: LDS
• b.   Etymology: Latin re=again, pentir=to turn: thus, to turn again.
• c.   Dictionary definition: a turning of the heart and will to God. (LDS Bible Dictionary)
• d.   Example in base: “… if a man repent of his sins, he will confess and forsake them.” D&C 59:43
• e.   Related concepts:

•            1)   Genus: A necessary component of faith in Jesus Christ.
•            2)   Prerequisites: Understanding of right and wrong, desire to do what is right, hearing the Restored Gospel, etc.
•            3)   Opposite: Sinning Counterfeit: Paying money for an indulgence. Similar: Contrition, reformation
• f.    Levels:

•            1)   Celestial: After baptism, living by the Holy Spirit in all things.
•            2)   Terrestrial: Recognition, remorse, reformation, restitution.
•            3)   Telestial: Saying “I’m sorry.”
•            4)   Perdition: Being baptized and taking the sacrament with every intention to continue sinning.

• g.   New definition: Replacing all sinning with acts of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ and the ordinances of the Restored Gospel. Every human act is either a sin or an act of faith in Jesus Christ.
• h.   Key Questions:

•            1)   Does repentance bring forgiveness of sins? Celestial repentance, yes.
•            2)   If one sins after forgiveness, what happens? The former sins return. D&C 82:7.
•            3)   Can one repent all at once, or is it a gradual process? For most people, it is a gradual process.
•            4)   When is repentance complete? When one has stopped obeying Satan and totally obeys God.

• i.    Conclusion: Language is the only way anyone can learn about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through language one partakes of the ordinances, learns how to live as Christ did, and thus may enter into salvation.
• j.    Application: Learning how to repent and repenting should be the major daily activity of a Latter-day Saint.

Thinking

Definition: Arranging ideas in one’s mind. Principal theories as to what thinking is:

1.   Verbal: Arrangement and rearrangement of words in the mind.

2.   Behavioral: Sideshow of ideas which are an epiphenomenon on actions of the body. (No agency.)

3.   Concept: Development and rearrangement of concepts in the mind as preparation to act.

Basic kinds of concept thinking:

1.   Linear: Pursuing a problem to a conclusion. Usually follows a rut (habit).

2.   Lateral: Finding all of the possible ways to solve a problem. Additions to the rut.

3.   Systems thinking: Seeing the problem and possible solutions as part of a larger whole.

4.   Holistic thinking: Seeing the problem and possible solutions as part of the whole universe.

A problem is a disparity between one’s present situation and the desired situation. Ways of problem solving:

1.   Buddhist: Let desires go to zero and all problems are solved.

2.   Western: Gain power over all things and arrange them to suit desires.

3.   LDS: Give heart, might, mind and strength to God and work only on His problems.

Factors which affect thinking: Desires, knowledge, skills, effort, wiring, environment.

Tasks of thinking: Planning, memorizing, reciting, enjoying, analyzing, synthesizing, creating, etc.

Types of systems thinking: Analysis, synthesis, evaluation, operation

Example of systems analysis: Systems Analysis Format

Target system: The Atonement of Jesus Christ. Atonement: To enable all men to become one with Father.

1.   Static analysis: Fallen state of Man, the need for redemption.

System boundaries: The heavens and this earth.

System environment: All of God’s creations.

System parts: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Satan; Adam, Eve and all of their children.

2.   Dynamic analysis: Problem: How to save men from the fall and not destroy their agency.

System function: God is just. He blesses obedience, but will not and cannot tolerate sinning in any degree.

System input: Men obey God sometimes, but also sin by obeying Satan.

System output: Father’s justice: Men become angels to Satan if they serve him. Only perfect obedience to God enables any human to receive all of Father’s blessings (exaltation). Father’s mercy: Sending His Son to reconcile men with himself.

System opposition: Satan opposes everything Christ does.

