Seek Ye This Jesus Seek Ye This Jesus Seeing, Hearing, and Dwelling with God. And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen. (Ether 12:41) Come Unto Jesus Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30) Many people in this world are not disciples of Jesus Christ. There are many reasons for this. All of them seem to share a lack of awareness of what God is really like, and what it is like to believe in him the way he intends. Beliefs and behaviors often described as Christianity abound, but that appellation does not certify that the contents of the package are authentic. The difference between the experiences of believers in the scriptures and the experiences of those who call themselves Christians today is evidence of a deviation from God’s teachings, as God does not change. Far too many believers refuse to consider putative truth despite the difference between their own experiences and the much greater experiences of those in the scriptures. Clearly, something is missing and/or wrong in their theology. Christians who practice adulterated beliefs and behaviors fail to experience the blessed life the Lord promised would attend his followers, while simultaneously providing compelling reasons for non-believers to pass when offered an opportunity to learn more about the Lord. Humans are rational beings. When presented with the choice between normal life and fruitless variants of Christianity, rational people will choose normal life. Why would anyone subscribe to a long list of rules and rituals if it doesn’t lead to a more abundant life? Who would believe in the experiment of the gospel if it fails to produce the same results as promised in the scriptures? No one can claim to have invalidated an experiment that is not performed as originally described. If performed as described, the calculus changes. The gospel of Jesus Christ, when correctly understood and lived, produces the same wonderful result in every person. To those who understand what the Lord Jesus really has to offer and comprehend the alternative, believing in God is the only rational choice. Life without the Lord (which includes life with a watered-down version of what is labeled as Christianity) is full of suffering without purpose. Consider any seemingly positive aspect of life without God. Is it deep? Is it meaningful? Is it enduring? The honest answer in every case is no. The happiness the world offers is unpredictable, fleeting, and hollow. A life of great pleasure can instantly veer into tragedy. A limitless list of friends can fail to provide any meaningful support when you really need it. Day after day, you find yourself fully exposed to an endless list of undesirable situations, and realize you are essentially powerless to mitigate these risks. The world offers you the choice of how to fill your time, but no matter how many thrills you seek, you find your life devoid of deep meaning and persistent value. What does the Lord offer as an alternative? He offers you a relationship with him. You can get to know him through interacting with him in exchange for you focusing your heart and mind on him. The Lord Jesus said. God is full of perfect love: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:8) He will only ever act in your best interest: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:11) God is all-knowing. He knows the future and the past (see Isaiah 46:10). He will only ever ask you to act in a way that will result in the greatest possible outcome for you. God is just and merciful: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.” (Psalm 116:5) These two traits act together in a way that mean that while he will ensure that you will always be recompensed for the good that you do and that you become, you can also rest assured that when you make mistakes, he will forgive you the second you learn from them. When Moses achieved this state, God showed him the nature of his character. God will likewise unfold his character to you as you focus your heart and mind on him. You will have many experiences with him, each one providing you greater happiness than anything this world can offer. You will gain great perspective and understanding regarding the unpleasant things in this world. You will experience deep meaning in life—all of life, even the day-to-day, seemingly mundane things. You will see the beauty in all of God’s creations. Your compassion for others and your willingness to forgive yourself will increase. When you suffer, you will always have the Lord as an advocate—not in the sense of an imagined friend, but a tangible, real companion who will support you when no one else can. You will see miracles happen in your life on a daily basis. You will begin and end each day in overwhelming gratitude for the abundant evidences of God’s love in your life. The Lord wants you to know him. The way to do that is to accept his invitation: “Come, follow me....” (Matthew 4:19 NIV) The Lord’s way is for you to live as his servant. The Lord described his way as a yoke—a rack placed on oxen that enables them to pull a connected cart or plow. He said that his yoke is easy and his burden light. It may seem puzzling how living his commandments—which are not always easy—and serving him always—which is sometimes quite heavy— could be described as easy or light. The secret to his pregnant statement is to consider it in the context of the world. If it were possible to avoid the deeply painful and negative aspects of living as the world does, what would you be willing to do for that kind of relief? How much effort would you be willing to exert to gain that relief for yourself? It turns out that what God asks of us is far easier and far lighter than the burdens of normal, worldly life. When done properly, the benefits far, far outweigh the costs, not only in terms of the sorrow that you avoid, but in terms of the positive experiences you gain. Whether you have always believed in God, or whether you’ve never been given a reason to, this book will help you better understand both what God provides and why it is beneficial. It contains information you have not yet considered. Because of the breadth of what is covered, the information is organized topically, meaning that you should not think that the contents of one chapter mean the rest of the book focuses on that subject. Because of the complexity of the information, some ideas are mentioned only very briefly despite the fact that they are worthy of much more attention. This book should be considered a summary. It is meant to teach you how to reach out to God and why you should. He can fill in all the gaps and take you further. Why Now? For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. (Mark 4:22) The purpose of this book is to help all men come to Christ through repentance and the establishment of a hearing and seeing relationship with him. This book does not contain any gimmicks or tricks. It simply contains an arrangement of the many pertinent scriptures on these topics arranged in a way to help the reader have faith to overcome whatever has kept them from the Lord to this point, whether it be sin, unbelief, false traditions, or ignorance. This is a tall order. Christians may find themselves asking, “If the things in this book are true, why haven’t I heard them before?” Non-believers may find themselves saying, “I’ve seen so many examples of false religion. Why should I believe this?” The answer to these questions is simple, but perhaps dissatisfying to some. God’s path is always found only by the minority of the minority. He said, “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:14) The Lord delights in working mighty works through people of no apparent importance, as was evident in his own mortal ministry. You may not have heard of the ideas in this book. You may find yourself wondering why you have not heard of them before. In his mortal ministry, the Savior preached markedly different ideas to Israel. They were markedly different not because they were something new, but because the common understanding of the gospel had veered so far away from how it was originally revealed. The truths in this book are not new. They are eternal. Throughout history, relatively few individuals have manifest the humility and diligence required to discover and apply these truths in their lives. These few have established the same kind of relationship with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Garden of Eden before their fall. These truths have always been available to all, but known to relatively few. The majority of people have been kept from them by their persistence in false tradition, a willingness to settle for less, and their love of sin. The path to obtain these supernal truths has always included lengthy toil and great sacrifice on the part of the seeker. It may seem contrary to this pattern to neatly package a plain overview of these topics into a single book. It is important to understand why the time to publish these doctrines in plain simplicity has now come. We live in the last days before the Second Coming of the Lord. The tribulation that precedes the Second Coming will occur during the lifetime of most of us alive today. In the past, God could not make all truth generally accessible. To do so would lay heavy condemnation on all those who would not receive what was offered. There is a set quantity of truth and commandments appointed for all men to receive. To obtain more, men had to invest a tremendous amount of faith, obedience, and time. In days past, God would mercifully reserve the core truths of the gospel to the few who diligently searched and obeyed. After all, all those who truly seek him will find them. Giving too much to too many in too much plainness would damn them, because they would reject and be held accountable for what was revealed plainly to them. In previous times, it was better to hide more of the truth and commandments in the hope that the reprobate would, at some later phase of their lives, finally turn to God. Compared to free and open availability, the waiting period and extra effort required actually increased their chances of success. The period in which we live is different than any period from the past. Now, in the last days, the Lord is making more and more truth and commandments plainly available. In our day, the consequences of revealing too much truth publicly are mitigated by the impending calamities that are fast approaching. Those alive today do not have long lives of peace and safety ahead of them. If they do not repent soon, they will not have the chance to repent at all. Because of his mercy, God must make more truth readily accessible because it is necessary to have to navigate the darkness that is coming. There is a finite amount of time remaining before his return. The intervals between the increasingly destructive events God is pouring out will continue to diminish until the desolation is constant and complete. Those who do not attain a real relationship with God will not survive his return. Christians today claim to know the God they worship. Honest Christians must admit that their experiences pale in comparison to those of the faithful in the scriptures. If they are honest, they must admit that there is something that has evaded them in spite of a lifetime of dedicated worship. Non-believers, on the other hand, are awash with religious claims that fail to stand up to any serious scrutiny or close inspection. The quantity of false claims and false religions makes it difficult to take seriously anyone claiming to possess the truth. As a result, God is dismissed as fake due to the many poor examples of those who claim to follow him, but fail to do the things that he did while on this earth. In our day, believers have the opportunity to claim all the blessings recorded in the scriptures. In our day, non-believers will be given the opportunity to evaluate the gospel on its true merits. All those who love the Lord will come to know him. They will “see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.” (Isaiah 52:8) They will either rise up to a greater relationship with God, or they will be destroyed. The day for all mankind to rise up and know God is today. “For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.” (Mark 4:22) The Lord is flooding the earth with the instructions on how to achieve such a relationship. At present, this flood of truth is not generally perceived, because so few are participating in it. Rest assured that the flood of evil we see in the world today is balanced by an outpouring of light and truth from God. This book is part of that outpouring. It is not the first part, or the last part, but what it contains is critical knowledge for all who already believe in God and those who are honestly willing to consider that he might be real. God is real, and he is knowable. If you follow the instructions he has given in scripture, you will come to know him. An Audience with Christ If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14) As Jesus closed out his mortal ministry, he spoke these words. Jesus described eternal life as knowing him and the Father. Some may be tempted to interpret this scripture in a non-obvious or non-literal way. For example, some might consider that we are supposed to know God figuratively, and that we get to know him by worshipping him and studying the scriptures. Others might consider that you only know him when you die. Reading this scripture in context of other scriptures saves us from these and other similar interpretations. John made it even clearer when he wrote: “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 John 5:12) You might be able to claim that you know someone you’ve never met (though that is dubious), but could you claim that you “have” someone you have never met? To have someone, they have to be with you. The Lord Jesus can literally come to you. If he has not literally come to you, you do not have him. If you do not have him, you do not have eternal life. Some believe it is not possible for God to come to you. The scriptures witness that this is not true, providing a litany of examples of God appearing to men. Adam saw God face to face. Enoch did as well. Jacob also saw God: “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” (Genesis 32:30) Moses and dozens of others saw God face to face. The resurrected Christ appeared to hundreds of people, people who had known him well before his crucifixion. Some believe that while God visited and spoke to some people in the past, it isn’t something he does today. There isn’t a single scripture that suggests that this is the case, and there are many that show that just the opposite is true. The Lord made this promise in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) This promise and others like them did not come with an expiration date. As wonderful as it is to see God, a visitation is only the beginning! Seeing God is still not the same as knowing God. Moses wanted all Israel to be prophets (see Deuteronomy 5:4). Only a few were. Prophets have not only seen and spoken with the Lord, they see him and speak with him often. Jesus 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) An abode is much more than a single visitation. If someone abides with you, you have constant access to them. To see and speak with the Lord is not meant to be a rare event. It is possible for you to hear the voice of the Lord whenever you ask him a question, to see him often, and to spend a great deal of time in his presence—all while still in this life. It is not only possible, but arriving at this point is the very purpose of your life. God is an unchanging God. He operates today according to the same perfect attributes he has always had. He still stands at the gate to eternal life. He still ministers personally to all who inherit salvation. Jesus is still the author and finisher of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2). The smallness of the number of people who have obtained an audience with Christ is not due to any unwillingness on God’s part, but a lack of understanding and desire on the part of his children. Hosea described the two reasons that believers have not yet seen the face of the Lord. Believers who have not seen the Lord are practicing one or both of Hosea’s conditions. Either they are sinning, they are not seeking God, or both. No amount of self-applied labels, scriptural wresting, or pastoral assurance can make up for the plainness of this argument: if you have not yet had an audience with Christ, you have not yet qualified for eternal life. Even seeing God is just the start of the relationship required to get to know God. While sobering, this conclusion need not be depressing. You cannot improve upon a situation until you first realize it stands in need of improvement. If you do not find yourself in possession of eternal life in the presence of God, you must conclude that you are either unaware of the instructions in the scriptures on these topics, you have not applied them, or you are mistaken in your understanding of what they are or what it means to live them. The rest of the chapters in this book describe the process of obtaining not only an audience with Christ, but a habitation with him. That process begins with an understanding of repentance grounded in the particulars of the fall of Adam and Eve. After repentance, you are ready to learn how to interact with God in ways that you have only read about. You will come to understand how it is possible to come to know God while still in this life. You will comprehend what great things God has designed in this life for those who love him. If you follow the instructions given in the scriptures on these topics, you will find yourself in possession of eternal life in the presence of God. Terrible or Glorious? And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. (1 John 2:28) Christians believe they will go to heaven to live with God. It seems a foregone conclusion that their faith has prepared them to meet him. But how do they know? Do the scriptures give them a reason for this expectation? How do they describe this meeting? We know that all mankind will inescapably come face to face with God. “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:11-12) We would like to think that this experience will be one of inexpressible joy. Some scriptures describe this sort of encounter. The Psalmist wrote, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:11) We read that the presence of the Lord is a place of compassion so lovely that it makes up for even the worst hardships endured in life. Heaven is a place where God wipes away the tears of his children: “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:17) There will be no more pain there. Will all mankind experience joy in God’s presence? It turns out that, on the whole, only a few descriptions of this encounter are positive. We are told that there will be two types of experiences in that day: one positive, and one negative. The negative experience is just as intense as the positive. For some, being in the presence of the holy angels and the Lord will cause torment so great that it is akin to being burned alive. This description might seem overly harsh to those who have only been exposed to the popular (yet incorrect) description of a heavenly encounter. The key to understanding both the gravity of the negative experience and the reason for it is to understand that man’s default position with God is one of separation due to sin: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23) Some rightly understand that man was cast out of God’s presence because of the fall of Adam. However, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ absolves all men of the fall of Adam. Although all mankind is redeemed from Adam’s fall through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the fall created an environment where each individual is capable of sin: “...because of the fall our natures have become evil continually;” (Ether 3:2) Each individual has sinned, and therefore each individual is separated from God. Our separation from God, then, is not arbitrary. It comes as a direct consequence of an individual’s sin. Preparing for a reunion with God requires removing the cause of the separation. This life is given as a time to prepare to meet God, yet few understand how to