Blog

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.

Chauncey C. Riddle
Zion Institute for Children
2 March 1996

How would you like to have the philosopher’s stone? It would turn everything to gold. Or would you like to find the fountain of youth, so that you would never be ill or aged? Would you like to be the world’s greatest scholar, scientist or artist? Or perhaps you would like to have the formula for political success, so that you could become the most powerful person on earth. Maybe you would settle for an inside understanding of the financial markets so that you could become a billionaire overnight and become the wealthiest person who has ever lived. For all these things do the people of this world seek.

But there is something more important, more powerful, more helpful than any of these. To possess that something is to have the only true and lasting wealth and power. That something is the most important thing for any human being to know about. To practice it is the greatest feat ever to come to the attention of mankind. That special something is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every human being already lives by faith in something. But the only faith that saves has its object in Christ. As we speak of faith hereafter, we refer only to genuine faith in Jesus Christ.

For if a human being attains to full faith, he or she can then have anything they desire. Because they are faithful to Christ, they will and do desire only and all of that which is good to desire, and desiring, they obtain every good thing for themselves and for those whom they love.

If mankind understood the power of faith in Christ, pursuit of faith would become the major task of every human being. No person would rest, day or night, until they were in full possession, command and practice of that faith. For such would be the only intelligent thing for any human being to do.

Why then, is it not so? Why do human beings work long and hard at other things, searching, ever searching for power, wisdom and wealth, but never being satisfied? The answer to this strange madness on the part of humans is that they are captive to an evil being. That evil being is Satan, the father of lies. The only possible release from that captivity is to seek out and practice full faith in Jesus

Christ. Every human who does not have full faith in Jesus Christ is to one degree or another yet captive to Satan. This means that most of us, including most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are yet captive to Satan in some degree. Captivity to Satan is the handicap each human must overcome to create full faith in Christ in their own life.

Why then would anyone strive to have faith? All who gain faith in Christ do so because in the midst of this worldly setting of unfaith they hear a message. That message comes from God through angels, missionaries and scriptures to call all of God’s children to repentance, to entice them to establish faith in Christ in their lives. This faith is the call to love others selflessly in a world where selfishness rules, and with that call comes the offer of power to be able to actually love that way. The message is dual: it is physical in that there are human words to contemplate. It is spiritual because the meaning of those words and the truthfulness of the message is attested to by the Holy Spirit. The physical words speak to the mind of man; the spiritual message is especially to the heart of man. To seize upon both of these gifts from God and to prize them together makes the possibility of faith in Christ. And that faith makes possible freedom from captivity in the chains of Satan if it so be that the hearer of the word of God hungers to love unselfishly.

So I talk about faith in Jesus Christ today because it is the most important topic in this world. Not to understand it is to have no real hope, to be locked in those chains of lies and selfishness with the majority of mankind. To understand faith and what it can do is the message every human being needs and deserves as a child of God. But the messengers are yet few.

So for this hour may I share with you my reflections out of a lifetime of searching for understanding of faith in Jesus Christ and striving to attain faithfulness.

First some observations about the fundamental principles of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ as they relate to faith. We begin with a temporary definition of faith, temporary because faith is not an idea, it is an activity. Like any reality, faith must be lived to be known. But it must be partly understood to attempt to live it, and that partial understanding must begin through words, which is where we begin. These words cannot create faith in Jesus Christ or even a precise image of that faith; what these words can do is cause each of us to go to Father and pray mightily for faith in Christ, until we are able to construct it in ourselves. Father gives us the materials, but we must put the materials together in our own heart, might, mind and strength to create real faith.

Now the definition: To be faithful to Jesus Christ is to have learned to live as he lives, to do what he does, to love as he loves. Repentance is the process of changing our lives over from whatever we are now doing to a living of full faith in Jesus Christ. Faith and repentance are not possible through just taking thought, or even coupling thought with desire. Faith and repentance are gifts of God, for they both require help from God to implement them. They are not wholly gifts of God, for we mortals must also do our part, all we can do. When we accept the gifts of God, then take correct thought, do fully desire, and take correct action, then and only then are faith and repentance possible. We are able to love Him only because He loves us first. We focus on faith in Christ then as the ability to love others as He loves us. This is the Savior’s commandment: “That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

Now we attempt a description of faith. This description will be complicated. If successful, this description will become a pattern by which one may obtain unto great faith. Faith is something like a tree. A tree can be beautiful, nourishing, helpful, but need not be understood to fulfill those blessings to us. But to create a tree that does those things, a great many complicated things must be mastered. So it is with faith. The important thing is to build it, to create it, not just to look at it. The challenge is to make ourselves into a great and faithful tree of life. And though words are insufficient to our task of explaining the details, they are a good start. So let us begin.