3.   Agent analysis: Agent: Christ.

Agent goal: To enable every child of Father to become exalted as Father and our Savior are; to bless each maximally (as much as each is able and willing to receive).

Agent resources: The knowledge and power of God plus the ability to sin and to die, plus the strength not to sin and to die for men.

Agent strategy: Obey Father in all things, suffer for the sins of all men, voluntarily die to seize the keys of death, teach all men how to repent and give them the power to do so, then to bless all men to the degree to which they have repented.

Agent tactics: Teach the Gospel, bestow the priesthood, organize the church, set all things in order. This so that every soul might have an opportunity to hear and accept the Gospel of Jesus Crist, repent, receive the true authority, unite with the church and receive the temple blessings, which is the means to full repentance to become as God is.

Agent work: Create the earth, enable the Fall, send angels to teach the Gospel, bestow the priesthood, organize the earth, suffer for the sins of all men, seize the keys of death from Satan by voluntarily dying, then to resurrect and continue to preside over the earth and the church, to give a final judgment to each person, exalting those who fully repented, blessing all others as much as they can receive.

Agent assessment: The Savior was (is) in constant contact with Father, taking instruction, working, reporting back.

Agent evaluation: The joy that passes understanding comes to the Savior as the children of men repent.

Key Factor: [Which system factor is most influential, the one which gives the operator of the system the greatest power and control: Christ: Total obedience to the commandments of the Father. Men: Total obedience to the commandments of the Savior.

Conclusion: Thinking is the exercise of agency, and is the basis for all human action. Systems thinking gives one a sense of the whole order of things, and is an approach to the holistic thinking of God. It gives humans an opportunity chance to appreciate the goodness of God in providing a way for the salvation of men.

Application: As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. A man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge.

C. C. Riddle, Jan. 1999

God is love. All those who truly worship God do so by learning to love others with the same pure love with which He loves us. This holy kind of love can be learned only by great exertion on our part; the great commandment tells us that it will take all of our heart, might, mind and strength to master this ability to love purely. Those who are fully engaged in learning to love with the pure love of Christ are called the disciples of Christ.

The great commandment says that when we have learned to love God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength, we then must love our neighbor as our self. This second commandment is subject to many human interpretations and opinions. My opinion is that the great enemy of pure love of God and neighbor is love of self, which I believe is selfishness. I believe the Savior is telling us to love our neighbor instead of loving our self, and that our goal should be to fulfill His new commandment: that we love one another as he has loved us.

God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son so that whoso believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The Only Begotten Son so loved His Father and us that He suffered the pains of all men and sacrificed His potentially unending mortal life. The truly begotten sons and daughters of Christ learn to sacrifice all they have in this world to bless others, even as did our Teacher, our Savior.

There are four ways in which we must learn to show the pure love of Christ to others: these are:

1. Show love for God.
2. Show love for neighbor.
3. Show love for husband or wife.
4. Show love for our children.

These four ways of loving allow us to learn to love every good person in heaven and every person on this earth.

Every good person in heaven loves God and is one with Him. To love God is to love our Heavenly Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and every messenger, minister, and angel who does their will. Our neighbors on earth include every living human being and all of our deceased ancestors. Learning to love these persons purely, that is unselfishly, is the business, the divinely appointed task, of every human life.

It is not within the natural powers of men to have pure, Christ-like love. Such love is a gift from God. This gift is given in small increments. Those who receive one small portion and learn to use it well are given an additional portion. If they also learn to use the additional portion well, they are added upon until, through full faith in Jesus Christ, they come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of the pure love of Christ, becoming even as He is. Thus love is a matter of power. Power given from God mixed with faith in Christ makes possible purity and power in love.

It is then our first task to learn to love God. Why love God? Because our Gods first love us with perfect love. We could not ask for nor desire anything better than that which they show and offer to us. They are righteous, we are not. They are powerful, we are not. They are omniscient, we are not. They control all that can be controlled; we control little, and that only by their gift. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is their offer to join with them and to become one with them: righteous, powerful, omniscient, and in control of everything in the universe which can be controlled so that we can learn to love purely and completely, as they do. There can be no greater offer.