prepare, and even fewer are actually preparing. What happens to those who are not prepared? To be brought into God’s presence before preparing oneself for the experience would be catastrophic. A fallen individual would not experience joy if brought into God’s presence. They would instead feel indescribable pain. How great is the discomfort of those unprepared to see God? John describes how men will pray for rocks to fall upon them to hide themselves from God’s face (see Revelation 6:16). Isaiah says men will flee into caves to avoid his presence (see Isaiah 2:19). In life, we escape from a true understanding of our uncleanness and our nakedness by ignoring it. We fool ourselves. We pay less attention to the bad in us than we do the good. We pretend that our motives are better than they are. We claim that we aren’t to blame for our faults. At that day, there will be no deception and no excuses. All men will receive a perfect knowledge at that day, a complete and correct understanding of their own works. The scriptures refer to this clarity in conjunction with God’s ability to see us as we really are. You and I will stand before God, and we will see as we are seen—we will have a perfectly clear understanding of our character: our thoughts, our words, our deeds, and our desires. Standing boldly in contrast to our gross imperfection will be God, in equally clear, undeniable perfection. This pain is due to the knowledge we will receive in the presence of God. We will comprehend his perfect love for us and his perfect righteousness. In contrast, we will also “...have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness...” (2 Nephi 9:14) That contrast is what fills us with burning torment. The wicked will feel indescribable anguish under the full weight of their guilt, uncleanness, and nakedness. The wicked will be in agony in the presence of God because of the. Though Christ stands as our judge, man is his own tormentor. We will be overwhelmed by a perfect knowledge of our own impurity in contrast to God’s perfection. After death, the wicked are “consigned to partake of the fruits of their labors or their works, which have been evil; and they drink the dregs of a bitter cup.” (Alma 40:26) Most Christians, believing they are not wicked, expect a different experience than this. They believe that they are righteous, and will therefore have a glorious experience when they meet God. Remember that “wicked” doesn’t always mean evil. It means those who deviate from God’s law. Some deviate from God’s law knowing full well what they are up to, convincing themselves that God will wink at their sin. Others deviate from God’s law unknowingly, having been persuaded by their religious teachers to follow erroneous doctrine. The scriptures indicate that there will be many believers in that day who will be surprised at their experience in the presence of the Lord. How can you know which experience will be yours? The forgoing scriptures give the key: “he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” will have a positive experience, and “workers of iniquity” will not. It would be nice to think that if you are engaged in religious practices, and if you can trace your practices to scripture, you are safe. Yet, those who rejected the Lord in his mortal ministry were also very religious, and prided themselves in their understanding of the scriptures. Luckily, the Lord has given us certifiable proof as to whether we are doing the will of God or not. How can you know which experience will be yours? There is no need to wonder. If you are keeping God’s commandments, you are prepared to meet him. If you are keeping God’s commandments, God will manifest himself to you. If you have not yet met him, you are not keeping his commandments, and you are not prepared to meet him. If you are not capable of meeting him in this life, it is because you cannot stand in his presence without being consumed by pain unto death. If you cannot stand in his presence without being consumed by pain here, what awaits you when you unavoidably stand in his presence to be judged when you die, possessing a resurrected body that cannot die? The point of religion is to bring you back into God’s presence. If that has not happened despite your dutiful fulfillment of your religion, your religion is inadequate. It would be extremely foolish to assume—without any scripture indicating so—that death will magically remove the consequence of sin in your life. Instead, you ought to assume that there are key doctrines missing from your religious practice. You ought to assume you are off track in your understanding or application of Christianity. All men, no matter their degree of righteousness, will one day see Jesus Christ with a perfect understanding of his perfection and their lack thereof. Let us prepare to abide the day so that the reunion might be one of joy and glory rather than agony and terror. Saved From What? And thus cometh about the salvation and the redemption of men, and also their destruction and misery. (Alma 42:26) From what are we saved? This is the key question to ask if one is to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, what he lived and died for, and how we are to live. We are saved from the consequences of the fall, meaning the fall of Adam and Eve. In the beginning, this earth was free from sin. Everything created by God obeyed God’s law. That all changed when Adam and Eve transgressed in Eden. As a result of eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. Adam was cursed to farm against the thorns and weeds of the earth, and Eve was cursed to suffer in pregnancy and childbirth. Yet, these were only the temporal consequences of the fall. The spiritual effects of the fall were that Adam and Eve were cast out of God’s presence for their sin, and knowing good from evil, were capable of more sin. The spiritual effects, like the temporal ones, were passed down to their posterity. Being saved is broadly defined as reversing the two consequences of the fall, death and sin. Both of these consequences of the fall keep men out of the presence of God: “...the fall...brought upon all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal, that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord...” (Alma 42:9) The Lord told Adam that if he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he would die (see Genesis 3:3). He ate, and in doing so, brought sin and death into the world. Death, a consequence of the fall, is more of a blessing than a curse in the context of sin, the other consequence of the fall. Death allows a parting with our old bodies, which are tainted with sin, to take up new bodies that are not corrupted by this earth. Jesus Christ overcame physical death. He came to take away the consequence of physical death levied against Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. The sacrifice of Jesus unconditionally takes away the penalty of death from all men through the universal resurrection. Mankind will one day be raised from the dead. Though men still die, they will be resurrected. The resurrection could not occur without Jesus having come to earth to live a perfect mortal life, thereby gaining the right to absolve humanity of physical death without violating God’s perfect justice. The second death is the term used to refer to the consequences of individual sin. In the initial state of the garden of Eden, there was no knowledge of good and evil. The fall created an environment where men tended toward sin. Without Jesus, there would be no way to recover from the sins committed in this life. Without redemption through Jesus Christ, men would be forever exiled from God’s presence due to their own sins: “And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence.” (Alma 42:14) As Paul explained it, “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (Romans 5:12) To experience more joy, it is necessary to acquire greater knowledge. The purpose of the gospel is to impart knowledge to men. We acquire greater knowledge as we learn to choose good over evil in increasingly difficult situations. Opposition is required to create difficult situations. Without this opposition, it becomes easy to choose good over evil, but the choice is vacuous and not beneficial. In Eden, without that opposition, mankind’s ability to commit sin was incomparably attenuated compared to the environment in which we live, but so was their ability to acquire knowledge. Here, we have abundant opportunities to choose carnality or spirituality, sin or obedience, Satan or God, and death or life. This environment is precisely what is needed for men to become more capable of living in God’s presence. Living in God’s presence requires the acquisition of more knowledge than you currently possess. Since God reveals to us as much as we are able to bear, what you do not already know is necessarily beyond your capacity to obey. Therefore, until your faith in God becomes unshakeable, acquisition of further light and truth will involve transgression. Our environment here provides the opportunity to recover from these sins in a way that does not effect our eternal state. We all sin and experience the natural consequence of sin, “remorse of conscience unto man.” (Alma 42:18) Knowledge of transgression of God’s law causes men to feel gross discomfort in the presence of God. Jesus Christ provides the missing ingredient: a way to both learn greater knowledge and recover from failures in the attempt. Overcoming the second death is how we come back into the presence of Jesus, and how we are saved. The plan of redemption is the focus of Book 1, and will be explained via subtopics in the remaining chapters. The fall of Adam created the environment necessary for men to obtain greater joy and dwell in God’s presence. Jesus Christ redeems men from the first death through the universal resurrection and provides a way for them to be saved from the second death. Because men are redeemed from the first death, they are provided an opportunity to choose eternal life by keeping his commandments, or to choose eternal death, which consists of remaining outside of his presence. Is Belief Enough? ...believe that ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and humble yourselves before God; and ask in sincerity of heart that he would forgive you; and now, if you believe all these things see that ye do them. (Mosiah 4:10) Salvation is not possible without God freely giving us what we do not deserve. This concept is called grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” (Ephesians 2:8) It is indisputable that God freely gave the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Does this mean that everyone is automatically saved, or that salvation is easy? Some claim that all men are saved. These arguments hinge on words and phrases like “saved by grace” and “salvation is free.” While these words and phrases are found in the scriptures, when placed in context of the body of scripture, there is no argument for automatic salvation. Grace requires faith, and cannot therefore be automatic. If salvation did not require any action from us, then everyone would be saved, and no one would be separated from God. Yet very few people in this world are saved, as evidenced by several observations. First, very few people have had an audience with God. Second, Jesus himself indicated that few will be saved: “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:14) The biggest problem with the doctrine of “free salvation” is that its believers have absolutely no reason to change. They can continue to disobey God with blatant disregard. In doing so, they are perpetuating their alienation from God and voiding the purpose of this life—to prepare to meet God by correcting the conditions that caused individual separation from him. In order to reconcile the obvious contradictions between “free salvation” and God’s word, proponents seem to have contrived an arbitrary God who saves some few for no particular reason, and damns all others. If we will be so foolish as to impose a doctrine upon God, we ought to at least ensure that whatever we concoct is consistent with God’s rarely disputed attributes: He is all-knowing, perfectly just, and perfectly merciful. The doctrine of automatic salvation for the arbitrary few is not just by any shade. Since God is just, automatic salvation cannot be true. While salvation from death is free, salvation from individual sin is not. The scriptures teach that we are saved by grace only after all we can do. In other words, grace is free, and grace is necessary, but grace is not sufficient when we deviate from its scriptural meaning and instead use it to refer to something happening independent of our own faith and works. Real grace—scriptural grace—is conditional. It comes from God and is a result of his goodness and glory, but always includes the heart, mind, and might of the individual. Without grace, man could not be saved from his sins, because without Jesus there would be no way of obtaining forgiveness from those sins. Yet, even with grace, man cannot be saved without actually doing what God says. Although professed believers are probably truthfully expressing that they believe in something, they cannot actually believe in God without doing his works. If you believe in God, you will accept God’s grace and perform good works. When most professed believers say belief, what they actually mean is wishing. They look at God as a genie who will do what they say, rather than a deity to whom we must submit. They wish that God would save them without them having to believe him by doing what he says. If what they actually meant was belief as defined by the scriptures, belief in Christ would indeed be sufficient to save. Professed believers in God who don’t actually obey God are not new. Paul wrote of them in his day: “They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.” (Titus 1:16) If you believe in God, you will actually keep his commandments. If salvation isn’t automatic, is it easy? Is real faith or real belief easy? Recall the man who brought his sick child to Jesus. This man’s child was in grave danger, and he had witnessed Jesus perform countless miracles. Still, he had to plead with Jesus to help him obtain sufficient faith for his child to be healed. The man required faith, and it was not easy to obtain. We tend to overlay our current understanding and behavior onto gospel topics like grace, faith, and belief. “Faith” means much more than our common understanding, “grace” is not as easily obtained as we might like to think, and “belief” is a much deeper and difficult-to-exercise concept than we assume. Consider the belief of Simon the sorcerer. As we see, Simon recognized God’s power in Peter, and he was willing to pay good money for it. But believing in God’s power is not enough. Belief in God is an all-or-nothing proposition. Any part of him that we reject will cut us off from salvation. Simon was willing to believe in God’s power, but not in his character. God’s power does not exist independent of the kind of being he is—the laws he chooses to live. Without becoming like God in character, one cannot become like God in power. Because Simon’s heart was not right, he was not able to acquire the power of God. It is possible, then, to both believe in God’s power and still be cut off by your wickedness, leaving you “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” Proponents of “saved by belief” proclaim that you can believe in God’s power to save while disbelieving everything else about him. They posit that God can arbitrarily change a sinner to a saint, and will do so for anyone who simply confesses him. Some (Catholics and Latter-day Saints, among others) believe in a slightly modified version of the belief-only doctrine, which is the ordinance-only or sacrament-only doctrine (Catholics use the word sacrament to refer to what LDS call ordinances). Under this mantra, God will save those who participate in a list of ordinances (sacraments). “Saved by belief” and its variants do not require a fallen man to change. Instead, they suppose that either a man can live with God as he is, or that God will magically and forcefully change sinners into saints if they fulfill some minimal criteria. The idea that you can somehow believe in God’s power to save while disbelieving his words is ludicrous. Holistic belief in God will definitely save you, but salvation-by-belief is not believing in God. Rather, it’s an attempt to believe in God without believing God. This is not belief as defined in the scriptures. Instead, it is an attempt to claim the blessings promised without obeying the instructions they are predicated upon. If we are saved by this kind of belief, then we are saved independent of whether or not we sin. This kind of belief in God is man-made. Salvation-by-belief is believing in the idea of God without believing in the effect of God. We must believe in both. God saves us not through arbitrary favor, but through making us holy. When we become holy through obeying him, we become able to abide in his holy presence. With so many differing beliefs out there, and God’s indication that many who believe in him are not actually saved, we ought to exercise great caution in our belief systems. We ought to seek to believe God. Believing God means that we seek out and reconcile ourselves to what he has actually said, not to what we would like to think he has said. It means that we trust him enough to do what he says. It means that we interpret any lack of promised blessings as a signal that our faith is off course. Jesus will not save anyone who does not obey him. "And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice;" (2 Nephi 9:21) God can save us from our sins, but he cannot save us in our sins. You can claim to believe in Jesus, but until you actually do what he says, your claim is hollow. Those who truly believe God will keep his commandments. Much of the confusion comes from a conflation of forgiveness and salvation. Forgiveness of sin is free for all who sincerely ask. However, obtaining forgiveness is not the same as being saved. To be saved from the effects of the fall, you must change your character, habits, and desires. Forgiveness of sins absolves you from penalty of past sins, but it does not make you any less capable of committing future sin. It makes you clean, but not holy. Those who do not forsake their sins gain nothing from asking forgiveness: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13) Those who continue in sin despite being taught God’s commandments do not believe God, but are in open rebellion against God, and are not saved. Belief in God of itself doesn’t remove an individual’s tendency to sin. The devils believe in God, but that hasn’t saved them: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.” (James 2:19). This is further proven by the abundant examples of self-professed Christians who live ungodly lives. God’s purpose is not to incite shallow claims of belief from his children. Instead, his purpose is to give us the opportunity to become more like he is so that we can enjoy more of the blessings he has. Good works don’t spontaneously appear through divine intervention in the lives of believers. Without changing your desires, you will continue to commit the same sins for which you have asked forgiveness. In the presence of God, there is no difference between one who has committed sin and one who can commit sin. The Lord said that those who desire to commit sin are guilty of sin: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) Recognizing that confession of Christ has not changed their behavior, some believe that while their belief may not change them presently, it does qualify them to dwell with God hereafter. Does death change your capacity for sin? Did birth separate you from God, or did sin? If sin separates you from God, why would death reunite you with him? Death does not change your relationship with God. The scriptures clearly teach that death does not change your character. As a godly man once taught his son. If belief were sufficient to save, yet insufficient to magically change a sinner into a saint during this life, why should you assume that it could magically change a sinner into a saint after this life? Yet, this is exactly what proponents of “saved by belief” propose. Has God ever said that a sinner’s tendency to sin magically disappears after death if they claimed to believe in him during life? Of course not. If your religion does not have power to bring you into God’s presence now, you have no reason to believe it will then. If it doesn’t work now, it would be foolish to assume it will suddenly start working after you die. This life is not a test to save those few who happen to encounter the gospel of Jesus and arbitrarily claim to believe in him. God is not arbitrary, and salvation is not so simple. If you truly desire salvation, the only way to obtain it is through complete surrender to God. Born Again Marvel not that all mankind... must be born again...and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. (Mosiah 27:25-26) The consequence of our individual sin is estrangement from God. The penalty of sin is not the arbitrary penalty of a vengeful God. Instead, it keeps us out of God’s presence in this life, and causes us to permanently recoil from him in the hereafter. If the penalty of sin were arbitrary, it would be arbitrarily simple to remove it. If sin’s consequences were the result of an arbitrary decree from God, then an arbitrary decree from God could remove them. If this were the case, Jesus would not have had to condescend from heaven to be born on earth, he would not have had to live a perfect life, and would not have had to pay the price for our sins. Instead, he had to live a perfect life in a fallen world, finishing it with his bodily and spiritual sacrifice. His suffering in Gethsemane was so intense that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44) He was whipped repeatedly, each lash bursting his flesh and muscle open. He had a crown of long thorns driven deep into his skin. He finished his sacrifice by hanging on a cross, suspended by large nails placed through his hands and feet. Truly, there is a consequence assigned for sin. Jesus illustrated this fact with the necessity of his suffering to pay the price of our sin. The penalty of sin must be removed in order for us to dwell with God. This comes in two parts: First, we must be forgiven for past sins. Second, we must overcome those sins so as not to repeat them in the future. Because of his sacrifice, Jesus Christ has been given power from his Father to forgive men of past sins: “And he hath power given unto him from the Father to redeem them from their sins because of repentance;” (Helaman 5:11) Whenever we sincerely ask for forgiveness, God forgives us. