Video Transcript

Toggle Timestamps

So we're going to talk about resolving and how it's a central, it's more than that theme. It's really a critical foundation upon which the purpose of creation rests. I hope that's enough to briefly motivate the importance of what we're about to talk about. A good place to start with. This is to define the word to resolve is to separate the components of a compound. A compound is just a collection of things that we treat as one thing and the components are the separate things that make it. So here's a set of shapes and if we want to resolve those shapes, there are a bunch of different ways we could do it. Here's one, we could put all the triangles and rectangles in one group and all the circles in another, we could further divide these groups. For example, we could divide the triangles from the rectangles. So in doing this, it's, it's so familiar that I lead you through this really quickly and , and you look at this and you say, well that, yeah, that makes sense. OK. Cool. Where is this going? We do this all the time, we do it so often that we've become experts without even realizing what we're doing. And we don't realize how often we use this, this ability to resolve yet. It's a word that we don't really use too often. So, in fact, I'd say most of the uses of the word are in ways, we don't really think about the meaning of those ways, ways in which we don't really think about the meaning like the resolution of a camera, what's actually going on is you're measuring the ability of the camera to differentiate what is actually different. So a camera with poor resolution takes, takes pixels if you will, that are different and merges them into one blur, right? So in our process here, what we were doing was we were dividing the compound based on certain rules, we didn't spell those out. So for instance, the first split could be decided from a question of whether the shape has edges or not. The second split could be decided based on whether the shape has three sides or not. There are other deciding factors. You could just say, is it a triangle or not? You could substitute a different rule and get the same result. Now without getting too bogged down in into details. This is actually a really important idea in the gospel. This is a side note, by the way, I'm not sure it directly relates to the rest of the presentation, but maybe it does, it's really hard to judge inputs based on outputs alone . In other words, if you were to see the result of this resolution process, you could come up with rules, but it'd be really hard to guarantee they were the same rules used by the person that made the split. And so when you're observing the behavior of others, it's really important to be wise in how you judge them because it's, it's very difficult to accurately see what those inputs are. And especially if you're dealing with someone who's a complex individual anyway. So this is the generic resolution process. What about God's resolution process? What, what's going on there? Well, to motivate this , we could talk a very long time about it. I, I think instead of doing that, I just want to show you this picture and jump right into what it's all about to, to explain the different components on each of these links. This is the ladder to heaven. This is the latter to God. This is the process by which you become more like him. And yet it's a picture you've probably never seen before unless I showed you and no one follows this explicitly because you don't know about it. So we're gonna fix all those problems right here and now and then you'll be better equipped to live out your life in a way that much more closely follows what God intended. So we'll start with the middle. This is your present state. So what does that mean? When long form. Although we could go on and on and on about this, it's still brief but longer form. It's, it's how you really are. It's how you think you are. Those are very rarely the same. It's also how you present yourself to others. There's usually a difference between these three things and that could be a huge problem. It's one we're not going to explicitly talk about in this presentation. So, don't worry if that freaks you out, you can hold on to your illusion a little longer . It's your life, what is external to you? It's the people around you, it's your stuff, it's how you interact with the world. And then with each of these, there's a question of perception versus reality, potential versus actuality and now versus later zooming in specifically is an example to your stuff . There is what you think you have versus what you actually have. It's very interesting scripture in Luke about this where Jesus talks about what you think you have. There's your stuff that you have now versus what you could potentially have. And again, you might not know what you could potentially have . In fact, it's extremely likely you have no idea. And then there's what you have now versus what you're going to have later because unless you know the future and all of its conditions, there's no way to guarantee that the stuff you have right now will be with you at some later date or that it will mean the same to you as it does now. So hopefully that's a nice dose of what your present state entails. But we can really simplify this. Ok. It's reality as you perceive it and reality as it is. And maybe it's enough to just stop talking at that point. But we'll keep going a little reality is, you know , it, it includes your beliefs and your beliefs are your estimate of the laws of cause and effect. It includes the options of action that you think are available. And again, that's just like your beliefs, probably not too close to how things really are. And then it's the ranking and value of the options that you believe are available. And also the ones that you choose this idea of ranking. It's not talked about very frequently. It's immensely important. It's yet another thing that we can never do correctly or even well, while we don't explicitly understand it and intentionally live it. So reality as it is, you might think, well, how does that have anything to do with me because it's bigger than me? Yeah, but it's all the parts that touch you. It's the actual laws of cause and effect. It's the options open to you whether you