0:00:00 - 0:00:19 Previous part, we talked just a little bit about these channels of light and how a little bit, just the tiniest bit about relationships between our heart and mind and eyes and how all that ties into the spirit and God's light. Um We're intentionally keeping these things as shallow as we can. Uh It would 0:00:19 - 0:00:41 take hours and hours and hours to lay this all out in detail and um to help with that end, I have ensured that I need to go to the bathroom and I'm holding it just to make sure this presentation is as short as it can possibly be. Ok. So, um if you haven't already, I encourage you to pick up my books 0:00:40 - 0:01:01 . Um, they're sold at print cost, you can get them on Amazon. You can also get free PDF S from upward thought.blogspot.com. And then on youtube, on the Upward Thought Channel, a lot of them are available for free as professionally recorded audio books. So now we're going to continue on with this theme 0:01:01 - 0:01:29 that we started to touch on the last part about becoming more like God. And um we're going to try to make a case that this is at least associated with salvation. Um It, it's actually a lot stronger the relationship. Um But let's talk about, we talked about uh what the channels that exist that connect 0:01:28 - 0:01:54 us to this light within us, from God. Now, we're gonna talk about how you grow this light within you. OK? So this is a scripture that's, that's pretty popular among some groups but not really understood or lived. The Lord says, and if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. Uh Pausing 0:01:53 - 0:02:13 from the quote. If you go read John three, you're gonna find the same idea expressed in slightly different words. Uh I like them both a lot. Continuing with the quote I give unto men weakness that they may be humble and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me. For if they 0:02:13 - 0:02:32 humble themselves before me and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them? I really like a lot of facets of this verse. Uh For example, the idea that it doesn't matter where you are right now. The only thing that matters is that you give yourself entirely to the Lord and 0:02:32 - 0:02:58 adopt his purpose in every way and seek him with all your heart, mind and strength. And then you will be led into much greater outcomes. And those include all having uh all of your deficiencies strengthened. And isn't that a wonderful thing? And so it doesn't matter where you are, it matters how good 0:02:58 - 0:03:30 God is and it matters how serious you are about learning everything you can about him and, and replicating everything you learn about him. But what he, what he says, uh to the point of this presentation is that as we recognize his superiority to us and yield to it, not just reluctantly or when we're 0:03:29 - 0:03:55 bashed over the head hard enough with evidence that that's a good idea, but actively seeking him out in every way and, and as we do that, he's going to make us better. Here's another one. Second, Nephi 1024 reconcile yourselves to the will of God and not to the will of the devil in the flesh. What does 0:03:55 - 0:04:26 it mean to reconcile yourself to the will of God? It means that you adopt His purpose. And even if your idea of His purpose is imperfect at the start, part of this is actively seeking to improve the accuracy of your understanding of what God wants and who God is. Here's another one. Uh 1032. Yeah. Come 0:04:26 - 0:04:48 unto Christ and be perfected in Him and deny yourselves of all ungodliness. And if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is His grace sufficient for you. So, what is ungodliness? It's anything that deviates from God pretty simple. What does 0:04:48 - 0:05:15 it mean to deny yourself of all ungodliness? It means don't do anything that deviates from God and the, the uh contra positives of this is always do everything that he would do. So what it means is never do what God would not do in your place and always do what he would do in your place. So that's pretty 0:05:14 - 0:05:47 straightforward. And yet find me any church that teaches that, that is what the gospel is. So, but the, the, the qualifier here is that's what's required for His grace to be sufficient for you. What is his grace? He lends you light, he lends you light. It's on loan. If you live it. If you become what 0:05:47 - 0:06:12 he shows you, we talked about seeing and how God shows us things metaphorically. He lends you light. If you become like the light, it's yours to keep. If you do not become like the light, there will come a time when it's taken away and then his grace would not be sufficient because you have denied it 0:06:12 - 0:06:33 , you have rejected his gift. You have not come up to what he has shown you. All right. So when I didn't sorry, I showed these pictures, I needed to explain what's going on here. Um It's not actually the most relevant set of pictures. I reuse them for something else. But the point here is when you come 0:06:33 - 0:06:57 to earth, when you're born, you come with a certain level of light and that level of light, it actually differs from person to person by a lot. But as you, as you're born, what happens is your body is a different story than your spirit. And there's a process where you can come up to the same level of 0:06:57 - 0:07:16 light that you had before you were born. And in fact, by the same process, you can come up to a level of light that exceeds what you have when you were born. But unfortunately, if you choose not to live up to the light that God gives