0:00:00 - 0:00:18 OK. So this video is to answer the question. Uh I'm from a Mormon background, which one of your books should I read first? I'm actually gonna tell you the three books you should read first. Here's the first one. And uh I'm putting this in a playlist where I talk about this one in the video previous to 0:00:18 - 0:00:41 this. So you should watch that. Um For the world, if you weren't from a, a Mormon background, I would suggest that you read this verse and the second, if you are from a Mormon background, this becomes two and this becomes three. Why is that this book is as you can probably guess from the title, it's 0:00:41 - 0:01:02 all about Repentance. And the question is, I mean, isn't that simple enough? Why do we need a book? And the answer is it is simple, but you can't understand how simple it is because you have so many false traditions in your mind that are blocking you from understanding the doctrine of it. And that's 0:01:02 - 0:01:22 why that one needs to come first because if you don't read this one first, you'll read this. And even though it's more than half scriptures and there's absolutely nothing crazy radical in this book. Although all of it is massively important, um and powerful. Uh you will not believe what you read because 0:01:21 - 0:01:42 if you did believe what you read, you'd already have repented of your sins. And uh you, you, you say, well, like, well, I have, let me rephrase that and that's part of the book, right? Uh Page one and there's mark, repentance is defined as fully reconciling your ideas, desires and actions to your sincere 0:01:42 - 0:02:05 understanding of what is best. Have you done that? When was the last time you did something less than the absolute best you could imagine. And so if the answer is I remember it was yesterday or five minutes ago or three months ago, you haven't repented, not really, you're not yet converted. And uh that's 0:02:04 - 0:02:26 super offensive to people, right? So here's a whole book. It's short, it's 100 and 28 pages. But here's the scriptures on the topic organized in ways that are pretty, I think, easy to understand. Uh repentance for all people, sin, obedience, repentance. Your conscience is God's voice to you. The deep 0:02:26 - 0:02:49 things of the heart, baptism unto repentance, spiritual rebirth, the unpardonable sin, preparing for God's presence. The value of God's instruction, commandment's conscience and progression. So straightforward. Here's some of the headings inside the chapters. Um The target is God. Um You can send anytime 0:02:48 - 0:03:19 anyplace in anything. Sin is not a list. Uh What happens when you disobey any commandments at any time, death and sin. I'm just flipping through here, I'm not, they, they're not marked the consequences of conscience. Your conscience is your model of God. Uh qual qualifications for baptism, um justification 0:03:18 - 0:03:45 via information through his servants. Uh and so on. So God's perfect knowledge, God is the source of what you desire no matter what you desire. Um is a simple book, but it's extremely important, right? And it's not something that people do. And so I would say this is the gateway to everything that I 0:03:45 - 0:04:07 have or will ever teach. This is because this is God's gate. It's not even mine. If you look at the book, it's a path, right? That's the cover. Um So that's the most important book. But the reason you gotta read the big red one with the cover first is because uh you won't believe what you're reading 0:04:06 - 0:04:26 unless you accept that maybe God has things to tell you that you don't already believe and that might conflict with what you already believe. Um If you have a faith to believe that maybe you could jump right into the book. But um the next one is through faith. So someone in Amazon wrote a review and 0:04:26 - 0:04:43 said something like, oh, I don't understand why this book exists because we have this one. You're gonna laugh at this. This is my copy of lectures on faith. This is funny for several reasons. Um One I actually typeset a copy of lectures on faith and this is not it. Um, I don't think I actually have any 0:04:43 - 0:05:02 copies of that right now. Um It, it's print on demand from Amazon. So that doesn't mean you can't buy them. But um II, I typeset that because I was frustrated that such a small book that's, that's been in public domain for so long and it's so vitally important cost 20 bucks a copy or whatever it was 0:05:01 - 0:05:21 . It's ridiculous. So I typeset it and put it up on Amazon for print cost and I'm from the thousands of copies I've sold, I'm pretty sure I've cost these companies tens of thousands of dollars in profits and that cracks me up. But anyway, um, they haven't, uh, sent me any nasty letters or bombs or anything 0:05:21 - 0:05:47 yet. Um, but this copy, this is, uh, lectures on faith is so good that even your dog will want to feast upon it. That's anyway, um, the reason that I wrote this is first off, uh I'm not sure I can believe the guy when he says, I don't understand what's in here. That's not what's in there. But, um, it 0:05:47 - 0:06:08 , it's not an exact overlap. It's certainly not a rehashing. I'm not even sure I quote lectures on faith anywhere in here. Um, but the ideas in here I think are much more applicable to your life. And I don't mean that those words don't have application to your life. I mean, you can read quotes like uh 0:06:08 - 0:06:27 faith is a principle of action and I don't remember something, something of all intelligent beings. And you can, you can have that memorized and yet never apply it to any aspect of your life. In fact, if people ask you really simple questions, like, can you define faith in your own words? Not quoting 0:06:27 - 0:06:51 Joseph Smith, you said? Uh Right. I don't know. So, um this is a very practical uh collection of scriptures on the topic. And I think it's presented in such a way that it'll give you extremely um relevant entry points to the point where like if you pick this up and you start reading it right now, you'll 0:06:51 - 0:07:11 think I know how to apply this in the rest of my day today. I know how to apply it for the rest of this month and I know how to apply it for the rest of my life. And what is it here? Faith in Jesus Christ. I know how to connect it to every