To plant and establish our tree of life, we must begin by clearing the ground so that the new tree will not be choked out by the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of worldly riches. Since a human being consists of four parts, according to the scriptures, we must deal with four aspects of clearing the ground. The four parts of a human being are heart, which is our desiring; mind, which is our thinking; strength, which is our doing: and might, which is our governing. We keep in mind that each step of becoming faithful to Jesus Christ is a step of repentance, a hearkening to the word of God as found in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Faith Level One: Clearing the Ground

The first step of repenting unto faith in Christ is to clear our heart of desire for evil doing. Since spiritual as well as physical nature abhors a vacuum, we cannot clear our hearts of desire for evil doing simply by pushing each evil desire out. Rather must we fill our heart with the desire to be good, even as God is good. How is this done? It is done by receiving into our hearts the love of God as witness is borne to our souls through the Holy Ghost of Christ and of God’s love for us. God loves us first; if we can then reflect that love back to him and to others, we can have faith. If we do not want to reflect that love, or if we have not yet received that love, we cannot repent unto faith. What the gift of God’s love enables us to do it to stop worrying about ourselves and feathering our own nest. Basking in the assurance of future well-being which is part and parcel of God’s love, we can cease selfishness and begin to concentrate on what we can do for others.

While our heart is forgetting itself and beginning to reach out to others in love, the mind must be busy focusing on Christ himself, to understand who and what he is, and also what he has done, is doing, and will yet do for mankind. What a tremendous task! It is a task impossible to natural man, the uninspired human who has not been touched by God’s love. But the gift of God comes to all men, sooner or later, and they are taught by the Holy Spirit not only the sweetness of God’s love, but the magnificence of the Savior’s atoning power by which he enables all of us to repent and to return to our Father in Heaven. As God’s love touches a human being with the holy scriptures, with the teaching of prophets, and with understanding through the Holy Spirit, the mind of man is fed with images of the great plan of happiness which the Gods have established for every human being. To be as a little child in receiving God’s love is also to open our minds to the wonders of eternity, and to begin to comprehend the preciousness of agency, the terrible consequences of sin, the inevitability of justice, and the beauty of Christ’s mercy in suffering for the sins of every human soul, followed by his offering of both tutelage and forgiveness to every contrite heart. For the mind to dwell on these understandings of Christ strengthens the heart in its task to let go of selfishness and to begin to sacrifice for the love of others, as our Savior directs.

While our heart is beginning to be unselfish and our mind begins to glory in the wondrous plan of God, we must be acting with our body to cease every sinful action. A good place to start is to check ourselves against the ten commandments, that special terrestrial standard of righteousness given to bless ancient telestial Israel. When we can honestly say that we have no other God before Jesus Christ, that we worship only through Him, that we treasure sacredly His name, that we keep His Sabbath day holy, that we verily do honor our father and our mother, that we do not kill, that we do not commit adultery or fornication, that we do not steal, that we never bear false witness, that we indeed do not covet anything which is not ours, then we have begun to clear the ground of our spiritual lives of the evil which will prevent us from fully accepting God’s love. The ground we clear is, of course, our own self.

Finally, in our preparation stage for faith, as we begin to reject evil and want only the good in our deeds, as we think firmly on the greatness of the plan of salvation, and as we change our lives from worldliness to basic righteousness through keeping the ten commandments, we must also repent in our might, our stewardship. We do this by making amends for our past selfishness wherever this is possible. In the scriptures this is called “restitution.” If we have wronged someone, they have suffered by our action; restitution is to relieve in an honorable way that suffering which we have caused in them, restoring the injured party to where they would have been had we not injured them. Restitution is difficult; in many cases it is impossible. But our addressing restitution is our act of faith in Christ to show that we truly are sorry for having sinned, and that we are willing to go to great lengths to set matters right. The Savior’s atonement is the only means by which we can attain full restitution for our sins. But the atonement can come fully into place for helping us to be honorable before God only when we do all that we can to make up for our sins. This restitution finishes clearing the ground for the fullness of faith in Jesus Christ.