you, you will actually leave with less light than you came with. And 0:07:16 - 0:07:44 that's what Jesus meant when he said it would be better for some people not to have been born. Ok. So what happens is as this light expands, you approach in nature, you approach closer to how God is in DNC 5024 we read that which is of God is light and he that receives light and continue in God receive 0:07:44 - 0:08:07 more light and that light growth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. And I think an earlier presentation in this and it's uh playlist talked about this, but you know, the this light within you, you can receive more from God and you're meant to, you're meant to realize your full potential as 0:08:07 - 0:08:38 being created in his image. So here's, here's a depiction of how that light can grow over your lifetime. Ok. So how does this happen? What, what does it mean to receive light and continue in light? Well, there are a few ways to chop this up. Originally. I, I put these labels here. I'm not sure if I'm 0:08:38 - 0:08:59 super happy with that, but essentially you can break this down into two components. One being your effort and the other being your obedience. Now, obedience. That's like a light switch. It's either true or it's not true. You gotta be real careful with these people who say I'm trying. Right. That is a 0:08:59 - 0:09:22 question of effort. That's something different, obedience. You're either there or you're not. If you are not obedient to the light that you've received, this doesn't matter. This is for the folks who are 100% obedient to what they already know and what this yields is knowing more. So this one's a continuous 0:09:21 - 0:09:51 spectrum, but it starts after that. And this has to continue for this one to keep going in DNC 84 we read, you shall live by every word that precede forth from the mouth of God. And remember from the prior presentation word does not mean just characters assembled into a collection with a um a meaning 0:09:51 - 0:10:22 associated to it. Words are examples of how God is. Think of, think of the scriptural use of the word word as the embodiment of an idea, the demonstration of an idea. And it doesn't matter if it's written, spoken or shown uh through people or situations or language, it's all the same. They're just channels 0:10:21 - 0:10:46 to send information. Um This, this says, you have to live up to your full understanding of how God is, no matter how much He sends you. If he sends you a whole lot more, you're still on the hook now. This, it's not punitive, it's, it's a blessing, but you're responsible for everything, you know, verse 0:10:46 - 0:11:08 45 for the word of the Lord is truth and whatsoever is truth is light and whatsoever is light, is spirit, even the spirit of Christ. These things are all tightly coupled verse 46. And the spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world and the spirit, enlighten every man through the world 0:11:07 - 0:11:37 that hearken to the voice of the spirit, that last one super important, right? You come here with light and you can grow that light how by hearkening to the voice of the spirit, which means to pay attention to it and to obey it. So here we have references to both ideas, obedience and effort. Here's another 0:11:36 - 0:11:56 one. Alma 12 and now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying it is given unto many to know the mysteries of God. Nevertheless, they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the Children of men according to 0:11:56 - 0:12:21 the heed and diligence, which they give unto him, heed and diligence, obedience, and effort, whatsoever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life. It will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience 0:12:20 - 0:00:00 than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come DNC 130. So again, it matters right? It matters. And this is what this is why there is a difference between people heed and diligence. And it didn't start when you were born. So heat and diligence or obedience and effort. However, 0:00:00 - 0:13:14 you wanna put it, it becomes an aperture, it becomes an aperture that controls how much of God's light you perceive and receive. In al at 1210, we read therefore, he that will harden his heart the same, receive the lesser portion of the word and he that will not harden his heart to him is given the greater 0:13:13 - 0:13:39 portion of the word until it is given unto Him to know the mysteries of God until He know them in full. That's pretty cut and dry folks. So don't excuse yourself by thinking that there's some tremendous requirement to fulfill the idea of hardening your heart. It just means that you're resisting, ignoring 0:13:38 - 0:14:04 or rejecting anything that your conscience suggests to you. It means that you're either not using or not obeying your faculty to ask what is the best I could be doing or what would God do in my place right now? Do you understand the magnitude of that? So if you're not thinking at all times and in all 0:14:04 - 0:14:26 places, what would Jesus do in my shoes right now and then doing that and then, and then actually feeling the same way about it as he would. So, not begrudgingly, but rejoicing in that knowledge and, and going for it with as much enthusiasm as you would. The, the, I don't know, the, the, the full wish 0:14:26 - 0:14:53 of your heart. If, if that's not the case, then you know, for sure that you are closing this aperture, you're receiving the lesser portion of the word because you're denying the part that you already have access