know about them or not. And then it's the true ranking of all of those options based on their actual value, which is the value with which God sees them. So everything else we might list out as being a part of your present state is probably absorbed in something we already talked about something we have on the screen here. And that includes your actions because your actions are the options you choose, right? Your feelings, which is how you feel about what's available or what's not available or what you have and what you don't have and how you feel about things is based on what you believe about them, your thoughts because you get to choose what you think about and what you choose to think about absolutely has everything to do with what you understand about reality. How much of it you see how much of it you've modeled how much of it you understand and what you understand about it. And then your motives and motives are a pure choice. Motives are a pure choice. But uh obviously that has to do with how you rank your options. And so not to dwell too long on this. But that's an idea of your present state. And I guess if I had to boil this down to one thing that I hope you realize is that your present state isn't a list of things that are quote unquote commandments, things you have to do or things you can't do. It's much, much more than that. And one of the places we go terribly wrong in all of this is by oversimplifying the process, the, the system in which we are. It's not a list of rules for and against. That's, it's so much more than that. All right. Now, let's talk about this arrow up at the beginning. I'm going to call this ask seek knock. It's a label. We will apply to this. Now, I don't go into it here, listing out all the scriptures, talking about asking, seeking and knocking. We could do that. It, it would be useful, but it would be long, we have to draw the line somewhere. So here I'm just going to summarize by giving you something that you can't just look up in the scriptures that you might not otherwise connect asking, seeking, knocking. It's all about an unsolved problem, an unanswered question, an unfulfilled need, et cetera. It's the individual identification of lack. It's what you lack that you want. That's what this is all about. So it's interesting. I think early in the presentation, I used the phrase what you bring to the table. Actually, you take this arrow up by recognizing what you don't have that you want, not what you do have. Now you come into it , bringing as we talked about the present state, you come into it, bringing all your baggage that you still have. But what what you lack is a much stronger component in this process than what you have. That's really important to understand. This is just one application of a terrible idea that has festered metastasized into the collective understanding, which is that somehow in some way, there's anything about us that's good and there isn't. And it's funny because even among people who understand what human nature is and that it's bad and that it's perennial, it's like a weed that, that will always grow back. If you give it the opportunity, even among people who believe that, understand it and believe it, there are still all these crazy ideas about how we can come up with good things on our own. And so, um that's a great segue to this arrow that comes from above and we call it that which cometh from above. This is the heavenly insertion, which is if we could talk about that. Let's not though that which cometh from above, you'll find many, many scriptures about this idea. I'm just gonna read out some real quick. So here's one from James 117. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of Lights with whom is no variable. This now the shadow of turning DNC 67 9 says for you know that there is no unrighteousness in them and that which is righteous cometh down from above from the Father of lights DNC 6364 says, remember that which comes from above is sacred and must be spoken with care and by constraint of the spirit, et cetera. Omni 125 says there is nothing which is good save it comes from the Lord. And that which is evil cometh from the devil. Now, here we've got a dichotomy with two options. Do you see anything in that list of options that says? Oh , and the stuff that comes out of you? No, you don't. One verse I know of off the top of my head that does talk about what comes out of you is when Jesus said that that's what defiles a man is, what comes out of Him. So there is the, you won't find anywhere in the scriptures where it talks about good coming out of humans unless unless it's something that actually came to them from God from above because that which is good comes from above, not from below. Alma 540 for I say to you that whatsoever is good cometh from God and whatsoever is evil cometh from the devil. You have it again and combining those two scriptures. So Alma says, good things come from God. Omni says nothing that is good came from any other place than God. And so it's an even stronger relationship. Maroni 712 says wherefore all things which are good cometh of God and that which is evil cometh of the devil. For the devil is an enemy unto God and fight against him continually and invite and entice to sin and to do that which is evil continually. And so what we have is that the box is the battleground and sorry, I'm looking at the scripture and these arrows, ones from God. This is not from the devil. It's, it's from you from , from below, but you're the battleground and the contest is between good and evil and every single choice you have is a fork in the road. And even in options that contain more than two choices, there's one best. And that's the way up. Here's a scripture from second Nephi 216. Wherefore the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore man could not act for himself, save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other. There's no third option here that says, and here's a choice that came out of the man himself where he was just able to figure out what was better on his own. The catalyst is always from above and below. And then you get to choose. In second Nephi 222 we read and now behold, if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created and they must have remained forever and had no end. There