Faith Level Two: Planting the Tree

Now that the ground is cleared, we can proceed to the establishment of the ways of God in our souls. This is to plant the tree of life. Again we repeat the heart, mind, strength and might sequence.

Now that the heart has turned from selfishness to concern for others, the heart needs next to learn to trust God and his wisdom and plan in all things. This is to rest confident that God is mindful of all things in the universe, that all things are ultimately in His control, and that He will make sure that all things will work together for good for those who love the Lord. The heart of faith is to feel content to stay oneself upon God. This means that worry is now banished from the life of the faithful person. They find themselves concerned about problems and persons in their lives, but they now never worry or fret, because they know that God is in His heaven and is mindful of all things, and will work our all things for the good of all concerned. Fear is not part of the faithful person’s life because they know that there is nothing to fear except sinning, for God will turn any other thing or experience to good for the faithful person.

That implicit trust of the heart in God necessitates at the same time firm belief in the mind and the goodness of God. That firm belief is not blind, for it is built upon the experience of having tasted the goodness of God, through the witness and warmth of the Holy Spirit. It is a childlike ability to hope for a continuation of that love which has been felt, trusting that the God who has announced himself by such marvelous means will not now irresponsibly absent himself from His child. As this child meditates in the way of the Lord, searching the scriptures and gleaning the prophets, that person sees that the hand of the Lord is in all things, working out the salvation of souls. It is seen that all that happens, be it storm, or war, earthquake or terrorism, is but what the hand of God allows. God gives agency to man, and thus there is great evil in the world; but God is God because He can and does turn each bit of that evil that men do into good for those that love Him. He will crown with blessing and comfort all who can endure in faith every event as the hand of God. It is impossible to overstate the importance at this stage of the development of faith of the absolute trust of the heart and the absolute confidence of the mind in the goodness of God. Only these make possible any great advance beyond this point. If they are lacking, faith in Christ is aborted into some kind of counterfeit.

The strength aspect of planting the tree of life in our being is to partake of the New and Everlasting Covenant given by God for the salvation of His children. It is with full heart and mind to enter into the waters of baptism and promise to be willing to take upon us His name, to keep every commandment He gives us, and to remember Him always. Under the hand of an authorized servant of Jesus Christ we are lowered into the water of burial and are brought back forth in the newness of a soul reborn unto God. Then hands are laid upon our head, and we are commanded to receive the Holy Ghost as our constant companion. This gift, this pearl of great price, is worth more than all of the riches in this world, even put together. For that gift becomes our lifeline, our iron rod by which we may now persevere through the mists of darkness unto the fulness of faith in Jesus Christ. As we are willing to accept the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, and to abide the counsel and direction we receive from that divine source, we now are beginning that real and permanent eternal faith in Jesus Christ that makes our salvation possible. Until now our beginnings of faith have been good, but temporary and incomplete. Now we may move forward toward that which is eternal and perfect.

Thus faith is a gift of God. Without the gift of the Holy Ghost, we would have no chance of doing the will and work of God, to love as He loves. But now having the great gift, we have a precursor of the greatest gift, which is eternal life. Eternal life is the fullness of faith, to love as God loves. Having the Gift of the Holy Ghost, we can now thread that strait and narrow path which leads from baptism, the beginning of real faith in Christ, to the end, which is full faith in Christ.

And what is to be done with our might, that our heart, mind, and strength may be forever firmly planted as a tree of life? As our heart trusts implicitly in the goodness of God and our mind sees the worthy hand of God in all things, and as we receive the New and Everlasting covenants of baptism by water and by fire and the Holy Ghost, we now need to order our stewardship in a manner that befits a child of God. We need to look to our home to assure that it is freed from all that is unseemly or disordered or not needed. We need to look to our allegiances and friendships that they are all appropriate. We need to get ourselves out of debt, that we are not in bondage to mammon. We need to comb our minds for lingering untruths from the world, and our hearts for any lingering patterns of emotional or spiritual dwarfism. We are preparing our soul to become a temple of the Lord, a dwelling place for the spirit and power of God.