to. If you want to know the mysteries of God more and more until you know them in full, the 0:14:53 - 0:15:21 way to open that aperture up is to truly trust God to truly rejoice in everything he tells you and gives you access to and to run into it full speed with glee. And as you do that, he's just gonna pour out more light on you. But if you try to do this piecemeal garbage of oh, I want, I want power from 0:15:20 - 0:15:43 God when I'm in trouble or when my kid's sick or you know, to get me this thing that I want. But then you don't want the other end of the stick, which is to actually love God and actually see him as much better than you are and to, to love whatever he tells you, even if it's not what you would have done 0:15:42 - 0:16:06 without him and especially if it's not what you would have done without him, then don't be surprised when you don't get the first part because it all comes together. It's all connected. Ok, we're just gonna break this down even more to make it idiot proof. So, what does effort look like on a daily basis 0:16:05 - 0:16:27 ? Well, just really easily. How much time do you spend reading the scriptures? So, you might come at me and say, look, man, I've got a full time job. Yep. I hear you. You might have two and I'd say, yep, I've done that too. Might say I've got all these kids running around screaming. Ok. You might say 0:16:27 - 0:16:51 , uh I don't know, I have dyslexia. It's hard to read. Ok? Don't think in terms of what you can't do, think in terms of what you can do. Pretend for a second that you actually loved God's word, just pretend that for a second and now instantly your brain is raining down all these ideas of ways. You could 0:16:51 - 0:17:13 sneak a minute here and there to get a little more of God's word into your life. I've mentioned before. Toilet time. Everybody's gotta go. So, are you scrolling through your phone when you do that or are you popping the scriptures open for a minute? You'll be shocked when, when here's the thing, if you 0:17:13 - 0:17:34 pulled the covers back off of life and all of a sudden you saw all the things that are hidden from our mortal eyes. One of the things that will pop out to you is the importance of sincerity. You would be shocked to know how vital that is as a channel of light, it impedes light more than anything uh in 0:17:34 - 0:17:58 , in the lack thereof. And so if you're trying to fool yourself or others, and I hope you're not trying to fool God, but some people foolishly attempt that one too often. Uh You might be able to make excuses like the ones that I mentioned a minute ago and, and that boil down to, I don't have time or 0:17:58 - 0:18:27 it's really hard for me. But the fact is that um in doing so you are going to cause much more harm to yourself and others than you realize than you could possibly realize. But on the flip side, the, the counterpoint to that is if you find a way to squeeze in three more minutes and it does take sacrifice 0:18:26 - 0:18:52 on your part to do that demonstration of your love for God and your actual desire for Him, he will rain down blessings in your life like you wouldn't believe. And it's because of sincerity. It's, it's what Jesus was talking about when he praised the widow who tossed in her two minds. And uh he wasn't 0:18:51 - 0:19:23 impressed with the rich folks who were cutting pretty large checks. And he said, because she's giving everything she has, there's nothing I can say that will adequately convey what it feels like, um, to stand in the presence of God and be able to truthfully say, uh, I've, I've done everything that I 0:19:23 - 0:20:07 can not as an excuse but as a celebration. So maybe that's a test when you say I don't have anything else to give. Is it an excuse to not feel guilty towards God? Or is it a holy offering that you're holding up to him with a smile on your face and, and knowing with all of your heart that if you had anything 0:20:07 - 0:20:37 else, you'd instantly give that too and you'd feel the same way. So don't, don't short change yourself by passing over these opportunities that, that are probably all around you. I mean, suppose that for some reason you were literally in a situation where you could not read or listen to scriptures, there 0:20:37 - 0:21:11 is no thing on the earth yet that can prevent you from thinking about God or talking with God. You would not believe how I, I don't wanna say this this way, but I don't know how else to say it. It's not strictly correct, but how lonely God is, how much He wants to interact more with you and the barriers 0:21:10 - 0:21:37 that you place in that relationship are so much more immense than you can know. So don't put extra ones there, you can also pray better. Now, I mentioned sincerity. This is where I wrote a book called Seek Ye, this Jesus and uh amongst other things is pretty much a manual for prayer. But it's really 0:21:37 - 0:00:00 important to be sincere as you pray. I remember once, uh at a time in my life where most of what I understood about prayer was not very effective. And I went to a dinner I was invited to and I heard a man pray and it's the first time in my life I heard someone pray to God as if he was actually real. 0:00:00 - 0:22:34 And this is funny because um well, I don't wanna make this a long story. It, it deeply affected me. Um Don't pray like you're reciting something. Don't pray like you're um punching a time sheet or something, actually talk with God and treat that experience like you actually believe you're talking with 0:22:34 - 0:23:02 God and you'll be amazed at what happens. It turns out