We can love God with a pure, unselfish love only if we desire to do so. We must furnish the desire; that is our agency. If we contribute that desire by showing it to God by repenting of our sins and being baptized of water and of the spirit by those having true authority from Christ, then God adds to our desire knowledge and power in the ways and acts of love, which is righteousness, by bestowing upon us the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost then joins our own spirit in our mortal tabernacle and gives us the opportunity to have, as it were, a “turbo-charged” heart, might, mind, and body. If we are willing to be submissive, patient, obedient and hardworking, the Holy Spirit will lead us in what to say and to do to love purely.

For instance, the Holy Spirit will teach us how to pray. We have been warned that we should not ask God for that which is evil. Being limited in knowledge, we usually do not know what is good to ask for. But the Holy Spirit does know what is good for us to ask and if we ask God to help us to pray, the Holy Spirit will tell us in our minds and hearts what to ask for. If we then humbly ask for that thing in faith, believing that we will receive it, God will bless our obedient prayer with the blessing we seek.

Another example of learning to love God is to keep the Word of Wisdom. We do not own our own physical bodies; they are a loan from God. We show love for Him by honoring these tabernacles in not taking into them tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee, illegal drugs and a lot of other things which the Holy Ghost forbids to us as individuals. Every commandment given from God is given to help us to grow in the power of pure love.

The essence of learning to love God with the pure, Christ-like love is to seek to do His will and not our own. As we find it in our hearts to ask to do His will, to build His kingdom, to bless His children, to honor and to love Him, He begins to show us how to do these things. As we are obedient and do not weary in the way of righteousness, he leads us step by step to do better and better.

We cannot master the full, pure love of God, however, until we also begin to learn the other ways of loving purely. I first thought as I pondered this matter that learning to love our spouse should be the next step in learning the four ways of love, then our children, then our neighbors. But soon I saw that is an incorrect sequence: The order must be love of God, love of neighbor, love of spouse and of children. The reason for this order is that if we cannot first be a good neighbor, we cannot be a good spouse, because our spouse is always our closest neighbor, though much more. So as we begin to grow in the pure love of God, we must begin also to learn the pure love of neighbor.

The essence of the pure love of neighbor is to be honest, true, chaste benevolent, and to do good to all men. To be honest is that we tell the truth and do not deceive other human beings. To be true means that we keep our promises and contracts, that our word is as good as our bond. To be chaste means that we do not have any physical sexual relations (and our Savior extended this to forbid any mental sexual relations) with any person who is not our legal spouse. To be benevolent means that we have good will towards all men, not desiring anything but their temporal and spiritual welfare. To do good means that we consciously and deliberately go out of our way to bless the lives of others, friends and enemies alike, so that they will be better off both temporally and spiritually. The measure of our love for our neighbor is the sacrifice of our own welfare which we make to do these things for them. If there is no sacrifice, there is no love. What we sacrifice is our own desires, time, substance, and well-being. We cannot sacrifice for ourselves, which is another reason that we cannot love ourselves.

Think what the world would be like if every person were honest, true, chaste, benevolent and did godly good for their neighbors! It would become a heaven on earth, which is exactly what God intends for us to accomplish. It is not likely that every person will want to do this. But some will, when they know how. The millennial state of the earth comes when all who will not love God are swept away by fire and those who remain are the honorable persons of the earth who are at least honest, true, chaste, and benevolent.

Just as loving God with the pure love requires power from God through the ordinance of baptism, so the full and pure love of neighbor can be attained and performed only through the power gained in the ordinance of the temple endowment. The endowment gives those who love God the abilities of heart, mind and strength to enable full doing of good for our fellowmen. This is why all missionaries who go forth in the authority of Christ first receive their endowments. Then they have the supernatural power to love and serve their neighbors as Christ did when He was here in the flesh. The most important good that we can do for our neighbors is to bring them to Christ through the laws and ordinances of the Gospel, though not to leave undone the ministering to their temporal needs.