is no change without this catalyst from above life comes from above improvement comes from above. We read in many scriptures. This idea that God's word is life, eternal life. There's no other source in Mosiah 319, we read for the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the fall of Adam and will be forever and ever unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. If he stays how he is, he will remain an enemy to God forever. The only way out is to yield to what is from above and to receive it , obviously. So now we're gonna talk about this part of the rectangle that lies on the left side of the split and I call that what cannot ascend. So remember, the rectangle itself is an amalgam of what you bring with you from everything that came before, I guess what has endured or what has survived , what has come before plus this injection from above and that catalyst, it changes everything that's already there. And in that new mix, a separation becomes possible. Now, I didn't do it in this presentation, but we could as an example, we could walk through the creation account and show you all of these steps because this is the process. It's the process with you. It's the process with creation as a whole. It's you'll see it again and again at every level and then there's a separation and what can ascend goes up but what is left behind? That's what cannot ascend. What can't keep going to the next level in DNC 131 we read I, the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance Now what is sin? Again? The normal understanding is that there's some list written down somewhere of things which are sins and then everything else goes. And that's not true at all. Sin is anything less than what is best according to your present understanding, your understanding changes. So at each one of these levels in this diagram, at each one of these levels, your understanding is different. Remember we talked about this, your beliefs are part of your present state. So what is a sin here? And what is a sin here? And what is a sin here? It's all gonna be different because your understanding will be different. So we're just breaking right through all kinds of misunderstandings that people have. Uh We're not here, we're here. Are we? Where are we? What can understand? There we go. Sorry, I lost my place . So whatever your understanding is right now, whatever is uh defined as sin according to your present understanding, that is what cannot descend. You are stuck forever. Remember Mosiah 3, 19, forever and ever you are stuck at your present level of light, the present link in this ladder to heaven until you fully reconcile to your understanding of what is best. You have to make the separation between what is what can ascend and what can't, what is according to your understanding of what is best and what is not. You have to change your present state to align with that. And that requires letting go of something that you presently hold. And this is a key in Mosiah 319. The key phrase is put off the natural man that is coupled to the prior phrase yielding to the enticing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will entice you to let go of something that you did before something you felt before something you had before something you were before figuratively speaking, it's going to tell you that you need to chop off your hand or poke out your eye or whatever to use some of the language that Jesus used. There's a part that comes from above and there's a part that can't keep going up from below. All the things that come from above are going to come with you on the next step. But the things that came from the prior step that may well have been from above could also very well be in the part that can't come with you. Now, you see this in your life all the time in temporal situations where you look at something that was good from uh from when you were younger and it wouldn't be the best thing. Now, some of these things are kind of innocuous, like I think of some of the workouts I used to do when I was 18 and all I see is pain, right? Because my joints and stuff they they wouldn't handle that well today, right ? But I'm I'm telling you this pattern is all over your life in temporal things. But for some reason, we pretend like if we receive something that we recognize is from God, which by the way, everything is. So we're already off track with trying to treat this separately. But something that's quote unquote , spiritual or religious or something, we draw a box around that and say this will never ever change. I get to hold on to this forever. This is my God. No, God cannot be defined by anything less than himself. And that includes all the ways he uses to teach us about him. So there, there are parts that we have to let go. Ok. So what does go up? What does ascend? It's the better part. It's what can ascend. It's what endures through time and all possible situations and it's what's more important. Again, we could spend a very long time walking through all of these things and just trying to keep it very concise here. Let's just throw out some scriptures here from Matthew 2323. Jesus says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees hypocrites for you pay tithe of mint in Annis and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith. These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone. He says there are weightier matters of the law. Now you can get hung up on the fact that he says, don't leave the other ones undone. He's like, go ahead and tithe your mint and Anna and Cumin. But don't omit judgment, mercy and faith because they are more important. But he sets up this , if there has to be a split, these are the ones that need to stay, the others can go. I didn't go into it here. But if we turned this box sideways, maybe I'll just draw this really quickly. This is where this is one place where prioritization comes in. So let me just make some boxes here and I won't make this complete just for the sake of time, right? But we spread these out a little. Hopefully, this is worth doing. So just using jesus' example here, I'm gonna leave off faith uh just to fit in the space that I have here. So OK, that I don't know why wants to spell it differently, but let's go with it. So what he's saying is, look, this is the correct prioritization. And if you had to draw a line, if for some reason, you can't do all of these things, right? Then draw the line this way. Do you understand? So if you're a project manager, you have to do this, you have things your team could do and you have to rank them. And then you have to say, well, all we have is five weeks. What can we get done in five weeks? And would you draw the line at what could take you five weeks? But you start at the most important thing. And again, in temporal affairs, we do this all of the time, every single day you prioritize and you draw a line and yet we don't do it in spiritual matters. And that's a big problem. And what, what is this? This is the line, this is that line and this stuff is what's above the line. So let's read this other scripture. Luke 10. This is the NRSV translation. Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks. So she came to him and asked Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. There is need of only one thing Mary has chosen the better part which will not be taken away from her. Now, shortly thereafter, I wonder if Martha regretted having focused on what she did versus Mary who focused on what she did after the Lord was taken away. I wonder if the priority swapped and this is what we're talking about. Going back to slide, what endures and what is more important given a knowledge of all things across all time, across all situations. Martha was acting as if everything was going to stay the same as it was. Mary knew what was coming or even if she didn't, she understood what was most important. And so in your life, how many things are prioritized incorrectly? Given reality, given things as they really are. I'd wager a lot , I'd wager a lot, but the answer is a lot. The better part I mentioned this already, it's going to include everything that came from above. And it's highly likely that it will require the removal of things that, that you came to this current state with including things that came from before, from above . And I'll show you an example of this at the end of the presentation. But it's not that hard to find examples where God gives you something better than what he gave you before and that they can't coexist. So you have to choose one. All right. Now, we're going to talk about this downward arrow, which is turning away from improvement. Now, in times past, you may have heard me say or you've heard others say this phrase turning away from truth, that's useful. This might be a better way to think about it because so often you think truth is final and even if you don't believe truth is final, you might act as if it were final when you, when you say instead turn from improvement, it breaks into this idea it breaks into your behavior. The idea that what we're talking about here is change. Remember if you're not changing, you're not growing, you're not improving. You're not living. If you stay the same , even if how you are used to be good. You are in the way of death, you're cut off from the living vine. You're not drinking living water. If you're not moving, you have to change and it never ends. So one way, one simple way to turn from improvement is to do nothing. That's a shocker for most people they think. Oh no, but, but I'm in a good place. If I just sit on my Laurels, I'll retain my good place. Nope, no, you will not doing nothing in the face of an opportunity for improvement is decay. There's no such thing as staying the same. But there are other ways that are more active in which you can turn away. And here are all the verses we already read about all good coming from God. And what I've done is I've highlighted, I've underlined the other part. So we have the good coming from God and we have the evil coming from the devil. And you might think of that as an input, but that would get a little confusing. So we put it here in the diagram when you go with that, when you go with the evil that comes from the devil, you move down, but it's always a response. See so many people, they think of temptation in terms of something new from the devil. Temptation is what the devil does with what is new from God. It's his attempt to mitigate the good that God is trying to do in your life. The new good, the devil can't create. He can only destroy. And so what he does is he corrupts the creation of God. And it's, it's true in the big picture. It's true. In the little picture, here's the creation of God, here's his corruption. It's a judo move. All temptation is an attempt to represent to misrepresent cost and benefit or to misrepresent the set of options available. It's always the distortion of this arrow. But in order for that to exist first, there has to be this arrow and that's why you can't be tempted at levels higher than you stand. God will not allow it. This is how He controls it. He won't send to you new opportunity that He knows you don't have the power to take advantage of without getting waylaid by Satan. Isn't this amazing right there. There's like 10 mysteries. We just hit give or take that. You probably could never explain to anyone before, but there's the answer. So he distorts what comes from above and tries to get you to respond to it in a way that harms you rather than helps you. And both possibilities exist every single time. I wasn't going to put it into this presentation and I won't fixate on it. But I hope you think about how this turns your understanding of trials completely upside down, blows it apart and reassembles it at the atomic level. A trial is not a bad thing. A trial is a ladder rung to what is greater. This is a trial. It's not just suffering, it's not just having something taken away or being tempted or this or that. Those are all partial pictures of what's actually going on. We'll say a little bit more about turning away from improvement. Here are two scriptures we haven't looked at yet. DNC 9339 says in that wicked one cometh. Listen and taketh away light and truth through disobedience from the Children of men and because of the tradition of their fathers, do you see? It's all right here in this picture. How, how is the tradition of their fathers involved in this? Well, that's when light comes from above and you say no, thanks. I'm good. This conflicts with what I already believe. Well, of course, it does. Do