As we progress in keeping our covenant of baptism, keeping our heart full of courage and our mind firm in every form of godliness, it will be our opportunity to receive further gifts from God in the remainder of the ordinances of the New and Everlasting Covenant. We will enjoy the Holy Priesthood, and then the temple endowment. Finally, we shall be sealed in the temple as husband and wife, being set apart to the greatest priesthood callings of all eternity, the opportunities to see the power and authority of God Himself to be husband and wife, father and mother. If heart, might, mind and strength are together fitly framed at this point, then we are indeed firmly planted as a tree of life, and we can proceed to the final level of spiritual development of faith.

Faith Level Three: Bringing the Tree to Fruition

When the tree of faith is firmly planted in the cleared, choice spot of ground, it must be nourished and protected with tender care. It is nourished by receiving the continuing whisperings of the Holy Spirit and humble obedience thereunto. As the sun shines upon the natural tree, so is nourishment from the Son of God, His light and life. If the tree is allowed to receive this light and to incorporate it into itself, we are receiving the commandments of God through the Holy Spirit, and becoming more holy and more powerful in heart, might, mind and strength. The end of this process is to have come into the heart, might, mind and strength of Jesus Christ Himself, fully grown up unto His spiritual stature. Part of this light will come through personal revelation, some of it will be the love of God shed upon us from our priesthood leaders in the family and church; and some of it will come through our children as their lives are touched by the Savior.

If our hearts will receive this nourishment from God, the result will be an overwhelming love for our God and for our neighbor. We will know that we have grown to this stature of heart when we wake up every morning with a feeling of joy at the prospect of being alive and having the opportunity to serve God and our fellow men that day. The joy continues as we make our plans and preparation for the day’s labor. And that joy is fulfilled as we actually perform the ministrations we have been enticed to carry out by the Holy Spirit for that day. Our hearts will then exclaim: “This is really living; this is life eternal.” For God is with us, in us, through us, as we use the power of His spirit and His holy priesthood to bring blessing to others. Our heart will feel that it lacks nothing, for joy will be complete. We will then see the face of the Savior every day; and even more important, we will recognize Him every time we see Him.

If our minds receive this nourishment from the Holy Spirit, our minds will be led by the Holy Spirit to understand the scriptures. Then, indeed, the Book of Revelation in the Bible will be one of the plainest books ever written, and the writings of Isaiah will be transparent counsel from a dear friend. The words of the living prophets will be food to our souls and vision to our minds. The whisperings of the Holy Spirit will tell us the future, assure us of what to do and not to do in all things, and warn us to warn others of the wrath to come. We will know what to say, how to act, what to do and not do in every missionary, genealogical and perfecting labor in the church. For we will have the mind of God for all our needs. We will not be omniscient as yet, but everything we need to know we will be given at the right time and place.

As our physical tabernacles receive this nourishment from the Holy Spirit, we are renewed in the flesh unto whatever callings we have in the kingdom. It is then our delight to waste and wear away our flesh in the service of the Master as we minister in our callings to Father’s children. No obstacle is insurmountable, no challenge too great, no disease too devastating, no opposition successful until we have finished our labors on the earth. The gifts and blessings of the Holy Spirit flow unto us as we need them and use them, and we thank God for all of these gifts and blessings. Whatever we touch in the things of the world, in knowledge, in understanding, in teaching, in demonstrating, will prosper because we are on the Lord’s errand twenty-four hours of every day of the world. When we drop exhausted at night, our sleep is peaceful and spiritual in the Lord. When we rise in the morning to the joy of being alive, our path is clear before us. Every day is a day of eternity to us while yet in the flesh.

What happens to our might when we have fully given ourselves to the Lord in heart, mind and strength? Then our might is multiplied, our prayers are heard and our ordinances carry. Then the doctrine of the priesthood distills upon our souls as the dew of heaven and our kingdom flows unto us without compulsory means forever. Then we are just persons, the salt of the earth, saviors on Mount Zion. In the hands of such persons, the work of God does not falter nor fail.