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Past sins, however, are not the only barrier to dwelling in God’s presence in joy. If salvation simply required forgiveness of past sins, the state of being saved could not be much different than our current state. How could we imagine heaven to be a better place than earth if it is full of men and women with the same evil desires as those on earth? To reconcile ourselves to God is not merely to ask for forgiveness, but to become the kind of person who would not transgress again. It requires a change in our character. If our desires are not aligned with God’s, we are unclean before him. Those whose desires are like God’s desires will find that they also act like God. Being saved is much more than simply being forgiven. To be saved is to become like Christ. We must not only be forgiven of past sins, we must forsake them. Forsaking past sin is not so easy, and usually not as quick as asking for forgiveness. However, abandonment is necessary. Through repentance, or changing our character to be like God’s, we can return to God’s presence. This is something we cannot do by ourselves, but it is also something that can’t be done for us. Those who fully yield their desires and actions to God with a broken heart and a contrite spirit will not only be resurrected from the dead, but will find themselves able to endure God’s presence, even before death. This change in character is a process, not an event, but it begins with a single event. This event is known as entering the gate, being baptized with fire, having a mighty change of heart, or being born again. Like salvation itself, being born again is not a process that is only of our own making or only God’s doing. Rather, it requires both parties. Jesus explained that to be born again does not mean to physically be reborn. Rather, it means to be born of water and spirit. To be born of water is to repent and be baptized. This is the part of the process that is performed by the individual. Jesus said, “And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (3 Nephi 11:38) To be born of spirit is to be bathed in the Holy Ghost. This is the part of the process that is performed by God. Jesus said, “...after that ye are baptized with water, behold, I will baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost;” (3 Nephi 12:1) When one is born again, they—through a combination of personal repentance and an outpouring of God’s power—enter into a state where they are redeemed from the fall of Adam, a state they continue in as long as they do not commit sin. The goal of eternal life is possible only to those who have been born again. Living in heaven is only possible if you have been born again. Jesus said. One cannot be saved by themselves. By complying with the requirement of repentance, an individual qualifies for God to effect a change in their desires. Being washed in the Holy Spirit changes a person beyond what they can change of themselves. One group expressed it this way. The mighty change in heart does not remove a person from the opposing temptation to do evil. Instead, it shifts the source of the disposition to do evil. Instead of coming from within, it comes from without. The resulting purification allows increased communication with God through the Holy Spirit, enabling the individual instruction necessary to bring us to eternal life. Being born again provides us with the confidence we need to stand in the presence of God. Being born again is the launch pad from which we develop the ability to overcome all temptation and become sinless. Becoming born again is simple, but it is not easy. The decision to turn to God is not one that should be taken lightly. One individual described his own experience as starting with an abrupt awareness of his sinful state and miserable destiny. Freedom from this bitterness can only come through total repentance. To repent is to reconcile oneself to God, or to bring one’s actions, thoughts, and intentions into accordance with God’s commandments. In other words, to submit to God in all things. Full submission to God is not an easy thing to achieve. Submission to God comes in phases. In the first phase, we seek to escape pain. This is what Paul referred to as the sorrow of the world. Worldly sorrow is not sufficient to save. Those with worldly sorrow ask God to relieve their pain. Whether he does or not, they rarely change. Worldly sorrow is simply the misery of the damned. It is misery caused by a difference between one’s reality and one’s lustful desires. There may be depression, bitterness, despair, or sorrow, but without seeking God’s will. Godly sorrow is the realization that the emptiness and darkness within one’s heart is the result of rebellion against God. You realize that you have become desensitized and that you have preferred darkness to light, your own will to Christ’s. The sorrow you feel comes not from the temporal consequences of your sin, but from your awareness of your offense to God. It causes you to change. It creates a desire to move forward in submission to God. The next phase of submission is initial sacrifice. In this stage, we are willing to make limited changes to our life to move towards God. This degree of sacrifice is portrayed in the scriptures when kings willingly offer up “half their kingdom” to satisfy the requests of a person they seek to appease (see Esther 5:6, Alma 20:23, etc.). Here, you remove things from your life that offend God, and start doing the things he has commanded you to do. The next phase is full sacrifice. In this phase, the individual sets no boundaries on what they are willing to give God in order to appease him. It is only in this last phase that an individual has achieved full submission. They are not seeking their own lives, their own comfort, or to retain or restore any worldly attainment in their lives. They have an eye single to the glory of God, and their only desire is to please God. This is the sacrifice that God requires. This is full submission. Another way full submission is described is with the phrase “broken heart and contrite spirit”. A broken heart and contrite spirit is when your desire to obey God becomes so great that it crushes any other desire in your life. A broken heart and contrite spirit is what, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, qualifies you for eternal life. Most people are blissfully ignorant of their true standing with God. Either they don’t believe in him, or they fool themselves into thinking that their religion has reconciled them to him when such is not the case. Typically, a broken heart and contrite spirit can only occur in an individual who understands his true situation with God due to the fall, and what awaits him if he meets God without preparing for the event. For example, this is how one minister helped a powerful king to achieve a broken heart and contrite spirit through understanding the fall, the mission of Christ, and the need for personal repentance. Turning away from our sins is not complete without baptism by water, a rite prescribed by God through which an individual can signal to God that he has made the decision to turn to him without reservation. To the apostles of the New Testament, Jesus gave authority to baptize those who repented: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:” (Matthew 28:19) He did the same to his believers on this continent when he visited here after his resurrection: “I give unto you power that ye shall baptize this people when I am again ascended into heaven.” (3 Nephi 11:21) Jesus always personally appoints servants to baptize, and today is no exception. Although there are many imposters who seek to baptize without receiving his commission, there are those who have, and they can and must be prayerfully sought. The mighty change that occurs with baptism by fire is neither permanent nor unconditional. It lasts as long as the conditions of repentance are maintained. Maintaining this condition is called retaining a remission of your sins. A remission of your sins can be retained as long as you maintain a broken heart and a contrite spirit. In other words, as long as you continue to hunger and thirst for God’s word, and you submit to it and live it as soon as you receive it, you will remain in the same state you entered into upon being born again. Being born again is the first event in a process leading to eternal life, and not the culmination of obtaining eternal life. It is described in the scriptures as “entering the gate” or “starting on the path” to eternal life. A person who is on the path to eternal life retains a remission of sins by keeping God’s commandments. When someone who has been born again sins, they remove themselves from the path to eternal life. They have failed to “endure to the end”. Those who have left the path can reenter it the same way they did before: by entering in at the gate, or fully repenting of their sins, fully submitting to God, and being born again. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ provides us with a way to be forgiven of the sins we have committed, submit to him fully, and receive a spiritual rebirth. After being reborn, we are given the rest of our lives to follow Jesus by living his commandments. Our lives become a probation, to test us to see if we will keep God’s commandments. “... there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God...” (Alma 12:24) If we do, we will qualify to live with him. If we do not, we must repent and begin to live his commandments, or we will disqualify ourselves from dwelling with him. Crucify the Flesh Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. (Philippians 3:8) A full relationship with God requires the surrender of all things. This stout principle is stated plainly over and over again in scripture. Few encounter a full relationship with God, because few understand or submit fully in surrender to God. There are three levels of surrender to God. The first is partial surrender, when you are willing to surrender a specific thing or a group of specific things. Many people in this group are honest enough to recognize that their unsurrendered things should be surrendered, but they love those things too much to let go of them. Their unwillingness to let go of these things in spite of a commandment from God to do so means that they love these things more than God, which is a violation of the first and great commandment: Love God with all your heart (see Matthew 22:38). Their withholdings are an idol to them, and as long as they hold onto these unsurrendered things, they cannot have a full relationship with God. No matter what positive experiences they have with God, they will be forever blocked from the much greater portion they were meant to experience. Some less honest people in this group think that their unsurrendered list is acceptable to God because it is comprised only of things they think God will never expect them to surrender. Who are you to dictate what is right and what is wrong to God? If your operating assumption is that you are fallen and incapable of saving yourself, how could you ever think that you are capable of dictating what God can and can’t do? God’s humbling interchange with Job fits any who think for a moment that their wisdom exceeds God’s (see Job 38). The Lord’s ways are higher than yours. When it comes to what God might ask of us, there are no limitations. Abraham probably thought God would never ask him to sacrifice a human, let alone his son, let alone the son whose life was required to fulfill promises he had received from God. And yet, he did not withhold Isaac. There are many other examples in the scriptures. Nothing is out of bounds. Even your relationship with your parents and your children are among what he can ask you to sacrifice. Sacrifice is something that God can ask of you over anything, at any time. He described this as taking up your cross. It is required, and is required daily. Ironically, those who put God in a box do so out of fear. They fear that if they let God out of their boxes, he would end up less loving, less merciful, or less good than they presently imagine him to be. That is ironic because it is only by removing your limitations of him that you can see just how loving, merciful, and good he really is. Trusting him provides the opportunity for him to prove his faithfulness and love. It far exceeds anything you can imagine when you box him up in false traditions. If you look at every person in the scriptures who came to know God, you will struggle to find someone who found him less godly upon getting to know him. Instead, you see the opposite. You see deep, loving, worshipful reverence increase in proportion to how well someone knows God. Putting God in a box does not protect you from disappointment. Anytime we impede God’s will in our lives, we willingly limit the amount of love he can show to us. You may have experienced God in some way—spiritual gifts, revelation, joy, or even visitations—but your experiences are limited and diminished compared to what he could give you if you would unconditionally trust in him. In the scriptures, there are those who had miracles, those who had revelation, those that experienced great joy, those that saw him, even those that touched him. But of those who experienced God in some way, how many were able to abide in his glory? The answer is surprisingly few. With almost every experience, he held something back, sometimes considerably so. Every commandment you refuse to consider diminishes your potential glory, but it also diminishes the quantity of the Lord's glory you are able to abide. For each thing "your God would never ask you to do," you remove yourself from the opportunity to experience that much more of him. Instead of seeing any potential sacrifice as off limits to God, you should recognize those things as the limits of your trust in God. Changing the focus is not only more honest, but serves to outline where you need to change. You should repent, and come to the point where you are willing to put everything on the altar. God has never given you a reason to doubt him. In all his interactions, he has faithfully honored your trust in him. Why hesitate to give him whatever he asks? He loves you and will never ask of you what is not in your best interest to give. When you choose to lay aside what you think you know about God, and instead ask him about the things you fear, he will take away your fear by revealing to you a greater depth of his love, perfection, mercy, and glory than you ever comprehended. With each revelation, your trust in him will increase until it is unshakeable. Perfect love removes all fear. If you truly love God, then seek to know him on his terms, holding nothing back. Only those who put everything they think they know about God on the altar can come to know him. The second level of surrender is surrender in all things that you know of. This is the category all Christians should strive to reside in. This is where you can say with an honest heart that you have complied with every request God has made of you. This is the place you need to be in order to experience a more significant relationship with God than what is available to those who hold back. Yet, even in this category, you have not achieved a full relationship with God. As you progress with God in this category, he will show you things you have not previously considered, and you will realize that you still have corners of your heart that you have not surrendered to him. A wonderful example of this principle is given by the interaction of a rich young man with the Lord Jesus. The rich young ruler thought he had sacrificed everything, but he hadn’t. Jesus helped him see what more he had to do. There were more commandments that he was not yet aware of. We also think we are done far before we actually are. You aren’t there until you are actually there, and if you quit, you’ll never experience the promised blessings. Those who approach God can count on new commandments. They can count on being asked to sacrifice in ways they did not expect. If they already knew and did everything that was required, they would already possess the relationship they seek. Be prepared for paradigm shifts. In order to take us higher, God has to rip out our foundations. He purges the vine before it can bear more fruit. God will teach and call to further repentance everyone who comes to him. That is his mission, to bring men higher than they are. What is called the “Abrahamic sacrifice” is actually not one sacrifice, but many successive sacrifices that come one after another as we obey what God asks at any given time. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was critical, but it wasn’t the first time Abraham was tried. Abraham was tried as a child when he was assigned to guard his idol-maker father's wares and chose to destroy them. He was tried when exposed to textual accounts of Shem, Noah, and the fathers and their experiences with God. He recognized that his father's religion was inferior, and chose to believe there was something better. He was tried when he endured his father’s hand among those who sought to sacrifice him, and tried when he had the opportunity to forgive him. He was tried when commanded to leave his home in Ur. He was tried when his father and brother—whom he had rescued through his own merits and mercy—turned away from him. He was tried when his wife was taken by a rich and powerful ruler—twice—for long periods of time without his knowledge of her condition or any likelihood that she would come back to him. He was tried when he took Hagar to wife. He was tried when his marriages were ravaged by the jealousy of Sarah. He was tried when God told him that his beloved son Ishmael would not be his heir. He was tried when Lot, whom he had sacrificed so much for, selfishly chose the better section of land at their parting, revealing Lot’s persisting weaknesses in spite of Abraham’s sacrifices on his behalf. He was tried when he went into battle to rescue Lot. He was tried when he parted ways with Ishmael and Hagar. And finally, he was tried when he was asked to sacrifice Isaac. Sacrifice is not an event, but a process. While it almost always includes giving something up, it frequently includes taking on something new. These things are not always material objects. They frequently include letting go of treasured traditions or taking on new beliefs. The goal of that process is to successively increase your trust in God until you are willing to yield completely to him without exception. This is the same as saying that you would do anything he might command, no matter what it is. This is the same as saying there is nothing that you would not do if he commanded it. The third level of surrender is surrender in all things known and unknown. This is the point we must reach to have the full relationship with God that he intended for us. In this stage, your trust for God is so great that there is nothing he could ask you to do—whether you’ve considered it or not— that you would not do. At this point, your obedience to him is not a function of your experience or knowledge. No matter what he reveals to you, you will obey. Whereas level two is a case-by-case basis, dependent on the specific sacrifice, level three is total and final. Surrender of all things is described by Paul as being crucified in the flesh: “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” (Galatians 5:24) The person who reaches this point has subdued all their desires to God’s will. The Lord described total submission as losing one’s life: “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 10:39) Crucifixion is not temporary or by degrees. It is total, and it is final. When you lose your life, you are not merely setting aside a part of it. The cost is incredible. It is total. Realizing this is an important distinction between the second and third levels of sacrifice. Crucifying the flesh has an enormous cost, but it also provides an uncountable blessing. You can’t inherit the glory of the ancients without making the same degree of sacrifice of the ancients. When you make the same degree of sacrifice as the ancients, God—who is no respecter of persons—will reward you with the same experiences as the ancients. Those who are willing to lose their life will save it, or receive full communion with God. When we reach this point, we have lost our lives because we no longer live for ourselves, but for God. Real sacrifice is a response to God’s requests. It is not simply inventing things that make our lives more difficult. We cannot live through God while still pursuing our own agenda, even if that agenda causes personal suffering. Sacrifices that we invent are not from God. Cain invented a sacrifice and despite it being similar to the sacrifice God ordained, it was rejected by God. Saul performed the same sacrifice as Samuel, but it was rejected by God. In both cases, there were extreme consequences for their offering sacrifices that were not requested from God. Do not succumb to the temptation to invent ways to punish yourself in order to distract you from the real sacrifice God is asking of you. If you do, you will either find yourself without the progress you could have by focusing on God, or you will find yourself retrograding when your sacrifice does not result in any spiritual progress. God’s path is hard enough—you don’t have to invent things to make it more difficult. Instead, use that energy to ask him what he wants you to do, and do it. A full relationship with God requires full trust in God. You can’t hold anything back. God will require of you anything you haven’t already given him. It is total submission no matter what God may ask of you. Submission is a perishable status. We must die daily to the Lord! Be Ye Perfect Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect. (3 Nephi 12:48) The presence of the Lord causes the earth to tremble. The Psalmist wrote, “tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob;” (Psalm 114:7) “The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.” (Psalm 68:8) The presence of God is a consuming fire. “The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:24). The wicked are tormented by fire in his presence. The Psalmist wrote that “As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.” (Psalm 68:2) John said. His presence consumes everything that is corruptible. What endures before God’s presence? What remains after refinement? What endures through the fire? But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. (3 Nephi 24:2-3) Those who are pure will withstand the presence of God. When we “shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness” it will be “the righteous [who] shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness.” (2 Nephi 9:13-14) It is only those who are clothed upon with purity—those who have reconciled themselves to God’s commandments—that can enter into God’s presence. If you are in violation of the commandments of God, as far as you know them, to any degree, you are not guiltless before God. The only way you can be guiltless before God is to be reconciled to God’s commandments. The idea that a man can be a sinner and still dwell in God’s presence is a fabrication created by men. We must avoid the temptation to excuse ourselves for our sins. Those who believe that God can tolerate sin in the least degree ignore his word; “the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” (Alma 45:16) Those who knowingly engage in sin are cut off from God’s presence. Even partial sin leads to complete condemnation, according to God’s word. God cannot save sinners in their sins. He can only save sinners from their sins. Salvation is not about sinning less. It is about not sinning at all. This is a bold and extreme statement, but analysis of scripture will bear it out. Is it possible to keep all of God’s commandments? If you don’t think so, chances are you have adopted a theology where God permits at least some sin. Man’s failure, not God’s word, is the source of that false doctrine. Only those who believe it is possible will ever try. In order to become sinless, it requires faith in God. It is impossible to exercise God’s power without faith, and it is impossible to have faith in a principle that you do not believe could be true. In order to describe how to become sinless, we must first show that it is possible. That the goal of the gospel is to produce sinless men is undeniable. Paul described his mission as perfecting every man in Christ Jesus. In another letter, he clarified that “perfect in Christ” meant to achieve a stature similar to that of Jesus. Mormon described the possibility of being found spotless at the great and last day. John the Revelator described true disciples of God as those who purify themselves, becoming like Jesus by not sinning and keeping Jesus’ commandments. Jesus, our example in all things, lived a sinless life. One of the reasons Jesus had to come to this earth as a man is to prove that it is within the capacity of man to perfectly obey God. If it were not so, God could not justly require full obedience to him. It is possible to become free from sin. It is also essential. The Lord makes it clear that those who fail to keep his commandments cannot endure his presence. Many mistakenly think that all that is required to dwell with God is to be forgiven of one’s sins. Forgiveness of sins covers past transgression, but does not change who you are. One who is capable of sin remains capable of sin despite having been forgiven of past sin. Those who will continue in sin—even if forgiven of past sin—cannot dwell with God. Jesus can temporarily admit us into his presence by forgiving us of our past sins. For example, Isaiah recoiled from God’s presence until he was told that his sins had been forgiven. However, the indescribable pain felt by those with unforgiven sin will return to such a one as soon as they sin again. An individual capable of sin cannot dwell permanently in the presence of God, because he will soon sin again, causing him to recoil from the presence of God due to the indescribable pain of enduring his presence while in sin. While we are wrong to assume it is not possible to obey all of God’s commandments, we are right to recognize that Jesus was greater than any man who has lived or will live on this earth. We ought not compare ourselves to Jesus in the sense of his knowledge or power. However, we can—and are commanded to—duplicate his desire for good and perfect obedience to God. We can be perfect as Jesus is perfect without being equal to him. This seemingly paradoxical position makes sense when one realizes that God gives different commandments to different people at different times according to their capacity. To be perfect in Christ, one must simply obey every commandment they have received from God. This is not the same as obeying all the commandments given to others. For example, the commandment you receive from God will differ from those that the Lord received from his Father. Because he was further advanced than any other mortal, he was given commandments harder to obey than any other mortal. God has promised that we will never be commanded beyond our capacity to obey. We can be confident that any commandment of which we are aware is within our capacity to obey. That is a profound truth that ought to lead to significant change in your life. You can move forward with the confidence that any trial you face has been given to you by a loving God with full confidence of your capacity to obey. As you grow in ability, God will reveal more and different commandments to you. To be perfect in Christ is to maintain obedience to all commandments that you know. It is to be reconciled to the portion of God’s word of which you are aware. The path to salvation, then, is to first repent, and then to keep God’s commandments with perfect obedience as they are revealed to you. The standard commandments found in the scriptures provide a starting point. If you want to draw closer to God, read the scriptures prayerfully and identify each commandment you are currently disobeying. Repent and fulfill the commandments. God will also give you individual commandments. These can resemble scriptural commandments in scope and form, or could be one-time instructions. Custom commandments can range from mundane to deeply profound. No matter how arbitrary it may seem, it is of utmost importance to keep any commandment God gives you or has given you, including what is contained in the scriptures. As you obey what God has revealed, he will reveal more to you, which you are likewise obligated to obey. If you continue faithful, he will reveal more to you. God will increase the difficulty of each commandment to correspond with your increasing spiritual strength. Eventually, he will reveal to you all the laws that you need to live to be comfortable in his presence. If we keep God’s commandments without fail, we will be able to bear his presence. There is no other way. Because God has promised that he will never give you a commandment that you do not have the capacity to obey, you can rest assured that the one and only reason for your disobedience is a lack of desire. We are given everything necessary to become saved. If we fail in the task after having been correctly instructed in the gospel, it can only be for lack of desire. Most Christians do not actually desire to obey God. They are interested in obeying God, but they allow their desire for other things to dictate their sinful behavior. Desire isn’t the same as interest! Most people get caught up in Jesus’ godliness: the gospels are full of supernatural qualities. These qualities are wonderful, but they should not take away from his humanity. We can learn as much from Jesus’ humanity as we can his godliness. Jesus is our Lord, Savior, and the son of God. He had incredible godly power to work miracles, and even had power given him over his own life. However, while on the earth he did not have a superhuman power against sin. He was subject to all temptations of the flesh—in fact greater temptations than any other man. Yet, he was sinless. His sinlessness was not a manifestation of God, but a manifestation of righteous desire. No man will atone for the sins of the world. No man will resurrect himself. But all men can—and must—exercise the same desire to do God’s will as Jesus possessed if they will be saved. In this world, we can either choose good or evil. Those who choose good will be saved. Those who choose evil will not. You must choose to follow God in each choice, every time. You must deny yourself of all ungodliness, and every wordly lust, and keep all his commandments. We are told plainly that if we love God, we will keep his commandments. You cannot allow yourself to choose contrary to God’s will, even if it costs you your life. The atonement isn't a magical thing: you really do have to change. The atonement isn’t a magic wand. It is a ladder, given to us by Christ, allowing us to climb out of the consequences of the fall. You really do have to be everything that Jesus is asking you to be. There is no other way. The idea of meeting God halfway is false doctrine. You don’t keep the commandments because of slight discomfort. How can you inherit the same glory as one who kept the commandments even though it cost his or her life? While the sacrifice God asks is different for every person, the common element is that each recipient is willing to obey God in all things, in all circumstances, until the end of their lives. If we do not keep his commandments, it does not matter how much we say we believe in Jesus or how often we may engage in good works, we will die in our sins and be overwhelmed with grief and torment in his presence. The punishment that awaits those who disobey God is not vengeful or arbitrary. It is simply the unavoidable result of natural law. Unfortunately, death does not save you from your sins. If you have not reconciled your life to the commandments God has provided to you in this life, you will not be ready to meet God when you die, and you will remain in your present state. Dying in one’s sins relegates an individual to a state of suffering. Having rejected Jesus’ sacrifice by disobeying his commandments to them, these individuals must suffer the penalty of their own sins. It is for this reason that God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden once they began to sin. If Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life, they would have been permanently barred from God’s presence because they would not have had the opportunity to repent. Through the resurrection, all men will be as immortal as Adam and Eve would have been if they had continued to eat of the tree of life. Therefore, this life is a time to repent and become sinless, because if we carry sin into the resurrection, we bar ourselves from God’s presence forever. Because this is the state of those who did not repent in this life, it is incredibly important for us to reconcile ourselves to God’s commandments in this life. Keeping all of God’s commandments is the only way to dwell in his presence. We must keep all of God’s commandments, or we will find ourselves cast out of his presence after this life. Conversely, by keeping his commandments, we will find ourselves brought back into his presence. Willful Disobedience But behold, ye have rejected the truth, and rebelled against your holy God; and even at this time, instead of laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where nothing doth corrupt, and where nothing can come which is unclean, ye are heaping up for yourselves wrath against the day of judgment. (Helaman 8:25) Sin is when we act contrary to our understanding of God’s will. If we knowingly sin, we are in open rebellion against God; we are cut off from God and will be forever until we repent. Some seek to excuse themselves in willful disobedience by claiming that the blood of Jesus will save them in spite of their sin. Jesus cannot save his people in their sins. He can only save them from their sins. His sacrifice absolves the repentant from the penalty of their past sins. To absolve a man for his willful disobedience while he still persists in sin would be to deny the justice of God. Personal repentance is required for one to be cleaned by the blood of Jesus. Clearly, Jesus requires us to fully submit to him and his instructions to us. A partial sacrifice is not an acceptable one. The Lord does not forgive a sin. You won't find a single instance of his forgiving a sin in the entire cannon. When he forgives you of your sins, he forgives you of all of them all at once. You can’t repent of just one sin. You have to repent of all of your sins. “Therefore they did forsake all their sins, and their abominations, and their whoredoms, and did serve God with all diligence day and night.” (3 Nephi 5:3) Repentance is not just about forgiveness of sins. It is incomplete unless and until you have changed your attitude. True repentance occurs only when you completely subject yourself to God’s will in your life. There are no partial sacrifices. Too many people today believe that they can persist in disobeying God and still be saved. Their inheritance is hell. These must believe that somehow they will be able to lie to God on the judgment day, and stand up to his all-piercing eye, knowing full well that they rejected him and their chance at salvation. Heaven’s gates are closed tightly against all who willingly sin against God. Their experience in the day of judgment will be far different from their expectations. Those who willingly disobey God are not only not saved, they also cut themselves off from the influence of the Spirit of God. It is impossible for one in willful disobedience to come to know God. It is impossible for them to do the mighty works that are the privilege of all believers in Christ. To Know Thee And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: (Genesis 5:22) The Lord Jesus said that eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. If you do not know God, you have not yet received eternal life. If you do, you have. The logic here is simple and clear. But what does it mean to know God? If eternal life means to know God, then what could be more important than first understanding what it means to know God and then coming to that point? John taught that those who know God keep his commandments. He equated keeping his commandments to being sinless. Book 1 describes the process of becoming sinless. While this is a prerequisite for knowing God, it is not a good descriptor for what it actually means to know him. Reconciling yourself to God through repentance makes it possible for us to begin the process of coming to know God. To know God, you must have met him. You cannot say you know someone if you have never met them. To know God, you must have met him many times. You can’t say you know someone who you have only met once. Knowing someone means you know what they look like, what their voice sounds like, you’ve spent a great deal of time with them, and you know what pleases them and puts them off. To know God, you must not only have seen him multiple times, but you must spend quite a bit of time with him. No matter how far this may seem from your reality, it is essential to describe in order for you to grasp the magnitude of the journey you are about to begin. Is it possible to know God in this life? There are many people who believe it is not possible to see God. There are many others who think it is a very rare experience, or perhaps an experience reserved only for a select few. They are all wrong. You can see God, you can talk with him face to face, and you can spend enough time with him that your relationship with him becomes the cornerstone of your life. You can do this no matter who you are, what your past is, or how spiritual you are, because his supernal privilege is ours not because of who we are, but because of who he is. He is that good. He is that powerful. He is mighty to save all his children if they will but believe in him. It should not be surprising that almost all deny the possibility of such a relationship with God. After all, since the Lord said