When we have embarked upon the path of pure love of God and have well-learned to obey Him, and have learned to love our neighbor in power and selflessness as Christ does, then and only then are we ready to undertake the love of a spouse. This also requires power and authority from God, and the only persons who take a spouse in the godly way are those who are sealed in the Holy Temple of our God. That sealing gives them the authority to be husband and wife and the authority to multiply and replenish the earth. The sealing gives the powers necessary to serve God and fellowmen as two spirits and intelligences in one body, in one flesh.

Thus the great challenge of Christ-like marriage is for the husband and wife to become one. All persons who are or will become exalted must master this step of becoming one with their spouse in Christ. This means that each submits his or her will to Christ, giving up all selfishness, and the two of them learn to work mightily in the cause of Christ on this earth, exercising the power of the Holy Priesthood to further the establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth. Building upon the foundation of being good neighbors, they learn to walk side by side, hand in hand in every venture of their lives, blessing each other and their neighbors with the deeds of the pure love of Christ.

Learning to be one in heart, might and mind, as well as one in the body, which is our strength, is the unique challenge of God’s order of marriage. One cannot dominate the other and accomplish this. Each must see the other as holy, sacred, divine, having become anointed by God, a person to be fully respected, counseled with in all things, taken into account in all things. The love of husband and wife for each other can be brought to a fullness only in Christ, only when empowered by the sealing of the temple, and only when both partners make it the main business of their lives to learn to love purely. It is not difficult to see why few marriages, even temple marriages, fulfill their potential and bring the partners to a full unity of heart, might, mind and strength, for such an attainment requires all the obedience, sacrifice, purity and consecration which it is possible to attain through the grace of God. God gives the power, but the couple themselves must work to gain and use that power to its intended end. When they have become one, they are then ready to join the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn where all are one with Christ, even as He is one with the Father. They are then in the pattern of exaltation where they serve Christ and do the full work of righteousness into all eternity.

But while the husband and wife are learning to be one while in mortality, there is one other very special lesson of the pure love of Christ to be learned: to love as parents the spirit children of Heavenly Father. Being sealed in the temple, they have a right to beget children into this mortal world, the full power to bless those children, and the obligations to bring them up in the nurture of the Lord so that each of them will have the full opportunity themselves of learning the four ways of Christ-like love. If the parents have learned to love God, truly do love their neighbors, and fully love each other in the pure love of Christ, they can be perfect parents on this earth. Most couples are still learning how to love God, neighbor and to be one in Christ when they have their children, so they are less than optimal parents. Sadly, many who marry in the temple learn so little of the love of God, neighbor and each other that they cannot even stay married and thus bring sorrow and deprivation to their children instead of the fulness of the heritage of Christ.

But the children are not damned forever by the lack of faith of their parents. Each of them has his or her own opportunity to come to the living God, to be born again to be able to love God purely; to be endowed to love neighbor purely; to be sealed in the temple, to be able to love spouse in pure unity; and to love children in the pure patriarchal power given in the temple sealing. Through the atonement of Christ, any harm or lack caused by the agency of another human is made up for, and every mortal child of our Father in Heaven has a full opportunity to learn to love perfectly in the four ways of Godly love and to enter into the grand company of exalted beings in eternity. To claim that opportunity each must follow the same plain path: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ unto repentance, baptism of water and of the spirit, receiving of the holy endowment unto becoming a Christ-like neighbor, receiving of the temple sealing unto becoming a Christ-like spouse, and using the patriarchal powers bestowed in the temple to become a Christ-like parent in keeping all of the laws and ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no power in man to accomplish all these things. But the love of God has come to us in the restoration of the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the restoration of the fulness of the priesthood blessing necessary to become pure love, as God is. God was once as we are: weak and unsaved. But because He was willing to be humble and faithful, He became our God and our Father. He in turn gives us the same opportunity which He had, which completes the circle of eternal love. (See 1 John 4.)