little piece of my life. Now, that's the point of the book and 0:07:10 - 0:07:35 just like this one and just like this one, there's nothing super crazy in this book. It's just uh clearer than you've ever heard it before and it'll, it'll penetrate better than it ever has. So I wanna just read a few parts to it. So this is page one, it says, uh starting from the very beginning introduction 0:07:34 - 0:07:55 . Faith is not confusion. No one seems to be able to define faith. That's the heading. What is faith? If you ask a Christian, they're likely to paraphrase Paul by saying that faith is things hoped for and not seen. But that isn't a definition. It's an example. Some consider faith to be evidence, free 0:07:54 - 0:08:14 belief. They use the word when people ask them why they believe what they do, saying something like. Well, sometimes we just have to take things on faith. Yet Peter who surely knew the gospel of Jesus Christ, at least as well as they do said, be ready always to give an answer to every man that ask you 0:08:14 - 0:08:36 a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. First Peter 315, Peter was not implying that our answer ought to be no better than I don't know. Faith is not a substitute for evidence. It's a process that always generates it. Um There's more to be said, but I don't want to read you the whole 0:08:36 - 0:08:58 book. Um So page two, we get the definition. What is faith put in the simplest terms? Faith is. So how would you define it? Put it in the comments like right now and then you're not allowed to edit it after I read my and if you have read the book before, don't do this, that's cheating. Faith is seeking 0:08:57 - 0:09:25 out and living according to a greater understanding of reality, I did your answer, check mine. Um It is consciously desiring searching for and acting to obtain specific outcomes. Faith is the process by which outcomes are obtained. It consists of the mapping of cause action to effect outcome. The reasons 0:09:25 - 0:09:47 we have to believe, the mapping and the desire we have to obtain the expected outcome. See figure one. And there's a picture. Uh faith is a process because each component of faith is continually updated and improved as we gain understanding through experience. OK, let's uh let's keep going because I 0:09:47 - 0:10:06 want to make this point to faith is not limited to religion. A variety of historical and cultural circumstances mean that the sources we have that describe it are explicitly religious, but this does not limit its application to only religious circumstances. When we read scriptures that describe faith 0:10:06 - 0:10:25 , we ought to attempt to apply them as broadly as possible. Recognizing that they were phrased in religious terms to garner the greatest comprehension of a less educated populace that had a pre-existing largely shared understanding of God and the gospel. That's a deep one we could talk about that. I'm 0:10:25 - 0:10:49 not sure I wanna get derailed and have my video magically deleted again. Uh We'll leave it at that. There is nothing mystical about faith. It is as tangible as turning a screw or pumping water. Faith is a mechanism of power. It yields outcomes beyond what would otherwise occur through new or greater 0:10:48 - 0:11:12 belief. New actions on better informed desire and superior reason. Faith is a process is not so much something you have, but something you do. Faith is to think in terms of what is possible to be accurate about where you really are to design a realistic detailed path from where you stand to where you 0:11:12 - 0:11:37 want to go, to execute that path and to revise it as you learn more about reality and about yourself. Faith means daring to dream of outcomes that would otherwise not happen. Searching for a path to obtain them and exercising both sufficient adherence and effort to obtain them. So I'd love to just sit 0:11:37 - 0:12:00 here and read this to you and stop and talk and uh pretend like you're right here in the room and we just go through it. That's actually really hard to do incidentally because uh feedback is a major, major factor. Um A lot could be said about that. Anyway, I was just writing about that uh sometime in 0:12:00 - 0:12:25 the last 24 hours. I hope you read these books. I hope you share them with others. I hope that whatever you draw out of them and internalize into your own beliefs and character. I hope you project that to others in your own words and you share it and you live it. Um I hope that you find ways, whether 0:12:25 - 0:12:57 they're through these books or other books or uh experiences you have directly with God. I hope that you internalize more of God's word inside of you and you grow brighter and brighter to the perfect day. I wish that I had a greater capacity in all things, but especially, especially in the ability to 0:12:56 - 0:13:23 say something, something demonstrative about how good God is. He really is. Love. That's what John said. And I don't know that you could do better without flesh and blood, meaning that you can, you can do a lot more to show it than you can say. I don't know that more can be said than that. But I do know 0:13:23 - 0:13:52 that it's real and he's alive and I've seen him and you can see him too, but no matter how often you do see him and I've seen him many times. That's not the best part about that. The best part is who and how he is, everything about him that is good, is good because it is who he is and how he is and he 0:13:51 - 0:14:24 is so gracious that he offers that to us and he says, come and learn of me and he's so willing to forgive and he's so willing to be patient with us. His voice, it calls us to him and it calls us to improvement. It calls us to know more than we know and to become more than we are. And it calls us to turn 0:14:23 - 0:14:55 to everyone. We have access to and to love them and to try to do something somehow to convey a greater understanding of God's love than they have to them so that they can reach out to Him and know Him as we do. So I hope that you share everything you can with others to that end and that these things 0:14:55 - 0:15:05 that I'm doing and things that other people are doing, that they're, they're meaningful to you, that you get some value out of it that also you can turn and provide value to others.