there would only be a few who would figure out the path to him (see Matthew 7:14), a majority opinion should put us off rather than attract our attention. If you peel away the hearts of those who claim that such experiences are not possible, you will find that the key reason most say it is not possible to know God in the normal sense of the word is because their efforts to do so have not proved successful. As with becoming sinless, where similar arguments exist, the only thing their failure proves is that their tactics do not work, not that the outcome is impossible. One thing you can be sure of: if you follow the doctrines of those who claim it is not possible, you will surely prove them right! It is possible to be sinless in this life, and it is possible to know God in this life. Beyond being possible, achieving these two states is actually the purpose of this life. While the scriptures give volumes of evidence that God was right when he said that few find the path to eternal life, they also provide examples of several people who were successful in their quest. We need not imagine what it means to know God. We find the condition explained through the lives of Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, Paul, and many others. What did their collective experience entail? They saw God face to face and were conversant with him: God spoke with them, and they spoke with God. Their prayers were answered. They had great internal peace. They had a passionate love for God, and a consummate trust in God. They were taught great mysteries. They communed with angels. They worked mighty miracles. They were given specific missions from God. They knew God well and were known by God. We are too quick to dismiss these men as the exception rather than the rule. The only thing exceptional about them was their desire toward the Lord. Desire toward God is not a fixed property. It is a characteristic that is developed commensurate with the heed and diligence we choose to exert. Since God is good, those who seek him will learn of his goodness, causing them to want to seek him even more. We choose, through how much heed and diligence we exert, how much desire we have towards God. The only thing keeping you from the lives these men lived is your choices. These men were not blessed with special circumstances. Enoch had a young family when he began walking with the Lord. Peter was a successful businessman when he began walking with God. David was a lowly shepherd. Abraham was the son of an idol maker. You and I possess every opportunity to mimic their actions, and because God is no respecter of persons, if we do, we will receive the same results. The lives of these men were full of the outcomes of successful gospel living. But what was the process? Christianity is meant to be the process of achieving these outcomes—of coming to know and commune with God—yet almost everyone fails to achieve these outcomes. We can hardly blame unbelievers for failing to embrace Christianity. As Paul said of the Jews, our failure to obtain the fruits of the gospel turns away those who might otherwise believe (see Romans 2:21-24). Christianity is meant to bring an individual up to the point where they walk with God. Modern Christianity has almost entirely failed to do that. It has lost the root process that makes it possible. It was not always this way. The scriptures are full of people who managed to attain experiences with God beyond our collective imagination. What happened? Christianity has systematically eroded from a relationship to a religion. Core, efficacious principles have been replaced with traditions that fail to produce the fruits described in the scriptures. A relationship with God has been replaced with to do lists of rules and works. Walking with God comes as a result of learning efficacious versions of what most Christians think they already know: repentance (covered in Book 1), prayer, and worship (covered here). Please do not assume that your familiarity with these words indicates your familiarity with their meaning. As you will see by reading this book, the devil has gained a great victory by hijacking and neutering the original meanings of prayer and worship. By practicing these elements in the form of the ancients, anyone can achieve the same kind of relationship they had with God—not through some sort of conjuring, but as the natural consequence of divinely appointed law. The Lord’s return to hostile Bethany after the death of Lazarus is a type of his coming to us. His life was in such danger there that the apostles believe that if he returned he will be killed (verses 8 and 16). The Lord replies with verses 9-10. The twelve hours of the day are the twelve apostles. They were always in the light, or the presence of the Lord, because they accompanied him wherever he went. Because they were always with him, they had him to protect them from danger. Lazarus, on the other hand, was not accompanying the Lord. These three "walked in the night" because they did not physically accompany Jesus, despite being his disciples. Why they did not accompany him I do not know, however it seems Jesus approved of it through his visits to them. How does this apply today? How many of us "walk in the day"? Yet all of us can. If the Lord was willing to return to Bethany despite the hazards to his life, he is willing to come to any of us, if we but love him as Lazarus, Mary, and Martha loved him. We choose to walk in the night because we choose to live a lifestyle that does not allow a habitation with God. Walking with God will occur for you as you move closer and closer to him. I have seen many paintings of the following description in Revelation. The door analogy does not tell the whole story. Really, it is more like a ladder. The Lord stands at the top, and calls down to us: “Come up! Come up!” Meanwhile, most Christians are content to completely ignore the ladder. Others venture over to it and earnestly call: “Come down!” “Come down”! The only way we can come closer to God is by climbing up the ladder. We climb the ladder by reaching out to God through first reconciling ourselves to him in repentance, and then through communing with him in prayer and worship. As you climb the ladder, you will enjoy increased interaction with God. Your experiences with him will grow from feeling impressions to receiving strong, clear information through the Holy Ghost. You will come to hear the Lord’s audible voice. You will interact with angels. You will see the Lord. You will speak with him face to face. These things will happen more frequently. Eventually, he will introduce you to the Father. Eventually, you will enjoy constant access to God. Your relationship with him will be more real than anything else in your life, and you will comprehend the true meaning of building your life upon the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will be an anchor to your soul, a rock solid foundation in your life, and a brilliant source of light that illuminates every aspect of every day of your life. Though the exact unfolding of these experiences seems custom fit for each individual, the general experience is the same. You progress from one level of experience with God to another. Your relationship with him will develop from being his servant, to his son or daughter, to his friend. Walking with God refers both to this transitional process and its eventual outcome. Walking with God is very different from the normal Christian life. The normal Christian's interaction with God is limited to a few occasional and brief encounters with his spirit. Even those few who have seen Jesus once cannot say they really know him. To know God, you must acquire a habitation with him. What does this mean? Consider the Lord’s teachings in John 14. Here, he describes three degrees of relationship with God. The first degree of relationship with God is to have the Holy Ghost dwell with you (16-17). The second is to have the Lord manifest himself to you (21). This is a visitation. The third is to have the Lord abide with you (23). This third degree of relationship is a habitation. While communion through the Holy Ghost is wonderful, it is not the same as a face to face seeing and hearing experience. While a visitation is a once off or occasional event, a habitation is constant. Most Christians recognize that the Holy Ghost can be our constant companion. Few Christians realize that we can also have the Lord himself to be our constant companion. This is what it means to have a habitation with God. God’s greatest desire is for everyone to have eternal life. You cannot reach that fullness without also receiving a habitation with God. God’s greatest desire, therefore, is for everyone to know him just as well as scriptural personalities did and do. Though it would sooth our conscience to imagine a way for us to know God as well as those in the scriptures without any of their experiences, that is simply not the case. Just as a stick has two ends, you cannot know God as well as those in the scriptures without having the same degree and frequency of experiences they had with God. Imagine what it would be like to see the Lord Jesus and speak with him every time you pray. This is the relationship that Moses had with God. But he was not the only one. David had a habitation with God. He said "...I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:" (Acts 2:25) What if they were not the only ones? What if the key to understanding why the experiences in the scriptures are so rare in normal life is to realize that the underlying relationship these people had with God was fundamentally different than the relationship you have with God? It is possible to know God in this life. It is possible to always have interactive prayers, where you have conversations and not one-way dialogues. It is possible to frequently see and talk with God face to face. It is possible to have God frequently reveal to you new mysteries through inspiration, voices, dreams, visions, and visitations. It is possible to be commanded to call down mighty miracles from heaven. It is possible to be a frequent visitor in heaven. Knowing God shifts the focus of our existence from the physical world to the spiritual world. Elisha had more perception of the spiritual realm than the natural. When surrounded by an army sent to kill him, he saw legions of angels sent to protect him, and did not worry. When Elijah needed guidance, he saw God’s hand causing natural wonders, then heard God’s audible voice bringing him the peace he needed despite those who sought his life. When Stephen was stoned for preaching the gospel, he saw an open vision of the throne of God. Do you live in the spiritual realm? Do you have daily experiences with God? Do you go into his presence often? Do you have communion with angels? Are your spiritual eyes open to see God’s work in your life and in the world? It is God’s will to abide with all of his children. This is not meant to be an experience for the select few. The Lord’s only condition is that we love him and keep his words. All those who love the Lord and keep his words can have a habitation with God. Knowing God is not only possible in this life, it is the purpose of this life. We came to this earth to come up to that level of interaction with God. These experiences are not optional fringe benefits of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are not rare occurrences reserved for the few or elite. They are always present in the lives of those who are inheritors of eternal life. The absence of this degree of interaction with God indicates that an individual has deviated from the life required of those who will inherit eternal life. Knowing God means having daily interactions with him. It means being not only as familiar with the spiritual realm as the natural realm, but more familiar with the spiritual realm than the natural realm. If that sounds grandiose, it should. “...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9) Rather than only reading about these things, God is calling you to experience them. He is calling you to claim the inheritance of the saints: a true connection with heaven more real than anything in this fleeting, fallen world. This is the extraordinary blessing available to all Christians: to know God, to commune with angels, to be taken up into heaven, to frequently associate with angels, and to be an integral part of God’s functioning kingdom on earth and in heaven. This is the inheritance of the servants of God, and yet so very few of us have risen to the mark. For some, it is because they do not believe these blessings are possible. For others, they do not experience these blessings simply because they do not know where to find them. The rest of the chapters in this book address both obstacles by explaining these blessings and describing how they are encountered. Connecting to Heaven And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12) We live in a fallen world. This dark world does not supply the power and glory necessary to live a godly life. Everything that is good in this world is a product of a higher world. Miracles do not pertain to this world. Happiness does not pertain to this world. Citizens of this earth are subjects to its king, the devil. If left to only what this world provides, all men would be miserable, broken, suffering creatures. Heaven, in contrast to this world, is a place of miracles, goodness, happiness, and light. Citizens of heaven are subjects to its king, God. Those who do God’s work on this earth must draw from the power of heaven. By doing so, they can serve as a conduit through which God manifests his goodness and power here on earth. There are many Biblical accounts of the Lord leaving his disciples and spending the very early morning or late evening in prayer. He spent a considerable time in prayer. Why did the Lord Jesus pray so often? The Lord’s mission was to bring light into this dark world. He had to pull the light from heaven. As a mortal, he was a conduit for transmitting that light from heaven to earth. The Lord was like a battery for light. His righteousness gave him capacity, and his interaction with heaven filled that capacity. His daily work depleted his stores of light. As he went about daily doing the works of his Father, virtue went out of him (see Luke 8:46). As he was bombarded by unbelief, false accusations, and persecution, his light was attenuated. The Lord’s light was finite while housed in a mortal body. It constantly decayed in the darkness of this fallen world. He had to charge his spiritual batteries frequently. As he routinely connected to heaven in prayer, he was recharged and able to continue providing a heavenly example that transcended anything any man had done previously (see John 15:24). If he had not connected with heaven as often and intensely as he had, he would not have been able to do the miracles that he did. Like the Savior, we can charge our capacity to radiate God’s goodness through frequent, intense interaction with him. The Lord Jesus came to earth as the Son of Man in order to show us that it was possible as a son of man to do all the things he did. He instructed his followers to do all the things he did (see John 14:12). When men become vessels of the glory of God and transmit God’s goodness to others, it depletes them. To do God’s works here on earth, we must establish and maintain a connection to heaven. Moses showed this pattern. He spent much time in the Holy of Holies in the temple, and on several occasions went into a high mountain to connect to heaven. Returning from these occasions, he brought back a little of heaven with him in the form of communications from heaven, power from heaven, and even the physical manifestation of God’s glory upon him. Because of his private sacrifice, he was able to publicly bless the children of Israel with far more of God’s glory than they would have enjoyed in his absence. The Lord and Moses were special people with special missions, but do we have any reason to believe that God will use anyone miraculously no matter their particular circumstances? The mission of the Lord and Moses were singular, but the means they used to accomplish these missions were not special. We have the same means available, and if we are willing to use them, God will use us in great power to do his work just as he did with others. Your mission in life relies just as much on obtaining a connection with God as Moses’ mission did. The way Moses approached God is open for anyone who will obey God’s commandments, and anyone who approaches God in the same way as Moses will work just as great miracles as Moses did. Moses’ greatness was not the cause of his great works—God’s greatness was. Anyone who connects to the God of Moses will work mighty miracles—whether they be public or private. Why isn’t this connection a common experience? There is a barrier between us and heaven created by the fall of Adam. This barrier is two-fold, created both by our individual sin, and existing generally due to the fallen state of this world. In the garden of Eden, neither of these conditions were existent, and God visited this world freely. Adam had constant access to him. In our fallen world our default access to God consists only of the ministry of the Holy Ghost, which is available to all who surrender themselves to God. However, because of the Lord Jesus Christ, who conquered sin and death, the barrier between the two worlds can be broken. If the barrier is penetrable, why have so few broken through to enjoy constant interaction with God? Because the way to break it is not generally known. Though described plainly in the scriptures, the false traditions of faithless men have warped our ability to read God’s word literally to the point where we need help to peel the scales of unbelief from our eyes and see the path God has described to us from the beginning. Truly, he stands at the door and knocks. In other words, the Lord Jesus has already worked out the path for us to connect with heaven and come up to a constant, full interaction with him. Our body, mind, and soul reside here, in a lower estate than God and many of his angels. It is as if he has created a ladder and lowered it into our pit, and is calling us to climb it. This analogy is quite fitting, as it reminds us of Jacob’s ladder. Jacob once saw the ascent and descent of heavenly beings to and from earth. Jacob’s ladder and the Lord’s door (see Revelation 3:20) are actually not ladders or doors, but different names for the same portal. This is the portal that connects you to heaven. Whether seen or unseen, a connection to heaven is like an electrical circuit. It is an open pathway for light to flow from heaven to you. You can come up to the point where this conduit is no longer temporary. You can come to the point where you can instantly be in heaven or see the Lord before you at any time and in any place—a habitation with God. Most Christians have, at some point in their lives, received a sudden burst of light from God. Like an electrical arc from a ground to a battery, you can receive bursts of contact with God whenever you momentarily get close enough to God. A habitation with God, on the other hand, is like a permanent connection to the battery that you can switch on at any time. In a sense, you can become a conduit from heaven to earth. This is what it means for God to abide in you, and you in him. This happens when your spirit increases in glory, becoming capable of constant interaction with the glory of God. When you keep all of God’s commandments, the portal opens, and you gain access to the heavens. That succinct description of the way may tempt you to think it is easy. The way is certainly simple. Yet, there is nothing more difficult in this world. There are several significant barriers to encountering God. Our traditions keep us from encountering God. The traditions of men pull us away from the path that leads to encountering God. This should come as no surprise, given that encountering God is always a minority experience, and traditions are formed by the majority. In the smokescreen of tradition, the only way to find the truth is to feel one’s way through patiently and steadfastly seeking, obtaining, and trying the purported word of God. This process is described later in this book. The world keeps us from encountering God. Though