May we all have the intelligence and the humility to stop living the ways of this world and turn our whole heart, might, mind and strength to learning to love God and others with the pure love of Christ is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Chauncey C. Riddle
October 1998

You may wonder about this title. It is common in the church to speak of “having” faith in Jesus Christ. But it is also common to hear people say that the faith that they have does not bring the results they desire or need. We emphasize “doing” rather than “having” faith here because everyone “has” faith. But it is in the correct doing of faith that results are obtained, and only in our works is our faith manifest.

Faith is trusting in something in the absence of sure knowledge that that something is presently trustworthy. We tend to put trust in things, ideas and people where that trust has proved to be helpful in the past. But trust we must.

Everyone has faith because human beings are so constituted that we cannot know enough to live by knowledge. We do not and cannot know that the sun will come up tomorrow, but we have faith that it will. We do not know the date we were born, but we accept the testimony of others on faith, and that suffices. We do not know what any other person thinks or feels, but we put faith in our surmises about them and that often works. Just about everything we ordinarily think we know turns out, on close inspection, to be something we just believe, and we put great faith in our beliefs and thus manage to muddle through life.

Every human being lives by faith, faith in something or someone or many somethings and someones. But there is only one faith that saves anyone in any eternal sense, and that is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is a thing a person must do, not just have, and skill in doing faith in Christ is what makes it work. So let us now examine what skillful, competent doing of faith consists of so that our faith in Christ will not be weak or inadequate to our needs.

We here suggest five keys for doing faith in Jesus Christ. Do not suppose that this is the eternal last word on doing faith in Christ. You are invited to examine these ideas, to see if they are better than the notion of faith you have held up to now. Then you are invited to formulate your own rules and procedures for becoming full of faith in Christ. For you and I are saved no faster or sooner than we gain knowledge of how to do saving faith.

We will give a brief outline of five keys to doing faith in Christ, then we will return to each key for an analysis in greater depth.

First Key: Be certain that all our trust is in Jesus Christ. This means that His Spirit, His words, His prophets are the most important things to us in this world. We of course cannot put our trust in Him until we find His spirit, His words, and His prophets. So the first step in faith is to find a personal connection with Jesus Christ, then to be sure that that personal connection is the most important thing in our mortal life, more important than breathing or eating or obtaining any earthly satisfaction. Nephi tells us that we must proceed, “with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” (2 Nephi 31:19) The world “wholly” reminds us that if we do faith in Jesus Christ correctly, we need have faith in nothing or no one else. Let us make this point a little stronger: True faith in Jesus Christ precludes faith in anyone or anything else. Doing faith requires that we are or become spiritually sensitive so that we find Christ, then be spiritually constant in trusting Him and Him only.

Second Key: Recognize that faith in Christ is a gift of God. It is not something a person can do at will. Unless we become as a little child—humble, willing, submissive—we cannot and will not receive the Holy Spirit of God into our lives to become faithful.

Because faith is a gift of God, specifically one of the greatest gifts of the Holy Ghost, receiving a fulness of it requires ordinances. No one can be fully faithful to Christ unless they are baptized into the New and Everlasting Covenant and are fulfilling their commitments in that covenant. Those who trust in the witness of the Holy Spirit to believe that Jesus is the Christ, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living church on the earth, and that they should accept the New and Everlasting Covenant of baptism into His church are on the path which leads to full faith in Christ.

Third Key: Faith is to work by mental exertion. The prophet Joseph Smith gave us this key in the Lectures on Faith. There are two main emphases here: First that doing faith is hard work and second that doing faith is mental work.

