Don’t wear the wrong garment
Some professed Christians live up to an incorrect idea of how Jesus is. Some conflate the commandments of men with the commandments of God,4 and others invent their own imagined version of the Lord independent of and contrary to the eye witness accounts found in the scriptures and living persons.5
While it is not good to be naked in the presence of the Lord, it is even worse to appear before him wearing a garment you made up for yourself. God is just as unpleased with those who wear garments he has not ordained6 as he is those who make offerings he did not command.7 Acknowledging your nakedness before God is essential in order to receive clothing from him, and you will never seek what you already think you have.8 Those who refuse to acknowledge their lack of the real thing will see a future day when what they thought they had is taken away.1724
Footnotes
- 1. For behold, when ye shall be brought to see your nakedness before God, and also the glory of God, and the holiness of Jesus Christ, it will kindle a flame of unquenchable fire upon you. (Mormon 9:5) ↩
- 2. For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence. (Alma 12:14) ↩
- 3. ...Do ye suppose that ye shall dwell with him under a consciousness of your guilt? Do ye suppose that ye could be happy to dwell with that holy Being, when your souls are racked with a consciousness of guilt that ye have ever abused his laws? Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell. (Mormon 9:3-4) ↩
- 4. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:9) ↩
- 5. There is a difference between the sincere composite of what you have learned about how Jesus is and an imagined alternative that bears no resemblance to his depiction in the resources you have access to, including the scriptures and those you know (or could) who know him better than you. ↩
- 6. And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel. (Zephaniah 1:8) ↩
- 7. Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon. (Exodus 30:9) And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. (Leviticus 10:1) And Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord, when they offered strange fire before the Lord.... (Numbers 3:4) ↩
- 8. ...thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. (Ether 12:37) ↩