The fullness of faith in our might means that we are fully consecrated to the Lord. We fully support the priesthood order of the kingdom of God. We are past any concern for how much any service to the kingdom will cost us, for all that we have belongs to the Lord and we stand ready to give all, even our lives, in the cause of Christ. And the giving is not a burden but a joy, a release from being earth and time bound, to see eternity in time and to have time while in time to do all that properly prepares us for eternity.

The practicer of full faith in Christ fulfills the scriptural injunctions about love. Such a one “suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” (Moroni 7:45)

Now, with the tree planted in cleared ground and nurtured to maturity, we may pluck the fruit of the tree of life, that which is sweet beyond all description. That fruit is the deeds of pure, Christ-like love which we administer to those around us. The fruit is not something we receive, but something we give. To give pure love is real living. This is eternal life.

We said before that to be faithful to Jesus Christ is to have learned to live as He lives, to do what He does, to love as He loves. Having become mature in our faith, ourselves a fruitful tree of life, it is now possible to be live as Christ lives because we have received him in us, and have a new heart, mind, strength and might through His gifts, power and presence. We now do what He does because we have His priesthood power and His callings, and we do what He would do were He here. We love as He loves because we have received the pure love of Christ, have taken it literally to heart, and now minister to others in the pure love of Christ.

It remains now to relate what we have said to certain scriptures from the Book of Mormon.

It should already be clear to you that what I have said is closely related to Alma’s description of faith in Alma 32. Let us turn to that passage, beginning with verse 28: “Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” Notice several things from this passage. First, it is the word of God which begins faith. Second, the word is accompanied by and attested to by the Spirit of the Lord; this is the dual witness to mind and heart of which we earlier spoke. And notice where the seed is to be planted: in our own heart. What is it that begins to grow as we plant this seed? It is our ow heart, our self: “for it beginneth to enlarge my soul.”

Alma continues in verse 34: “And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect? Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand.” Again we see that what sprouts and is growing is our self, our mind and our understanding. And we are sure that this word of God is good because it does exactly what was promised: we are becoming bigger and better souls by believing in the word and exercising even a particle of faith in Jesus Christ.

Verses 35 and 36: “O then, is not this real? Is say unto you, Yea, because it is light, and whatsoever is light, is good, because it is discernible, therefore ye must know that it is good, and now behold, after ye have tasted this light is your knowledge perfect? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; neither must ye lay aside your faith, for ye have only exercised your faith to plant the seed that ye might try the experiment to know if the seed was good.” In a world rank with counterfeits of faith in Christ, it is most important to have the ability to tell a good seed from a bad one. A good seed always grows, and when it grows to produce light, knowledge and love, to enlarge our souls, we know of a surety that it is from God.

But it is not enough just to plant the tree: Verses 37–39: “And behold, as the tree beginneth to grow, ye will say: Let us nourish it with great care, that it may get root, and grow up, and bring forth fruit. But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out. Now this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.” We noted above that it is not enough just to plant the tree, to partake of the New and Everlasting Covenant. We must continue to grow in the covenant by following the Spirit of the Lord, which nourishes the tree and allows us to grow unto greater and greater service in the Kingdom of God and among our fellow men. If we are not obedient to the Spirit, we do not do the good works, and we begin to wither away. Why would one who has tasted of the good word of God wither away? Because the tree can be nourished only by repentance. If we do not repent and clear our ground of every worldly encumbrance, the worldly encumbrances will choke out the spirit and our tree will wither and die.

But if we have truly cleared the ground so that the tree can be nourished when it is planted, and if the tree has been truly planted by partaking of the New and Everlasting Covenant, then we are in a position to bring the tree to maturity. Verses 41 and 42: “But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold, it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life. And because of your diligence and your faith and your patience with the word in nourishing it, that it may take root in you, behold, by and by ye shall pluck the fruit thereof, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst.” Remember that the savior said, “Blessed are all they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” (3 Nephi 12:6) After they are filled with the Holy Ghost, they no longer hunger and thirst because they then have the power of pure love. Likewise, those who pluck the fruit of the tree of life are filled with the Holy Ghost and never hunger nor thirst again.