we spoke a little in the last presentation about this uh channel of light in this one. We've touched on hidden diligence and how that's an aperture for, for that light. It turns out that developing the connection between you and God, it, it takes 0:23:02 - 0:23:26 a lot more time and effort than people think. And it's weird because on the one hand, you can gain instantaneously so much more than people realize just by like the second you wanna try this, you are gonna blow that wide open compared to everything you've ever experienced before. But, but at the same 0:23:25 - 0:23:56 time, actually getting to the point where you're anywhere near what could come through that channel. It takes an immense amount of time and effort. But here's the thing, it doesn't matter how expensive the progress is compared to the benefits, it will yield over your lifetime. Now, in our day, this is 0:23:55 - 0:24:25 particularly important because right now we are in a weird place historically because we have such a glut of information. And pretty soon we're gonna be in a very weird place historically because we will have so little information. And so we will have experienced the best and worst of times. But if you 0:24:25 - 0:24:51 invest your opportunity now to develop these things with guidance, you will be in a much, much better place when you arrive at the time, when you no longer have connection to other people who aren't in your immediate vicinity. So in the meantime, ask questions, take notes, refer back to them, try to 0:24:51 - 0:25:20 increase in your understanding of things and always apply what you learn, pay attention, not only is it gonna be on the test, but you are in the test right now. And if you don't realize that I can guarantee you're not passing when it comes to acquiring greater truth. Um Again, if, if you look at the 0:25:20 - 0:25:43 book, I wrote The Glory of God's Intelligence. That that's this idea of increasing your awareness, your your acquisition of truth. That's a theme that runs through the book. Don't turn into one of these people who unfortunately dominate the set of folks who seem interested in more. Don't become one of 0:25:43 - 0:26:04 these people, Paul was referring to who are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Don't think about what, you know, think about what you've become. And that's the line that separates those people from those who are actually coming to the knowledge of the truth, who are actually 0:26:04 - 0:26:33 increasing their interactions with God through becoming more like Him. They don't study these things because they're curious or they want to impress their friends at the parties, they study these things with the question of Lord. How can I be more like you and why? Just as Solomon prayed, they want to 0:26:33 - 0:26:59 serve others to a greater extent than they can right now. Uh This one should have been on the last slide when we're talking about opportunities that are in front of us that we can miss if we don't use them well, in the day of their piece, they esteemed lightly my council. But in the day of their trouble 0:26:58 - 0:27:25 of necessity, they feel after me. So counsel here is advice, instruction, correction, criticism. These are things that are not interesting to any except the penitent, those that love God who realize that He is the fountain and fulfillment of all truth. And any progress we make towards greater truth is 0:27:24 - 0:27:57 also progress towards God. It's foolishness to the carnal man, but it's exactly what the spiritual man wants. And Uh Finally, on the topic of effort, here's a set of questions that will give you the gist of some techniques to keep your your studies focused on what really matters. You can ask God questions 0:27:56 - 0:28:27 like Lord, why did you do this under these circumstances or why didn't you do this under these circumstances? That helps you learn about his character. You can, you can try to extract principles from scripture or your life by asking God Lord if such and such is true, then why such and such? You can ask 0:28:26 - 0:28:52 him overtly to show you better ways of being. You can say, Lord, this happened. Was there a better way I could have handled it? Was there something better I could have done than what I did? And then you can just outright ask him, how would you have acted in my situation when this happened? Now, those 0:28:52 - 0:29:14 are all retroactive questions. You can also flip this around and ask it proactively, hey, this thing's coming, what should I do? But again, coming back to sincerity, uh you shouldn't be super confident that he's gonna answer you unless you're already building up a treasury of um familiarity with what 0:29:14 - 0:00:00 he has done with you and others in the past. The best way to do this is by studying the scriptures and you'll be shocked at how effectively he can instruct you when you give him a vocabulary of many situations with which you're familiar n words, situations and words, concepts, principles, et cetera. 0:00:00 - 0:00:00 All right. So now we're going to pivot to obedience and this part's a lot shorter than the effort one, because it's pretty dang simple. Obey everything, you know, reconcile yourself completely to your sincere best understanding of God's character. If any part about that is unclear. Um, I don't know. 0:00:00 - 0:30:22 Maybe, sorry. I was gonna say something pretty disparaging. It's a simple idea, folks. Um If you want more encouragement on the simple idea of obedience, maybe check out my book called Repentance. All right. So we'll see you on the next part.