To say that faith is work means literally just that. Faith is something that must be worked at every minute of every day. We work at it by controlling our mind, which is the “mental” part. We control ourselves through our power of attention. Whatever we give our attention to is where the action is. Human life consists of a stream of influences and impulses which come into the mind and our personal reactions to these influences and impulses. The key is to separate out that which comes from Christ from that which comes from the world and from Satan, and to put our trust only in that which comes from Christ.

Thus to be faithful to Christ means to be constantly alert, perceptive of spiritual influences, and decisive in reacting to each kind of influence. Faith in Christ is difficult work, but it is doable. It demands our constant attention, the full application of our intelligence, and all of our acting. There is not more consuming or occupying action than doing full faith in Jesus Christ. It requires that we gain control of our minds and then focus deliberately in every thought in doing what Christ would have us do. The Savior said: “Look to me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” (D&C 6:36)

Fourth Key: What we have mentioned so far is so demanding that it can be sustained in a human being only when the heart as well as the mind is fully committed to doing faith in Christ. This fourth key is what the heart must do: it must hunger and thirst after righteousness. The promise is that those who thus hunger and thirst will be filled with the Holy Ghost. Only by the power of the Holy Ghost can we find Christ, seize the gift of the Holy Ghost, and put our mind to full acting on faith in Christ. If our heart is not in it, we will soon lose interest or be diverted to whatever our heart is interested in.

Our heart is our desires. Unless we want to do what is right more than we want anything else, we will not hold fast to Christ and have full faith in Him even if we do encounter Him in the world as so many did during His mortal ministry, or as many do now in reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Each of us must decide: Do I desire to serve God or to serve mammon? If we choose God, we can be faithful only by following the narrow path of faith in Christ. Every other path in this world is serving mammon. So unless our heart yearns for righteousness, which is found only in Christ, we will be diverted from Christ by pleasure, social rewards, money, power, beauty, and all the other good things this world has to offer. No wonder full faith in Christ is such a rare commodity in this world.

Fifth Key: There is a consequence of doing full faith in Christ. This consequence is the test as to whether a person has full faith in Christ or not. One who does full faith in Christ will be found serving his or her fellow human beings with all of his heart, might, mind and strength. He or she lies down each and every night of the world exhausted in the causes of relieving anguish, ignorance, suffering and poverty among the people of this earth. And this is done in the power of Christ through unshaken faith in Him.

The great commandment of God is that we love Him with all of our heart, might, mind and strength. This love is manifest only in persons who have put their full faith in Christ. You can tell one who has full faith in Christ because of their life of total selfless service to others. To love and serve God is to love and serve His children under His direction. There is no other way to do love of God.

Now that we have painted the overall picture of the five keys to doing full faith in Christ, let us revisit each of them for more detail. Please note that the five keys are not necessarily in serial order. We are attempting to paint a picture of doing full faith in Christ by giving linear sequence of words. But the picture is a whole, and must be seen as a whole to be understood.

First Key: To say that our faith must be in Jesus Christ and in Him only can be refined to point out that our specific trust must be in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the only name under heaven whereby man can be saved. (D&C 18:23) The name of Jesus Christ is His priesthood authority.

When we look to Jesus Christ for help and salvation, He delivers it to us through His priesthood authority. We must find and submit ourselves to that priesthood authority to begin the process of salvation. We do this by accepting the ordinances of baptism of the water and baptism of the spirit. We continue that salvation by serving faithfully under those who preside over us in the priesthood in our wards and stakes. We further that salvation by fully receiving the Holy Priesthood, that is to say, the name of Jesus Christ, upon ourselves in His holy temple. Then we finish our salvation by ministering to the children of men in this world using the powers of His name, His priesthood, which we have gained in the temple. This is the power by which Peter, James and John built up the church of Jesus Christ in the meridian of time. This is the power by which Nephi blessed his people, by which Ammon converted King Limhi, by which the Savior wrought His Atonement, by which the preparations for the Second Coming of Christ will be fulfilled by those of our own time.