What does it mean to pluck and eat the fruit of the tree of life? To what end does the Holy Ghost fill any person? The purpose of being filled is plain: it is so that the child of God can be enlarged and empowered to do the work of Godly love in the earth. The fruit is not literally eaten to bring joy; literally, it is given away. The fruit is the joy of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, causing the blind to see, bringing solace to the bereaved soul, ministering the word of God in purity and truth—these are the kinds of acts which bring joy, which are the fruit of the tree of life. We become trees of life not to receive blessing, but to give blessing. There is no other satisfaction that comes to any human being which begins to equal that of doing the work of the Savior in ministering to His little ones.

This brings to mind another tree of life story, that told by father Lehi to his family, as recorded in 1 Nephi 8. This tree of life I take to be the same tree which Alma bids us to plant in our hearts, and which I have described today in our clearing the ground, planting the tree, and bringing the tree to maturity. Father Lehi says in verse 12: “And as I partook of the fruit thereof, it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.” He was able to get only part of his family to come, for Laman and Lemuel would not hearken and come and partake of the fruit.

But even some who partook of the fruit did not continue. Father Lehi says: “And it came to pass that I beheld others pressing forward, and they came forth and caught hold of the end of the rod of iron; and they did press forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree. And after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree, they did cast their eyes about as it they were ashamed. And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth. And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit. And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost.” (1 Nephi 8:24–28)

Why on earth would anyone be ashamed after tasting the pure love of God? How could the adversary have such power over them? The answer is that not every child of Heavenly Father really delights in wasting and wearing his life away in the service of other human beings. The way of this world is to get; to get much, to get it fast, and to keep as much as possible. But the way of Christ is to give and give until it is all gone. The getters of the world think that the givers are foolish; they laugh them to scorn and insist that they are mentally incompetent. That scorn takes its toll on the weak and faint of heart. Even tasting the love of God in beginning to do good for others is not enough. They cannot bear the crosses of the world. They shrink from sacrifice and responsibility and are soon lost in forbidden paths.

One great point that Father Lehi’s dream brings us is that celestial faith in Christ, though the most wonderful, the most powerful, the most desirable activity in the world, is not for everyone. Everyone is invited to the feast of the Savior’s love, but not everyone is willing to wear the wedding garments. To be fully faithful to Christ means that we must not only do good, but be willing to suffer and to sacrifice to do good, even as our Savior did. There are three degrees of glory hereafter. Each place is a place of faith in Christ. But not everyone desires full faith in Jesus Christ.

We now turn to the words of Nephi. Nephi commends to us to partake of the covenant, which we have said is to plant ourselves in goodly, cleared ground as a tree of life. Nephi says: “For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost. And then are ye in this strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life; yea, ye have entered in by the gate; ye have done according to the commandments of the Father and the Son; and ye have received the Holy Ghost, which witnesses of the Father and the Son, unto the fulfilling of the promise which He hath made, that if ye entered in by the way ye should receive. And now, my beloved brethren, after ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path, I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for ye have not come thus far save it were by the word of Christ with unshaken faith in Him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save. Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.” (2 Nephi 31:17–21)

As we repent of our sins, we begin to clear the ground to plant ourselves as a tree of life. As we are baptized and receive the Holy Ghost, we are cleansed of our former sins, which finishes the task of clearing the ground. As we press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, we are nurturing our tree of life. And if we endure to the end, which end is to have full faith and to love with the pure love of Christ, we shall and will have eternal life. Only through His name, which is to say through His holy priesthood, through this power of God unto salvation, may any human being attain to full faith in Jesus Christ. But every human being who wants to love purely as Christ loves and does not mind the shame and the sacrifice of it, can do it, for God’s gifts and blessings are offered to all.

We conclude with the admonition of Mormon: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he has bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.”

To which Amen I add my testimony that Jesus Christ lives and loves us. And I hope that each of us can endure unto the end of full faith in Jesus Christ, that we might come to love as He loves. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Chauncey C. Riddle
December 1995

One of the big problems in the life of every human being is to figure out what is going on in this world. Until we have a clue as to the big picture, we cannot act very intelligently. Most of us begin by assuming the perspective and values of our parents. But to become an individual, we must come to choose our perspective and values for ourselves, be they like those of our parents or not. Life usually gives us special learning moments when we are better able to decide such grand things.