the process of coming to God is simple, it requires consummate desire and attention. Seeking God cannot be a part-time profession. The world demands our daily, constant focus. Those who successfully encounter God must consciously choose to subject every day to him, even while shouldering the temporal burdens of mortal life. Instead of seeing the gospel as a subset of life, life is seen as a subset of the gospel. This doesn’t mean that one must live in a cave to meet God. Surrender doesn’t always mean walking away. Many times it means to walk with a different purpose. Seeking God consists primarily of one’s inward purpose. Though outer behavior will change, it is not always perceptible to the outside world, even when it makes a mighty change in the spiritual realm that surrounds us. Throughout this book, the keys of establishing and growing a conduit from you to God are discussed. You will learn how to worship God and how to wait upon God. You will learn how to pray and what to pray for. You will learn how to develop compassion by interceding for others. If you apply these keys, you will come to the point where you have a habitation with God. You will pray and receive answers to your prayers. Your spiritual eyes will open. You will come to see the effects of the spiritual realm on your everyday life, and learn to effect change by working through prayer. You will have constant access to the Lord Jesus and you will be taken to meet the Father. Interacting with Heaven For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen... (Romans 1:20) There are two parts to our mortal existence. The first part is what we experience with the physical senses. It consists of what we see, hear, and touch in our physical body. This is the world we know from birth. The second part of our mortal existence is unseen, yet it can be seen. It is unheard, yet it can be heard. It is untouched, yet it can be felt. This is the spirit realm. Though men by default do not perceive or acknowledge it, the spirit realm is real. Before this world existed physically, it existed spiritually. It was from that realm that God spoke and brought the physical world into existence. Because the physical was created by the spiritual, the spiritual realm is greater than the physical world we live in. Everything we experience pertaining to this world is experienced in our physical bodies. Yet, our physical bodies are not our entire selves. Erroneously thinking they are leads many people to lives absent the glories of heaven and full of suffering. This world is no different. Just as each of us has a physical body and a spirit, this world is comprised of spiritual and physical portions. The world works the same way as we do: what happens in the physical realm cannot be separated from what happens in the spiritual realm. They are intertwined, and understanding how each effects the other is crucial to living the way God intended. Imagine driving a car with black paint covering all the windows. You would be able to start, propel, and steer the car, but you’d have no idea where you are going or whether you have arrived. You would have to drive very slowly, and you would have no idea what was happening or why when you unavoidably collide with other objects. Trying to live in and understand the world with physical perception only is like trying to drive a car with opaque windows. What happens in the physical world is mostly just the visible effect of what is happening in the spiritual realm. Awareness of the spiritual realm will grant you an understanding of just how much of what happens in the physical world is a product of what happens in the spiritual realm. A perception of the spiritual realm will enable you to act in the full breadth that God intended and empower you to have a much bigger impact on your life and the lives of others. The vast majority of men bumble through life blissfully unaware of the greater half of mortal existence. Like children, they exist in a world they do not understand. Much of our frustrations and our failure to achieve our godly potential lies in our ignorance of the existence of the spirit realm and how to interact with it. As children of God, every person on this earth was created to act, not to be acted upon. And yet, if you do not understand or perceive the spiritual realm, you are quite limited in how you can act and react to the events around you. We operate ineffectively in the spirit realm because we try to interact with it from earth. That relationship is backwards because everything on earth, being a lower degree of glory, is governed by what happens in the spirit realm, consisting of the higher degrees of glory. When we effect the natural realm through working in the spirit realm, we can infuse God’s goodness and glory into earth life, which is naturally of a lower, fallen estate, and walk in mighty works of God and in constant companionship with him and his light. To operate only in the natural realm is to be a serf in God’s kingdom—living out the doldrums of life without an awareness of greater things or how the world really works. The more we learn about how to operate in the spirit realm, the more we learn to have a real, powerful effect on bringing God’s will to pass on earth as it is in heaven. We grow from a blind, dumb, deaf baby incapable of acting for itself into a fully functioning agent on the Lord’s errand. As Christians, we strive to be God’s soldiers on earth. Yet, if we do not understand or perceive the spiritual realm, we are quite limited in what we can do. Like a sailor in a war fought mostly on land, if we want to fight, we need to expand our capabilities to operate in the spirit realm. The real world is not the real world. The spirit realm is the real world. This world is just a lower realm fully controlled by what happens in the spirit realm. Living here without knowing about or being able to work in the spirit realm is like being an animal in a cage, fully subjected to the evil rulers of this world. If you do not know who controls you, and how they control you, how can you gain power over them? God wants you to understand the spirit realm. Paul contrasted the physical life with the spiritual. Referring to the Israelites in the wilderness he said, “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest.” (Hebrews 12:18) At that time, the Israelites lived a law of carnal commandments housed in the physical realm. Paul contrasted this with a charge to come up to something higher: “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels.” (Hebrews 12:22) We are meant to ascend to a spiritual existence. We are meant to ascend from canned commandments to a living, interactive existence with God. We are meant to see as we are seen. The only way for that to happen is for you to see the spirit realm. God wants you to be able to see the spirit realm. He wants you to see eye to eye (Isaiah 52:8), or see the same things, as those who have seen heaven, who see him, and who see angels. The Lord can open your spiritual eyes. The Lord opens the eyes of the physically blind when they asked him to do so. Won’t he do the same for those who are spiritually blind? The Lord once partially healed a blind man, who first received blurry vision. He can do this momentarily, granting a vision or visitation to you, to entice you to seek more. Don’t stop there! Rattle the cage of heaven until he fully and permanently opens your spiritual eyes! As your spiritual eyes open, you will start to become aware of what is happening in the spiritual realm. What you comprehend in the spiritual realm will inform your behaviors and attitudes in the physical realm. Seeing the spiritual realm is not about entertainment or curiosity. Rather, these experiences are to communicate knowledge and provide opportunities for supernatural action. Working in the spiritual realm makes it possible for you, as an individual and a nobody, to effect outcomes that are hard to overstate. So much of what we war against in this world is actually spiritual in nature. Because we don’t initially see the actuating forces, we lose sight of that fact. How many of our worldly conflicts are actually spiritual in their root? Demons can cause physical outcomes: they tempt men to sin, inspire caustic human relationships, create physical sickness, and much more. Similarly, angels can inspire men toward God, mend hearts, enlighten minds, heal ailments, and much more. For too long, demons have had free reign to operate on us, our children, and our neighbors while we fruitlessly cut the heads off the hydra of symptoms in the physical realm, of what are truly spiritual diseases. It is time for Christians to understand and use the power and authority the Lord has given them. We are using the wrong weapons in many of the battles we wage. Paul understood the supremacy of the spirit realm. He said. He was not saying that we do not have problems in the physical world of flesh and blood. He was saying that all problems in the physical world have roots in the spiritual realm. Comprehending the spiritual realm causes us to react differently to our physical circumstances. When Paul feared for the state of the ship he was on, he was soothed not by the physical world, but the spiritual realm. An angel visited him and told him that all passengers would survive. When Daniel faced being eaten alive by lions, he did not engage the lions physically. Instead, he knelt down and prayed. Can you imagine yourself in this situation? Would your first instinct be to look for a makeshift weapon, to cower in fear, or to pray? Daniel was protected through spiritual intervention. He understood that his problem, like all problems, was not physical in its root, but spiritual. He reacted accordingly. So often, we rage against our circumstances in the physical world without realizing that if we glimpsed the full picture the spiritual realm provides, we would gracefully accept what is actually completely for our good. If we are keeping all of God’s commandments, we can trust that God is doing something good for us, even if we do not perceive the goodness. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) By recognizing that there is good in everything that happens to us, even if we don’t perceive it, we invite God to open our eyes to the truth. “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5) Even when all we see is darkness, the light is still shining. We just don’t comprehend it. It is impossible for the darkness to overcome the light (see John 1:5, AMP). It is impossible for anything in this world to overcome the good God has set up as the eventual outcome of what may seem like an endless chain of trials. With an awareness of the light comes a perception of the darkness. Those whose perception is limited to the physical realm recognize only the outwardly obvious places where Satan reigns: nightclubs, gambling halls, strip clubs, bars, and inner city street corners. As your spiritual eyes open, you will marvel at what places are strongholds of the enemy despite no indication in the natural. As just one example, consider college university campuses. While most realize that college students’ lives are infiltrated by porn, sex, drugs, and evil ideologies, few comprehend that most university professors are as demon possessed as their pupils, and are as depraved in morals as much as they are in common sense, as their lives are devoid of light. Our spirits can intensify to the point that wherever we go we effect our environment without even noticing it. Peter was so infused with the Lord’s spirit that his presence resulted in healing the sick without even touching them. Paul was so infused with the Lord’s spirit that his personal articles had power over demons. As your spiritual eyes open, you will perceive as demons flee from the light that emanates from you as one of God’s servants. Your home will become a refuge from the demon saturated world. When you arrive at your place of work, you will drive away and keep at bay the forces of Satan. When you travel, your presence will chase away the demons that have made a stronghold out of the places you visit. The Lord will use you in sophisticated plans to provide opportunities for his children to be emancipated from darkness and to embrace light. Sometimes, you’ll be shown the amazing and astonishing details of these plans. Other times, you will be aware that you are being used, but unaware of the consequences in the lives of others. At still other times, you will be oblivious to what is happening in spite of the magnitude of the effects of God’s light in you. Demons stand up and take notice of God’s servants. The opposition you will encounter will come in equal proportion to the light you receive. This is addressed in a later chapter. Israel’s military victories demonstrate the power of working in the spirit realm. If you were given the task of conquering a city with hardened, impenetrable defenses, how would you do it? The allied forces in WWII broke through the German resistance at Normandy with staggering losses. They pitted flesh against bullets and bunkers, and paid a terrible price. In contrast, the Israelites conquered Jericho, a supposedly unconquerable city, without the recorded loss of a single life. They did it not with military might, but by working in the spirit realm. The Israelites conquered Jericho in 7 days. For the first 6 days, they did not engage in any war. Instead, they focused on God, carrying the ark of the covenant around the city once per day. On the seventh day, God miraculously knocked down the thick walls of the city, and they ravaged the previously impenetrable city in a day. How long would it have taken with conventional means? Would it even have been possible? What are the Jerichos in your life? How have you been attacking them? It does not matter how temporal the matter at hand may seem, fighting it in the spiritual realm will reveal root causes you had not considered and will yield results that were otherwise impossible. There is an apocryphal quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln where he states that if he had four hours to cut down a tree, he’d spend three of those hours sharpening his axe. Anyone who has tried it can tell you that chopping down a tree with a dull axe is a disaster. The axe handle might go before the tree does! When we are ignorant of the spiritual realm, we spend far more effort on the physical realm than is necessary, and achieve far fewer goals than we could if we had simply put sufficient effort into tackling the matter in the spirit realm first. The key tool for interacting with the spirit realm is prayer. God can open our spiritual eyes in visions, our ears to hearing voices, and our minds through quickened flashes of knowledge, but we cannot initiate any of those experiences directly. Real experiences from God cannot be conjured by desire or imagination. They must come from God. Sometimes they come unexpectedly. Many times, they come in response to prayer. Prayer is how we initiate communication with God. Prayer opens the eyes of our spiritual understanding. If we want to see the unseen, we ask in prayer. If we want to know what we do not know, we ask in prayer. If we need to summon the assistance of angels, we ask in prayer. Our frequent practice of prayer opens, expands, and persists our connection with God, making his communications with us more frequent, whether his responses come during our prayers or between them. God administers the universe through the angels that stand by his throne and are distributed throughout his kingdom. Every level of God’s government has an angel in charge, and each governing angel has angels under his charge. This pattern continues both in heavenly realms and here on earth. For example, each region on earth has a chief angel. In fact, each person has an angel assigned to them. As you can imagine, that adds up to a lot of angels. They are innumerable. These angels don’t simply sit idle. They conduct God’s work. With angels being the agents of God’s work, and with so many of them, it should come as no surprise that they are intimately involved in the daily affairs of life on earth. The spiritual realm is the realm of angels. If you desire to do God’s work, you must learn to work in the spiritual realm. If you desire to work in the spiritual realm, you must learn to work with the angels. Interactions with angels are key to our work in the spirit realm. Angels are critical agents in God’s plan, yet they operate outside of the awareness of most Christians. It ought not to be this way. The interplay between your standing with God and an angel’s standing with God determines how you will interact with them. We are told that men are a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5), but we are also told that men will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3). Which is it? Actually, both are true. Angels, men, and demons each come in all degrees of power. Some have attained great power, and stand in the presence of God. Gabriel, for instance, said that he stands in the presence of God (Luke 1:19). As an angel, the devil obtained power to stand in the presence of God (Job 1:6). Some angels are high ranking, some are lower ranking, and many angels fall somewhere in between. In some cases, angels will appear to you and you will give them God’s instructions. In many cases, angels will appear to you to give you God’s instructions. Sometimes, you will work alongside angels in carrying out God’s instructions. In all cases, angels are agents of God’s will. They are not objects of worship, and they are not replacements for God himself. A case study in interacting with angels is provided by Paul’s call to go to Macedonia. After preaching the gospel in several cities, he was searching for where to preach next. He suggested options and was rebutted by the Holy Ghost. Then he reported the following night vision: “There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” (Acts 16:9) Who was this “man of Macedonia?” At first, it seems that Paul saw a man in Macedonia who was praying, asking that Paul come to them. This is not the case. How would a man who has never heard of Paul know to pray for him to come? The man was not praying in the modern sense of the word (praying to heaven), but was urging or asking Paul directly. This “man of Macedonia” was the chief angel over Macedonia. God, knowing Paul was available, allowed that angel to request that he come to Macedonia to help the angels laboring there. Many times we think that the angels exist to help us, and many times that is true. However, there is no reason that we cannot also help them. If we are going to interact in the spirit realm, we must understand the hierarchy that exists there. Just as regions have chief angels and all ranks of subordinate angels, regions have chief demons and all ranks of subordinate demons. Just as angels interact with demons and men, demons interact with angels and men. When righteous Daniel prayed for understanding, God dispatched Gabriel to answer his prayer. Mighty Gabriel was detained by demonic chief angel over Persia. This demonic prince was so powerful that Gabriel was unable to conquer him until the archangel Michael came to assist him. Some Christians foolishly assume that they have authority over all demons, or that they as humans are mightier than all angels. There is no scripture that suggests that such is the case. In fact, there is ample evidence to the contrary. Despite Daniel’s righteousness, when Gabriel appeared to him he collapsed from the strain of being in Gabriel’s presence. Yet, Gabriel is lower in glory than Michael, whose extra strength was required to overcome the prince of Persia. Though Michael is capable of overcoming chief demons, for now he must rely on the Lord to rebuke Satan himself (see Jude 1:9). To think that somehow a normal man can have authority over Satan when Daniel, Gabriel, and Michael cannot is great folly. Satan and many of his minions have greater authority than the typical man. When demons are rebuked by men they outrank, the demons laugh at their ignorance. They are apt to physically harm those who engage them without sufficient authority, as happened to the sons of Sceva. Consider the legion of demons that the Lord cast out of the Gergesene man. The account says that this man occupied tombs that were along a popular