you want to be better than what you already believe or do you want to forever and ever be stuck exactly where you are with what you already have, much of which you don't actually already have. You just think you do and it's going, you, you're going to realize you don't have it or it's different than what you think and God's trying to save you from that Matthew 1920 through 22 says this is the rich young ruler, the young man say to him, all these things I have kept from my youth up. What lack I yet you see the arrow, what lack I yet? Then Jesus in another, in another rendition of this, it says Jesus looked upon him and loved him. This is love, this is what it means. And in the eyes of the world, we see correction, we see anger, we see arrogance. We see all these things that people call this. This is love, the love of God sheds itself abroad in the earth through the hearts of men. This is it Jesus said unto him. If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast. He's literally telling him what part of Him his previous self has to go away for him to ascend, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor. Thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away, sorrowful for he had great possessions. You see, now let's talk about the up arrow which is sanctification. Sanctification is holiness. It's the process of becoming more holy. But I like this. I like this verse here. First Thessalonians 47. This is also from the NASB for God has not called us for the purpose of impurity. But ins sanctification, there's another word used here in other translations but impurity. So purity is, and I'll talk about this more in a different presentation. But purity is a measure of self similarity or self alignment. And God calls us to sanctification. And what is sanctification? Well, piece of it is self alignment. It's we remember we started with this. He doesn't call us to impurity. He calls us to sanctification. Now, shapes are holy, right? But that's an easy way to, to connect your understanding to what we're talking about here. God says He is one and if you are not one, you are not mine. Praising and Jesus praise in John 17 that we can be one with him as he is one with the Father sanctification grows us towards his oneness. And how does he do it? He replaces what came before bit by bit to take us higher and closer to who He is. Leviticus. There, there's a collection of Old Testament scriptures where the Lord commands us to be holy as He is. There are other scriptures too, but there's one from their Nephi. But this, you know, none of these scripture lists are exhausted. Leviticus 1144. He says for I am the Lord, your God, ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves and ye shall be holy for I am holy. Neither shall you defy your defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that crepe upon the earth. Now, why do you think God didn't want us to connect ourselves to things that creep on the earth. He wanted us to look up and to reach towards him in Leviticus 27 he said, sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy for I am the Lord, your God. At first Peter won Peter invokes this and he says, but as he, which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written be ye holy for I am holy. And in all of these verses, if you look up the words in Hebrew, and then the last one in Greek, the word for as in for I am holy. It also means as so he's saying be even as I am. And it also means because or as a response to the fact that he's saying I am holy and I'm going to show you some of my holiness and because of that you need to be holy even as I am. And then in Helian 335 were shown that sanctification comes as a result of yielding our hearts to God, which is in this picture, there's also the connection of purification, purifying their hearts . Again, that's not the focus of this one. But what does it mean to be pure? It means to be completely integrated, aligned and similar. So you separate out everything that doesn't fit that description and it makes it better think of the animal sacrifices of ancient times. They cut the animal. Well, first , the priest added things to it. He washed the animal and he salted the sacrifice. He cut it up and then they burned it. They converted it into what would pass through the fire. What was left after you burned it. Part of this was what the people ate and part of it was what they burned. They separated out everything else and threw it in a heap of refuse. Now, before we wrap this up with a summary, I want to walk you through an example. And what we're going to do is take Matthew five, which is the sermon on the mount. And we're just gonna put boxes around it and attach it to the pieces of this model . So we start with that which cometh from above verses one and two read and seeing the multitudes. He Jesus went up into a mountain and that's where he taught them from ask seek knock. When he went up in the mountain, his disciples came unto him. They went to meet him there. I don't know. Have you ever thought about the fact that the sermon on the mount was on the mount and that he walked up there and then they came up to him and they didn't follow him up there as he was walking. It says, and when he was set, what about the actual wedge, the resolution this this vertical line in our model? Well, that's verses three through 12. So what are these all about? He's explaining a difference in value from what they previously understood because this line, this split, it comes from the sword of truth. It's, you're given a different set of scales with which to weigh value. And so as you read through these verses , you get a better picture of what's good, what we should seek for that people probably wouldn't otherwise seek for that. That's not theoretical. Look around you in the world. Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Oh, ok. So I guess poverty and spirit is actually a good thing. That's literally what he's saying. He's saying, let me explain to you what it means to be blessed. Well, you're poor in spirit and that's a good thing because you'll inherit the kingdom of heaven. Blessed. Are they that mourn for? They shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek for, they shall inherit the earth. And so it doesn't say in verse three that you'll inherit the kingdom of heaven. It, it's already yours. I should correct myself there. You'll inherit the earth that the kingdom of heaven is already yours. So with each of these pieces of information, what he's doing is he's creating a sorting between what was the compound before he's saying? Here's everything you thought was good before. Now, let's show that some of these things are actually not as good as you thought that some things that aren't even in this box should be. And that some of those are actually way better than anything else already here. And what's he setting up? He's setting up the split to say and everything that can't fit above this line has to go. You could read the rest of that passage, but we'll move on. The next part is turning away from improvement. It's actually right there in the servants sermon on the mount in verses 13 through 20. He says, ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt hath lost its savor, meaning it used to be good. But now it's not salty any more. Wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven. And he's, he's just again saying, don't, don't live like everyone else when God has given you what you need to show everyone else what he is like by being better than everyone else. Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy. But to fulfill may starts talking about how everything will be fulfilled. And anyone that breaks one of the least commandments, it shall teach men. So he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. And again, it's just underscoring, don't disobey the things that I'm teaching you. And then he says, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you shall, in no case enter in the kingdom of heaven. He's saying this up saying I'm giving you additional light. I'm telling you right now, if you don't change because of it and become better than the best you thought you could be before then you're going down. It's too late. You're, you've messed up, you've missed the boat, you better be better because of this. What about the better part? That's when he gets into? And I won't read these because it's rather long. You have heard that it has been said, blah, blah, blah an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth , whatever. But I say unto you and this is where he makes the split to say this can come along because it's in accord with what I've taught you the new things about value and whatever doesn't, can't come along because this is better. The sermon on the mount even has sanctification, which is addressed in Matthew 548 where he says, be therefore perfect, even as your father, which is in heaven is perfect. And he's saying basically, I'm showing you more of what God is like. And as a result of this process, you ought to be more like Him in all the ways I've shown you. Do you see that? Isn't that amazing ? It's right under your nose this whole time now, to summarize, to improve, there must be a choice and a split. If there isn't a split, then everything has to remain just as it was before. However, if this arrow exists, if we took this away, things could remain this way forever. And that's how it would have been if Adam and Eve had not partaken of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But when they did, that's what they turned on. And as long as that exists, the only way to live is to continue to improve. There will come a time where that goes away again. But that's not what we're talking about in this presentation. Here's a quote from Joseph Smith that I think ties it up really well. He said all the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement. I would have said improvement. But whatever he said, enlargement, the first principles of man are self existent with God. God himself finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory because he was more intelligent saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge, he has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences that they may be exalted with himself so that they might have one glory upon another, which is the links in this chain and all that knowledge, power, glory and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits. So to be saved is to not take this road. That's what it means. And so there's not just one salvation just giving you a tidbit here because what salvation consists of depends on where you are in this chain. And the higher you go, the better it is. Finally, I just want to point out that you'll find scriptures all over the place that talk about some piece of this model. For example, here's a verse from John 313, Jesus said, no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man, which is in heaven. He's saying there's no way up to heaven except by receiving what's given to you by those who come down. All good comes from above and so on. We could go through each of these sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. John 1717 alma 4218, there was a punishment affixed and a just law given which brought remorse of conscience unto man. So when you have a split, one of those splits goes down and it's necessary uh for reasons that we haven't gone into in this presentation, but it has to do with how much of joy comes from having made a choice that costs you something that's a huge component. No one has ever talked about that. There's a price that has to be paid in the gospel in the world. We talk all about prices that have been paid by others and that's not only important. We should talk a lot more about it, but no one talks about the price that you pay so much of what's arranged here is set up the way it is to give you the opportunity to pay a price. Because if you knew more about how things really are, you wouldn't see it as a price and therefore it could not give you joy in the eternal world because the joy you have joy comes from value. You have to have a price in there. It's there's so many things whose value you cannot have the slightest clue about without paying the price yourself. So anyway, I hope that this was helpful. I hope it blew the lid off of your understanding of these things. Um It's extraordinarily valuable to me and now I've shared it. So I hope that this dramatically changes your life as a result of this, that you are like salt that has not lost its savor .