Your association with God is determined by how much you know about him and whether you fully live all you know about him. A complete understanding of God’s character is not required to abide with him, but complete reconciliation to his character as far as you know it is. You become innocent before God, prepared1 and worthy to dwell in his presence through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as soon as you begin and continue to live according to everything you know about him. This is what salvation is.2
If you always live in a way that pleases him,3 he will always accompany you. The Lord said: “...If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” (John 14:23) Has the Lord “made his abode” with you? If not, can you confidently say that you’ve kept his words? Do you even know his words?
God will not abide with those who willfully rebel against him.4 The spirit of God actuates a person’s ability to perceive and evaluate the net benefit of available options. To approach the presence of God requires you to adopt reason as your guidance system,5 always thinking about and doing what leads to the greatest long-term outcomes rather than what feels good in the moment. While God welcomes into his presence those who always do their best,6 those who are dishonest remove themselves from him.7
Footnotes
- 1. Then will ye longer deny the Christ, or can ye behold the Lamb of God? 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. 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 9:3-5) ↩
- 2. And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins. (Alma 11:37) ↩
- 3. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. (John 8:29) ↩
- 4. And inasmuch as my people build a house unto me in the name of the Lord, and do not suffer any unclean thing to come into it, that it be not defiled, my glory shall rest upon it; Yea, and my presence shall be there, for I will come into it, and all the pure in heart that shall come into it shall see God. But if it be defiled I will not come into it, and my glory shall not be there; for I will not come into unholy temples. (D&C 97:15-17) ↩
- 5. For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh, except quickened by the Spirit of God. Neither can any natural man abide the presence of God, neither after the carnal mind. (D&C 67:11-12) ↩
- 6. For the devious are an abomination to the Lord; But He is intimate with the upright. (Proverbs 3:32, NASB) ↩
- 7. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God...And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (Revelation 21:10-11, 27) ↩