Hallowed be His holy name. May we magnify it in our faithfulness.

Second Key: As faith in Jesus Christ is a gift of the Holy Ghost, so responding faithfully to this gift brings other gifts. A faithful servant of Christ operates by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He uses the gift of prophecy to prepare well for the future. He uses the gift of tongues to touch the hearts of those who need more faith. He uses the gift of knowledge to instruct those who are weak in the faith. He uses the gift of healing to lift those who struggle with the adversary over physical or mental afflictions. He uses the gift of wisdom to know how to lift those in his stewardship. Being full of the knowledge and power of God, he fills every church assignment in the way the Savior himself would do it, supporting fully those who preside over him and loving into competence in being faithful to Christ all those over whom he presides. Through the gifts of God he is attaining the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

The faithful servant of Christ works until he has every spiritual gift he or she needs to meet the challenges and opportunities of the service he or she has to bless others each day. The most demanding service anyone has are the twin tasks of being a Christ-like husband and father or a Christ-like wife and mother in the New and Everlasting Covenant.

Third Key: To work by mental exertion in being faithful is to learn to control one’s own mind completely. Knowing that Satan is able to put evil thoughts into our minds, which are temptations, and knowing that all action begins in the mind, the faithful servant of Christ fights the good fight of faith every minute of every day in his or her mind.

Part of this struggle is negative. It is to block, to thwart immediately every temptation to evil which comes into the mind. Does a swear word come to mind? Repent immediately and pray for help that it will never come again. Does a covetous thought come to mind? Repent immediately of desiring that which is not right, perhaps even giving away something of our own which is precious to us so that we do not become attached to things. Does a lustful, lascivious thought come into our mind? We must pray immediately with all of our might for the great gift of a pure heart that such a thought will never afflict us again, and work and work until indeed such a thought never comes again.

Until we win the battle of good over evil in our minds, we can never win the battle in our actions. This is why the Greek word for repentance is so apt. The word is metanoia, to change our minds. Faithfulness is wrought in the mind by rejecting and eschewing immediately every temptation to evil. To let a temptation linger for even a moment is to succumb to that temptation in a degree. Our reaction to the temptation to think evil must become reflexive, so habitual or “knee-jerk” that we do not struggle, but simply reject, withdrawing in horror to what Satan would have us do. President McKay said it this way: You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can surely stop them from nesting in your hair!

The positive side of working faith by mental exertion is to search out the good which God provides and treasure it. We seek after everything which is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy, because these are the things of God in this world. We observe the instructions of the scriptures and take each admonition to heart and mind until each is habitual with us. We listen to our bishop and stake president or other presiding authorities and hang on every instruction until we have absorbed all into our character as a permanent fixture. We scan general conference addresses for anything we yet need to do to come into full compliance with what faithful Latter-day Saints do. We try to become skillful in all that we do, that we honor our master thereby. We try to beautify, cleanse, uplift, and refine everything we live with or deal with. We are unabashedly trying to create heaven on earth, recognizing all the while that we do so by first creating a heavenly mind within ourselves.

Thus we work to be faithful by mental exertion, excluding all that is evil and holding fast to all that is good until our mind is sufficient to full faith in Jesus Christ.

Fourth Key: Our mind cannot work the work of faith unless our heart is pure. We must look to our heart, and ferret out every desire for evil, for selfishness, for feathering our own nest, until those tendencies are all gone. If we observe in the course of a day’s living that our heart is not yet pure, that we yet desire something we know is evil, we can take immediate steps. One step to purity is to fast until we are relieved of the evil desire. Fasting without mighty prayer is but going hungry. As we are humble, our prayers will be guided by the Holy Spirit so that they become effective. As they are effective, we can root out of our hearts every impurity, every untoward desire. Father wants us to struggle with these evils in our heart one by one, so that our agency is not abrogated by His changing of our hearts. When we want to be pure more than we want to live or breathe, then we are humble enough to receive purity of heart step by step until every trace of selfishness is gone. The pure heart is the most important aspect of the faithful saint, but the mind is the battleground where the struggle with good and evil is won and won permanently.