There are two kinds of occasions in my life when I see more clearly what is important in life and what is not. One such occasion is the funeral of a good person. As their life is reviewed, perspective comes for me and my life. The other kind of occasion is even more powerful: when I am desperately ill and think that I might die. The prospect of imminent death brings a sense of clarity so that the important and the unimportant are widely separated.

I would now like to crystallize for you the perspective and values which my life experience have brought to me. I do this by way of bearing testimony, and proffer my testimony in the hope that there might be some gain for each of you as you ponder the important questions of life.

My thesis is simple. It is that: Wisdom in life is to pay proper attention to both the things of time and the things of eternity. “Proper attention” means to give both the things of time and the things of eternity their due while keeping the attention given to each in appropriate balance. “Proper attention” also means working at life with all of the intelligence we can muster.

In explanation of this thesis, I will ask and answer a number of questions.

Question No. 1: What are time and eternity?

Eternity is the sum total of our personal existence. Since you and I had no beginning and will have no end, our eternity is forever, and is the same eternity of all other eternal beings. It is useful to know that progress is part of our eternity. We were first intelligences, about which state we know very little. Most of what we know other than that we had no beginning is that there were vast differences in ability and orientation toward good among those of us who were intelligences. Then in the second stage we were blessed by our Heavenly Father and Mother to become their spirit children, acquiring spiritual bodies in the image of their more tangible bodies, and learning from them to do good works. We mortals are now in the third stage of our development, which mortal stage is marked by having another body of flesh, bone and blood added to our spirit body, and now having the opportunity to choose our eternal future for ourselves.

We choose our eternal future by choosing each day, each moment as we desire and choose. We may choose good or we may choose evil. If we choose only good, we will become heirs of all that our Heavenly Father and Mother have and are. If we choose a mixture of good and evil, we fall as short of becoming as Father and Mother because of the evil in which we indulge. No one who comes to mortality chooses only evil, for their was a screening in the premortal existence to keep those who would choose only evil from coming to mortality.

Time is the name for this third stage, the mortal stage. Time is distinctive and precious because in it we have two kinds of choices with which to exercise our agency. We have the choice between doing good or doing evil, which we have always had, but we also have a choice while in mortality to become new creatures in Christ. Were there no Fall and no Christ, we would all simply be rewarded for the choices we make here on the basis of our eternal natures, what we were from the beginning. But there was a Fall and there is a Christ, so our eternal nature is now up for change. The change possible ranges from changing our eternal nature to be remade in the image of Christ Himself to being remade in the image of Satan, the father of lies.

The fourth stage of our eternity will be our resurrected state in which we enjoy for the rest of forever what we have chosen to become in time. Some will have joy, while others who could have had joy will weep and wail and gnash their teeth. Most will be in between, having a measure of happiness, and all they can stand, but not a fullness.

To sum up this answer as to what time and eternity are: Eternity is the envelope of our total existence. Time is this crucial mortal segment of our existence, of our eternity, in which we have the opportunity to confirm or to change what we have been in all past eternity, to become a new creature for all future eternity.

Question No. 2: What are the things of time?

The things of time are those things in this world which can be obtained by using money. These things of time are thus transferable, one person to another. All things of time are acquired in time and will be lost when we pass out of time.

Examples of things of time are 1. Physical properties, such as food, clothing, shelter, land, tools and raw materials. 2. Services, such as the assistance and cooperation of other persons for tutorial, medical, legal, management or other actions. The things of time are thus goods and services, the items of the economy of this world, each item of which is purchasable by money, or which can be exchanged for something else of time.

One interesting example of a thing of time is reputation. Reputation is a service others render to someone; it is a thing of time because it can be manipulated by the use of money. While sometimes reputation is not gained by the spending of money, in normal worldly society reputation can always be affected for better or worse by the spending of money. Thus the honors of men, position in social organizations, and being esteemed by normal men and women are all things of this world, of time, for they are or can be bought with money, as we see so often in politics. They are all services.