road. People had to avoid the road because the man would hurt them. They expended great effort to chain him, but the demons gave him superhuman strength to break the chains. What do you suppose would have happened to the Lord if he had approached this possessed man without sufficient authority to cast out the demons? It is easier to tear apart a man than iron chains! When you exceed your authority with demons, they will unleash their power on you. This can result in great physical and spiritual harm. This is why it is very important to understand what power and authority you have with God. Obtaining that power and authority is the subject of the next chapter. For far too long, Christians have lived below their privileges as our angelic advocates have been underutilized. It is time to become active participants in the decisions of heaven, and to bring to pass God’s will on the earth. Obtaining Power and Authority with God And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me. (Moroni 7:33) Most Christians fall into two camps. Either they have settled for a passive but mediocre life that is quite far from the experiences of believers as recorded in scripture, or they live an active but frustrated life from trying and trying but failing to achieve the kind of experiences of believers recorded in scriptures. In both cases, the disconnect is caused by one or both of the following failings: Failure to understand and live repentance (discussed earlier in this book), and/or failure to understand and interact with the spirit world. Repentance and movement in the spirit world are absolutely essential to coming to know the Lord. There is no other way. The failure of Christians to demonstrate the fruits of what they profess to believe drives away atheists and agnostics with greater power than any of Satan’s temptations. Once Elijah won many souls to God by demonstrating that God’s power was far greater than that of the priests of Ba’al. How many of today’s Christians could produce the same outcome? It ought not be so. The Lord Jesus has all power here and authority over everything here. Why are his self-proclaimed servants so impotent? Peter came to the point where he was so charged with God’s glory that when he walked by the sick, they were healed merely from his shadow touching them. How do you obtain that kind of power from God? God’s power and authority flow through his kingdom. Many Christians claim citizenship in God’s kingdom, but few possess knowledge of his will beyond their understanding of scripture, and even fewer successfully bring that will to pass in the physical world. Of what use are subjects who do not know the will of the king or who lack the power to do it? Towards the end of his ministry, the Lord asked Peter a provocative question. The exchange gives us insights into what power and authority are and how we can obtain them. Peter receives from Jesus a weighty charge. He receives the keys of the kingdom, with the ability to bind on earth and loose on earth. But was the Lord saying that he was only giving these keys to Peter? Many think the answer is yes because this passage uses the singular version of “you”—meaning that the Lord was addressing Peter specifically. Yet, the Lord repeats the same proclamation in Matthew 18 while speaking to his followers in general. There, he uses the plural version of “you,” indicating that his charge to Peter was a specific application of what was available generally, not a special charge to Peter. If all followers of Christ have the keys of the kingdom, you do too! What does it mean to possess the keys of the kingdom? The Amplified translation gives us a better understanding. He was saying, “what is bound in heaven, you bind on earth; what is loosed in heaven, you loose on earth.” When the Lord gave the keys of the kingdom to all his followers, what he was giving was the ability to do his will on earth. This begs the question of how you will know his will. How do you know what is bound or loosed in heaven? This question is answered in the exchange that spurred this whole conversation. Peter, by revelation from God, declared that the Lord Jesus was the Christ. The Lord responded by saying that revelation was the rock upon which he would build his church. In other words, revelation is the mechanism by which the Lord administers his kingdom. Revelation is how you will know what is bound or loosed in heaven. Notice that the discussion thus far has been about transmitting on earth what is already decided in heaven. Is this the limit of the charge? No. As described in this passage and throughout scripture, God’s decisions are made in heaven, not on earth. Therefore, if you want to be a participant in that process, you have to effect heavenly councils. If God's power on earth is limited to carrying out what has already been decided in heaven, it also means that you must work in heaven if you are to participate in that decision making process. What are the keys to the kingdom? They consist in understanding that God’s authority operates on earth through his word revealed from and decided upon in heaven. When God gives you the keys to the kingdom, he is saying “I enable you to comprehend the operations and works of my kingdom in heaven, to participate in the decisions that are made there, and to carry out those decisions on earth.” There are three charges here: 1) learn what is decided in heaven; 2) do what is decided in heaven on earth; 3) influence what happens in heaven. 1 - Learn what is decided in heaven. The keys to the kingdom are at once an astounding dispensation of power and an incredible check on that power. God does not give his authority to men. Instead, he allows them to act on his authority only when they learn and execute exactly what he wants to be done, how he wants it to be done, when he wants it to be done. Men never have the ability to use God’s power autonomously from God. Therefore, learning what he wants to be done, how he wants it to be done, and when he wants it to be done are absolutely essential for all who want to be active subjects in his kingdom. The essence of the Lord’s prayer is “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) The only way to learn God’s will is through God’s word. Of course, God’s word is found in the scriptures. Some would suppose that we know everything we need to know about God’s will from the scriptures. However, this is his general word to everyone, and the principles there may not provide the specific counsel needed to inform your actions. If the scriptures are the limit of your understanding of what is decided in heaven, you are an ineffective servant of God for two reasons. First, your understanding of what is in the Bible is likely clouded by the false traditions of men. Peter wrote that scriptures are understood correctly only when God’s original meaning is known: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.” (2 Peter 1:20) The only way you can know whether your understanding of scripture is based on private interpretation or God’s original intent is if he communicates to you directly. This is revelation. The Bible was never meant to stand independent of the revelation required to understand and specifically apply it. Secondly, when you operate without revelation, your instructions are limited to those general instructions found in the scriptures. With only the scriptures, you are like a commando in battle with only the military handbook for guidance. If you expect to benefit from the power wielded by your superiors (air support, ground support, supplies, etc.) and to work in conjunction with your fellow soldiers, you must have a radio where specific communication can flow back and forth between you, your commander, and your fellow units. Revelation provides the two-way communication between you, the Lord, and the angels. It is how the spiritual battle is coordinated. Don’t cut yourself off from that channel. Seek it, develop it, and trust it. The Lord Jesus had the task, as we do, of preaching the acceptable year of the Lord. This cryptic phrase is clarified in the Amplified translation. The acceptable year of the Lord is a period when salvation and the favor of God abound greatly. The Lord Jesus came to save mankind, but that is not all. He came to pour out the favor of God greatly, demonstrated by his working miracles. Though we cannot work out salvation for others, we are charged to emulate the miraculous works of the Savior, and even charged to do more than he did (see John 14:12). When we achieve a habitation with God, all things are possible. The Lord promised that those who follow him will do greater things than he did. Yet, what Christian do you know that does even equal to what the Lord Jesus did? A habitation with God is the missing piece of the puzzle. The Lord was shown exactly what miracles he should work, how he should work them, and when he should work them (see John 5:19). He did not freelance. If the Lord needed specific, special revelation to inform him of his Father’s will for the miracles he would do every day, how can we expect to do even more than he did having only the general counsel provided by the scriptures? The Lord was able to do what he did because he had a habitation with the Father. He said he only did those things that his Father showed him to do. You cannot achieve that kind of power of God in your life without a habitation with God, so he can tell you what to do every day. You have to know his will to do his works, and you have to know him in order to know his will. 2 - Do what is decided in heaven on earth. Most Christians live only in this aspect of the keys, and even this they do only partially. They are confined to action in the physical realm, with only a partial or sometimes even incorrect understanding of what is decided in heaven. God’s miraculous works require faith. While you can believe in anything you choose, God is only found in what is true. You cannot have faith in something that is not true. Therefore, your capacity to execute the power of God is limited to your understanding of the decisions made in heaven. You will never encounter God’s power while doing on earth something that is contrary to the will of heaven. This is one reason the life of most Christians is devoid of tangible manifestations of God’s power: they do not know God’s will, and are merely guessing what it might be. You will not engage in risky, embarrassing, or difficult tasks if you are merely guessing that they are God’s will. Yet, God’s power seems to be largely confined to precisely those types of situations. The famous stories from scripture did not take place when someone was sitting at home on their couch watching TV. Instead, the people involved were risking their lives, their wealth, and their comfort in actively carrying out God’s will as revealed specifically to them. You cannot practice this charge absent of knowledge of what is decided in heaven. Many Christians erroneously believe that God gives his authority to men. Working mighty works in God is not a result of him having given to you some special authority that no one else has. Instead, he gives his word to an individual (sometimes following a prayerful request), dictating precisely what they should do, how they should do it, and when they should do it. God told Moses to part the Red Sea. He told him how to do it. God told Elijah to call down fire from heaven. Elijah was given specific instructions, including to dig a ditch around the altar and pour enough water on the sacrifice to fill the ditch. God does not give his power to men. He said. Servants of God are not independent agents who can wield God’s power without God being involved. Instead, they are always tethered by God’s will—and not just in the efficacy of their works. A branch cannot produce fruit independent of the vine. All fruit it produces comes from the vine through the branch. Likewise, men can exercise God’s power if they are connected to God. True servants of God do not act without having received their mission from God. True servants of God do not give blessings that do not come to pass, prophecies that are not fulfilled, or attempt miracles that do not succeed. This only happens when men freelance. If you want to do more miraculous works, you need to have God speak to you more often and invite you to do those things. How is this done? You need to repent of all of your sins. You need to hunger and thirst after him. You need to develop the humility, reverence, and trust with him to do anything he asks you to. The Lord wants us to talk to him all day. He wants us to include him in our lives. We are told to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests...” (Ephesians 6:18, NIV) We are to pray over the events of the day and our temporal concerns. If we do this, he will give us instructions for how to carry out our day-to-day lives: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6) When we are on the Lord’s errand, we will see the Lord’s power. If you want God to exert his power in your life, you have to seek him in all things. Before you make any decision, check in with him. It doesn’t have to be an hour long prayer, just check in. You’ll be surprised how many instructions you get. It is very hard for you to get to the place where he will tell you everything about a day in your morning prayer, but it is very easy to stop throughout your day and ask him if he has anything to say about it. We expect God’s miracles to happen in abstract of our normal lives. It doesn’t work that way. Consider any miraculous story you’ve heard. What were the circumstances? It always happens in conjunction with life, not in abstract of it. The separation between our spiritual and temporal lives is artificial and of our own creation, not God’s. There is great peace in aligning your life with the Lord. This is how his yoke becomes easy and his burden light. Imagine if you could turn to God in every difficulty you encounter, knowing that you are doing his perfect will for you. It isn’t that trials go away, but that when you love him and align your life to him, you achieve a restful trust in God, knowing that he is with you and whatever happens is for your good. Imagine if you had perfect confidence that God was with you and that everything that happens in your life is for your good. Then, like the Lord Jesus, you could respond to trials knowing God would send 72,000 angels if you asked him to (see Matthew 26:53). We should include him in every aspect of our lives where we want to see his glory work for our good. When you walk with God, you have an acute awareness of what he is doing in and around you. You don’t just believe he is in control, you know he is in control. This was the confidence Paul had. Despite knowing he would be shipwrecked, he had total peace because an angel had come and promised him that no one would die (see Acts 27:22-25). This was also the source of Stephen’s confidence. He faced death by stoning in peace because he saw God’s throne and had a perfect knowledge of his goodness and glory, and that God was in control (see Acts 7:55-60). You can’t go and do your own thing and then complain that God is not in your life. Filter everything in your life through God, and make every adjustment he suggests. That’s how you walk with God and encounter the blessings promised to the faithful. 3 – Influence what happens in heaven. Great miracles are possible when you develop the ability for God to speak to you and inform you of his will, then you perform it here on earth. And yet, that posture is still very passive compared to the fullness of opportunities God provides. The pinnacle of our relationship with God is to come up to the point where he allows us to influence his decisions. When we include him in our lives, he will start to include us in his. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you...” (James 4:8) This is how we become a friend of God. God counsels with his friends. We tend to think of prophets as being an elite group of people. In reality, they are merely people who accepted the invitation to draw near to God, make him a part of their every day lives, and were obedient to what God told them. “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7) God shares his secrets with his friends. Abraham was a friend of God. He said: “And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” (Genesis 18:17) Before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he talked it over with Abraham. Abraham was given the opportunity to play an active role in the outcome of the situation. Imagine a city whose survival or destruction depended to a great extent on what you said or did about it. Yet, that is exactly the situation you are in. James said that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16) Through your righteous life and powerful prayer, you can have just as much effect on the decisions in heaven as Abraham did. We are too willing to settle for a passive, mediocre existence in God’s kingdom. Why wouldn’t God use you? Where has he said that only some people can do mighty works for him? If you lack miracles and mighty works in your life, it is not because God wills it to be so. Rather, it is the outward manifestation of your lack of faith, and without sufficient faith to work mighty miracles, you can rest assured that you do not have sufficient faith to be saved. They always go hand in hand. We tend to think that our capability is a limiting factor in the good we can do for God. Doing mighty works for God is not a factor of your greatness. The only qualification for mighty works in God is repentance and faith. Faith. Do you believe that God is all powerful, that you can truly do anything he commands you to do, and that he can command you to do anything? There was nothing special about Nephi that made his action effectual, except for the fact that God had told him to do it. What are you willing to give up for God? Are you totally surrendered? Will you do anything God tells you? Do you truly believe you are a fool before God? Will you seek and accept things that are not God’s will to give you? How much time and effort are you willing to spend to know God? Repentance. Are there sins you are aware of that you have not yet changed? You cannot do mighty works of God if you are living in willful sin: “...there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every whit from his iniquity.” (3 Nephi 8:1) All men are commanded to repent and have faith. As often as they do, God uses them in marvelous ways. When we trust in ourselves, we are limited to what we can do of ourselves. When we trust in God, we can do all things through him. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Phillipians 4:13) Do not underestimate the opportunities to serve God that you are passing by through clinging to confidence in yourself instead of clinging to God. Those who repent and exercise faith can do many great things. Isaiah’s ministry came not through God appointing it to him, but because God showed him a need that he had, and Isaiah—trusting in God’s ability to empower him to fulfill it—volunteered to do so: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) We can gain great power from God if we will admit our nothingness before him. Paul said. When we admit our weakness, he can make us strong. Mighty Moses was a nobody when God called him to lead out Israel. He had gone from being a prince in the mightiest kingdom on earth to being an old servant shepherd (an abomination in the Egyptian culture he was raised in) in a foreign land. Yet, because he was willing to trust in and submit to God, God made him mighty. Joshua, knowing that God was no respecter of persons, believed that if God would appear to Moses, he would appear to Joshua. He followed Moses’ example, and obtained the same result. Isaiah’s calling came because he was willing to believe that God could make him capable of preaching repentance to Israel when God told him it needed to happen. You are nothing, but with God you can do anything. Line Upon Line For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have. (2 Nephi 28:30) Knowing God is not binary. Just as you can know a person a little or a lot, knowledge of God accumulates by degrees: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” (Proverbs 4:18) To truly know God, it is necessary to come to the perfect day, or the point where you have a habitation with him—a constant and consistent seeing and hearing relationship with him. How do you get to this point? We acquire a habitation with God by keeping the commandments that we have already received. Those who love God keep his commandments: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Those who love him and keep his commandments will receive a habitation with God: “...