Fifth Key: Perhaps the greatest miracle in this world is a person who has struggled until they have become fully faithful to Jesus Christ. That is the hardest thing for any human being to accomplish, yet every necessary help or grace necessary to that stupendous accomplishment is made available by our loving Heavenly Father to every single one of His children who come into mortality. He hopes that each will esteem His love and gifts and overcome the world. But He know that many will not choose to do so.

How beautiful and precious then is the soul who has fought the good fight and has overcome. Give them any assignment in the kingdom, and they will find a way to fulfill it. Face them with any problem, and they will overcome it through their faith. If there is anything godliness can accomplish, they will do it. There is no greater accomplishment or reward than to be a servant of Jesus Christ, fully faithful. They already have eternal life, which is the life of and with the gods. They commune with and cooperate with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost daily in their never-ending quest to rescue every human soul from damnation. Service is their watchword, love is their weapon, power in the priesthood is their backup, accomplishment is their record. For they love God with all of their heart, might, mind and strength, and in the name of Jesus Christ do they serve Him.

Does all of this sound overwhelming and impossible—cause you to feel hopeless? If this is your reaction, that will be because you have been trying to do what is right on your own and failing. Remember that all that we have said comes through the grace and love of our Master, Jesus Christ. His apostles, glimpsing the pattern of full faith in Christ which we are also attempting to do, said to Jesus: “Master, who then can be saved?” He replied, “With man, this is impossible. But with God all these things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25–26) The greatest thing any human can do is to become faithful to Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that the task should be difficult. But it is wonderful to know that anyone who wants that attainment enough to be willing to sacrifice everything else for it will gain that goal if he or she truly hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

The question now rightly arises, how does one teach full faith in Jesus Christ to another? There are two answers. The first is that it cannot be taught. That greatest human attainment is worked out as a personal relationship between each human being and his Master, Jesus Christ. No one can tell anyone else exactly how to be faithful except Jesus Christ himself. The second answer is that there is much that can be done to point the way toward the strait and narrow path of faith, both by precept and by example. As we teach of Christ, prophesy of Christ, and honor Christ, we help others to gain ideas which will help them to be faithful. That is what we are attempting to do here, right now, in this discussion. But of course the great way to teach faith in Christ is simply to be full of doing faith in Christ ourselves. The example is worth more than a million words.

May I suggest a way to remember how to be faithful? Let each of the five keys be represented by the thumb or a finger on your right hand. Let the thumb remind you to put your trust solely in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Let your index finger remind you that faith, like every other good thing, is a gift from God, and to seek earnestly the best gifts. Let your middle finger remind you that faith is wrought by constant mental exertion to prize the good and eschew the bad. Let your ring finger remind you that only as we hunger and thirst after righteousness can faith be a potent reality in our lives. Let your little finger remind you that the reality and fullness of faith exists only in the loving service we give to our fellowmen through the power and gifts we have received from God.

When you raise your right arm to the square to attest to your faith in Christ or to sustain actions in the kingdom, let each finger of your right hand be a testimony that you have and use five keys to faith in Jesus Christ.

May each of us turn as a little child and receive fully of the grace of Jesus Christ, that in His love we may come to a fulness of His faith, and of His hope and of His charity, and thus be new creatures in Christ. In the holy name of Jesus Christ I bear my witness that Christ lives, that this is His church and priesthood, that there is no sacrifice we could make to become faithful that would not be worth it; that everyone of us can become celestial beings and do celestial good through Christ if only we want to do faith in Jesus Christ more than we desire any other thing. Amen.