Is health a thing of this world, of time? Health is not a thing of time because no expenditure of money can guarantee it, though expenditure of money can certainly destroy health. Health is a gift of God, a thing of eternity which may be enjoyed in time but is not derivative from the world in time.

Question No. 3: Are the things of time evil?

The things of time are not of themselves evil, though each thing of time may be used to do evil and may be related to in an evil way. It is not evil to have money, but one may do great evil by the manner in which one obtains that money or in the way one uses that money.

Everything of time is simply an opportunity for the exercise of agency. Every human being of normal mentality knows true good from true evil, and has the opportunity to practice that knowledge as he or she acts in the world in relation to the things of time.

Question No. 4: What are the things of eternity?

The things of eternity are all other things possible in this world which cannot be bought for money. As there are two basic categories of things of time, goods and services, so there are two basic categories of the things of eternity: character and abilities.

Character is what each of us makes of ourselves through the process of mortal choosing between good and evil. We take what we were from the premortal existence and add, take away or transform that character through what we choose to do and not do in this world. Our character is essentially our habits, whatever we do or don’t do.

Abilities are those habits of our character we have acquired to produce changes in the universe.

Those who acquire god-like character in the image of Christ are stronger, have more abilities than those who reject Christ. The fulness of abilities is possessed only by those who have acquired the character of Christ, his goodness. They are then the possessors of all good things, as is Christ Himself.

Illinois Peoria Mission
1994

How is it possible to gain control of one’s mind to become a better missionary?

The first step is to be able to control our power of attention. We cannot control ourselves until we bring our power of attention under our own will. Then we can concentrate.

Control comes through exercising will power over what we think about.

Some Examples of Opportunities to Control Our Minds:

1. Focus intently on every word when another person is offering a public prayer. If you can support everything said, say a genuine “Amen”. Your attention and “Amen” lend great strength, all of your strength, to the prayer. So, don’t let your mind wander during prayers.
2. Focus on the words and messages of the hymns sung during church meetings. Hymns are a form of prayer, and to give full attention to every line of the hymn will greatly strengthen your power of attention and enhance the spirituality of your singing.
3. Focus when you read scriptures. Read slowly enough to let each verse sink fully into your consciousness. Ask questions when issues arise in your mind. Wrestle with difficult passages until you understand them. Practice until you can read a full half-hour at a time without mind-wandering.
4. Focus on your relationship with the Savior during the passing of the sacrament. Listen intently to the prayers of consecration, then ponder upon your feelings for the Savior and how well you are keeping the promises you are making by partaking. Let this time be some of the sacred moments of your week as you concentrate.
5. Focus on each talk you hear in church meetings. You can think twice as fast as another person can talk, so parallel what they say with what you would say if you were giving the talk. As you pay this close attention, the Holy Spirit will bring many ideas to your attention, things not said by the speaker nor hitherto understood by you. Then listening to every talk will be a spiritual feast.
6. Focus when any person who has priesthood authority over you speaks or writes to you. Remember that you must evaluate everything said to see how it should affect what you do. We are all bound by our covenants to support those who preside over us. If we make careful plans as to how to implement every instruction, we are showing true faith in Jesus Christ and the authority He has placed on earth. This will prepare you then to focus on the implementation of your instruction. Hearing without obeying is spiritual death, but we obey unto life eternal.
7. Focus when you are teaching a discussion, especially when you are not doing the teaching. Follow every comment of the person who is speaking, but observe carefully what the investigators are feeling and how they are reacting. Read the body language. Notice the emotional overtones of their comments and conversation. Be conscious of what your companion is saying and doing and fit into the discussion; support and bear testimony as is appropriate. Never let your mind wander. Your attention and loving contribution greatly strengthen the teaching situation.

You may find that you cannot focus attention for more than a few seconds at first. But if you pray for help and try hard in each of the above situations to gain control of your mind, you will get better and better at it until you have control. Control means that you can concentrate for 30 minutes or longer any time you desire.

If you do all of these focus exercises until you are able to do each of them without diversion of attention, you will have won the battle. Using such power of attention will lead you to be able to exercise great faith in our Savior. And that faith will lead you to every other good thing: like a firm mind in every form of godliness.

                   Elder Riddle (at the request of President Udall.)