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) “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.” (John 15:10) What does it mean to keep God’s commandments? This was the question of a certain man to Jesus. He approached the Lord and asked, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.” The young man considered these to be all the commandments he had to worry about. He said, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” He thought he was keeping God’s commandments since he was keeping all the commandments he knew. Jesus replied, “Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” This was a new commandment for the young man. Whenever we have complied with the commandments we have received, we ought to expect God to give us more. Those who are faithful to the commandments and knowledge they have received will receive more commandments and knowledge. The young man was not pleased with Jesus’ instruction. “And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich.” This was not a specific, once-off instruction to the young man. Jesus continued, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:18, 2024) This episode shows clearly that not all of God’s commandments required to dwell with God are publicly known. Despite being a faithful adherent to God, this young man had no idea that God expected him to rid himself of his riches to qualify for heaven. It is possible to be forgiven of your sins without knowing the critical mass of commandments required to dwell with God, but it is not possible to dwell in his presence without them. The Father dwells in inapproachable light (see 1 Timothy 6:16). Light, truth, and glory all refer to the goodness of God, and are interchangeable with knowledge. When we say knowledge, we do not mean facts or figures. Instead, we mean spiritual knowledge. A habitation with God comes through incremental increases in light and truth, or knowledge. The glory a person possesses is a function of the character they possess. God gives us commandments to draw us closer to him, to change our character from a lower state to a higher state. We know God to the extent that we can see and endure his glory. Although the Father dwells in unapproachable light, the Son can appear as he chooses—with no glory (as he did on the road to Emmaus), with all his glory, or anything in between. The glory we can endure is proportional to the glory that we possess. Salvation is, in reality, a matter of the acquisition of glory through acquiring and obeying greater light and truth, or greater commandments and knowledge from God. How are these higher commandments obtained? God provides us with new truth as soon as we are ready to receive it. The way he prepares us for that which we cannot currently bear is by giving us lesser law that we can bear. He cannot give us greater light and truth until we comply with what we already have. God will patiently send you experiences to build your capacity for obedience until you are capable of keeping higher commandments. He will send them as fast as you are able to keep them, and you will be able to keep them commensurate with your faithfulness to God under all circumstances. Once we are perfectly obedient to what we have received, God will give us more. New commandments aren’t always cleanly separated from what we already know. There are three forms of new truth. New truth in a new area. This is what most of us think of when we think of new truth. This is where you learn something that you had never before considered. New truth that expands an area you already know something about. This is where you learn a deeper aspect of something you already knew. New truth that replaces some currently held belief. This is the least considered and hardest to accept. We tend to think that if we have a witness of a truth, or have seen positive fruits from it, there is no possibility that another perspective on the same issue could be more correct. Spiritual law, like natural law, is progressive. In science, a theory’s ability to explain past observations does not guarantee it can explain all future observations. This is just as much the case in spiritual matters. In fact, spiritual truths might be more likely to be superseded by higher truth, given that religions tend to deteriorate. For example, the Lord Jesus not only taught the Pharisees truths higher than the law of Moses, but he also corrected the tradition-inspired incorrect principles taught as the law of Moses. God can reveal truth, and he can reveal higher truth. The Pharisees refused to receive higher truth, and as a result ended up more wicked than if they had never met Jesus. We should not make the same mistake. We must be willing to let go of what we currently view as true, or even sacrosanct, in order to progress with God. We must be willing to accept his instruction, correction, and reproof. Where does new truth come from? Paul said. We receive new truth from God’s word, which comes through direct revelation, from messengers of God, and from indirect experience. Direct revelation occurs when God communicates directly with us. His word may come in the form of a vision, a visitation, or a voice. These messages can come in expected settings, like when we are praying or reading the scriptures. They can also come in unexpected settings. You can have visions while sleeping, an angel could visit you while you are at work, or you could hear the voice of God while on errands. When we are observant of the world around us, and spend ample time in reflective meditation, we open the doors for the Lord to teach us new truth. Seemingly normal experiences in nature, at work, or in our homes can trigger an opportunity to learn deep truth. Messengers from God can be either heavenly or human. If the message they carry is the word of God, it carries the same weight no matter if it is delivered by a man, an angel, the Holy Ghost, or the Lord himself. Some disregard the possibility that God might send them new truth through imperfect humans. These would do well to reread the scriptures, where God’s messengers were commonly the only voice of warning the public received before gross destruction. The existence of human messengers does not imply that all who claim to have a message from God actually do. Every message must be independently evaluated: “...test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) One part of a sermon can be correct, even if another is not. Every channel of new truth is counterfeited by the devil. His objective is to keep men as uninstructed as possible. He does this through several means. One way is by convincing men to reject anything that contradicts what they already believe instead of doing as God said, investigating the fruits of the new knowledge. Another way is by convincing them not to seek out higher truth. Another way is to flood the world with truth mixed with error. This manifests in many ways, including cult following of certain religious leaders, who gradually mix in more and more error to what were once reasonably enlightening teachings. The inevitable outcome of such situations is that some residue of what was once an extensive following become sycophants to an obviously false cause, publicly reducing the faith of men in the possibility of true messengers and true religion. The devil ensures that for every true signal, there are many false ones. With the stakes so high, how do we recognize what is true and what is false? It is not as simple as comparing everything to the scriptures. The scriptures contain God’s word, but our capacity to read them literally and as they were intended is limited by the constant flood of traditions we are exposed to, many of which are false. The task of discerning truth is difficult. Because the gospel is progressive, we cannot simply have a static list of all of God’s commandments. Though many commandments will be common to many personal lists, God will give each of us individualized instructions suited for our situation. In this fluid situation, a custom, individual mechanism for evaluating truth is required, and that is exactly what God has given us. God has given each of us a spirit capable of discerning truth from error. The Lord taught that this discernment is not corporal, but spiritual: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24) If we seek God, he will teach us the truthfulness of each message: “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5) The Holy Ghost is the key arbiter in our search for truth. He will show us everything we should do. God never expects any of us to believe anything we hear from any source without an independent confirmation through that portion of his spirit that resides in us. This is how we detect things that are not true, as well as any additional truth beyond the content of the message in the form delivered. Have you ever attended a sermon where you came away having learned something that the speaker did not mention? If so, you have received ample evidence that, while God uses messengers and experiences to teach his children, he never fully lets go of the reins. Since specifics depend on the individual’s state and circumstance, guidelines to discern between truth and evil have to be generally defined. Paul said. Moroni also described the difference in terms of good and evil, clarifying the difference. In short, anything that draws you closer to God than you currently are is of God. How do you invite more light and truth into your life? The first way is through recognizing that whatever you think you have, God has more. Your greatest barrier to progression is an inflated perception of your true state with God. Your perception of God’s glory is significantly less than the truth. This cannot be helped except through increasing your experiences with him: how much of God’s glory you can perceive is limited by how much of his glory you possess. Due to this chronic underestimation of God’s greatness, you almost always believe you are more righteous than you actually are. The young man who came to the Lord and asked him what good thing he could do to gain eternal life thought that he was more righteous than he was (see Matthew 19). His question indicated that he didn’t think he had eternal life yet (making him a step ahead of most of us who claim we have it without any evidence that such is the case). His response to Jesus’ answer indicates that he didn’t anticipate being so far from it as he was. It turns out that his approach was fundamentally flawed. The man thought that salvation could be attained through a laundry list of commandments received through a man: “what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” (Matthew 19:16) He didn’t understand that eternal life requires a relationship with God—no one has ever been saved without knowing God, let alone without ever having met him. An interactive relationship with God is a requirement. It is not possible for someone else to access God, get a list of “good things,” and pass them onto you. That process places someone else between you and God. The gospel is not a static list. It is a personal, interactive relationship with God. Any list is meant as a teaser to get you to the point where you gain that personal, interactive relationship. It's training wheels. You can't ride to heaven with training wheels. Despite the failure of this young man to receive new commandments from Jesus, his actions in obtaining more light and truth demonstrate a process that each of us can follow. After asking the Lord what more he could do, the Lord says, “if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” (Matthew 19:17) The man did not deserve further light and truth. He was not ready for it. The Lord, who already knew the next required step in this man’s progression, was trying to avoid his question. By divine law, he could not give this man a commandment he was not capable of obeying. He dodged the question while also giving the young man a hint to help him on his way. The man had called Jesus good. Jesus replied, “None is good, save the Father.” The Lord—who was the holiest man this or any other person had ever seen—was unwilling to have someone call him good. He was trying to help the man realize that perhaps the man was not as righteous as he thought. The man tried again. He asked which commandments he should keep. Now, among the commandments he listed, Jesus included “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This man thought he was already obeying this commandment. The truth was that it consisted of far more than he understood. While he should have replied saying, “Oh Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner,” he says he has done all of this since his youth. Instead of approaching the Lord to find out how he can grow, he is looking for justification for his present state. He has filled his life with his dead religious works instead of connection to God. Still, instead of walking away, the young man continued questioning God. His persistence was recognized and rewarded by God. The loving Lord replied to his persistence with total, blunt instruction. Jesus always tries to teach things softly at first, and usually doesn't go past that unless we ask him to. Because we don’t, we miss most of God’s attempts to teach us. Like this man, we ought to persist with God, begging him to be blunt with us in our oblivious ignorance. We ought to plead with God daily to reveal more light and truth to us. He will answer that prayer. He can do this through many ways. He will speak to your mind and your heart. God can send you an angel to teach you, or come to you himself. You may hear an audible voice. You may be led to a particular scripture. You may be prompted to investigate certain books or Bible translations. You may be prompted to look at certain videos or websites online. You may have a gospel conversation with a new acquaintance or an old friend. We can't progress in ignorance. It is better to know of our faults with God rather than incorrectly believe we are righteous. We tend to think that we believe in God. And yet, our actions betray our unbelief. If we really believed in God, we would act far differently than we do. When Jesus told the apostles of his impending crucifixion, they said. The apostles genuinely thought they were converted, but the Lord knew that they would shortly flee from him. The Lord allowed the apostles to believe all sorts of things that were not exactly correct. If they had just asked him, he would have corrected them. What does he know about you or me? What is he willing to tell us if we just ask? We ought to welcome challenges to our paradigm. If our theology is not yielding the results of the ancients, our theology is flawed. We ought to pray to God and ask him to correct us, and we ought to expect him to send encounters that help us to reject our false traditions. What better thing could we do to obtain a closer relationship with him than ask him directly how to improve it? Are you ready to accept what he says? Real Intent For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing. For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness. For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God. (Moroni 7:6-8) Is prayer a chore for you? Do you run out of things to say? Do you fall asleep when you pray? Does your mind wander? True prayer is something you desire. Once you have experienced it, you’ll want to pray all the time. It will be difficult not to pray when given the opportunity. It will be difficult not to make the opportunity, even when it is not readily available. You will wake up early to pray. You will stay up late to pray. You will sneak prayers in your office at work. You will see weekends and vacations as a time to get in extra prayers. Does all of this sound incredible? Is it hard to believe? If so, it is because you are thinking of normal prayer, not true prayer. True prayer, or correct prayer, is what God means when he uses the word. Normal prayer is what we do instead. Like a bow and arrow, prayer is so simple that it can be used by a small child, yet takes incredible skill to wield with the intended precision and capability. There is a big difference between a crude bow and arrow fashioned from a stick and piece of twine and a modern compound bow. Obtaining superior results from the latter takes training. So it is with prayer. First you must obtain advanced knowledge, then you must practice using it until your skills are honed. What makes true prayer so desirable, and how is it different than normal prayer? True prayer occurs when there is an active connection between you and heaven. This connection quickens you with the Holy Ghost. True prayer basks you in the glory of a higher world, every time. True prayer opens the door to visits from heaven and visits to heaven. True prayer tangibly effects every aspect of your life outside of prayer. There is nothing you can do of your own volition that is more important or more beneficial to you than engaging in true prayer. It is your strongest lifeline to God, and yet so little is commonly understood about it. True prayer brings three types of blessings. The first type are blessings that occur during your prayers every time you pray. Every single time you pray you should connect to the heavens. This is the point. If you do not connect to the heavens during a prayer, you are doing it wrong and wasting your time. Evil spirits love to tell men not to pray, but they also love when men don’t know how to pray. Every normal prayer you offer distances you from God because it trains you to believe that he isn’t there, doesn’t care, and that prayer doesn’t do anything. True prayer creates a connection to heaven, and that conduit channels fire into your soul. It changes your heart, basks you in the love of God, strengthens you against temptation, quickens your mind to receive revelation, and cleans your spiritual eyes from the scales the world darkens them with. This connection consists of—at a minimum—the fire and voice of God’s spirit. Every prayer you offer ought to be a two-way communication. You can ask questions and receive answers every time you pray, and you can feel God’s love and power every time you pray. The second type of blessings from true prayer are those that come while you are praying, but may not come every time. These include visits from God, visits from angels, visits to heaven, visions, prophecies, promises from God, mighty miracles, and revelations of mysteries. The third type of blessings from true prayer are blessings that occur after prayers because of prayers. True prayer touches every aspect of your life. It will subdue the natural man, strengthen your resistance to temptation, make your character more Christ-like, and increase the frequency of spiritual manifestations (visits from God, visits from angels, visits to heaven, visions, prophecies, promises from God, mighty miracles, and revelations of mysteries) throughout your day. People who struggle to pray struggle because they have yet to experience true prayer. The process of achieving true prayer is described in several chapters in this book. Here, instead of discussing how this is achieved, we will discuss one aspect of what it is like, which can be described as real intent. The Lord said “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6) The Lord fills those who hunger and thirst. A person prays with real intent when they desire the Lord more than anything in this world. In this condition, you are driven to your knees in longing, consummate desire to commune with God. The Lord said: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22) What do you desire? When you exercise real intent, your prayers become consummate. You rid you mind of all other concerns. You lose track of what you are doing later in the day, what time it is, and even where you are. If you find yourself falling asleep, real intent causes you to pray in the morning and to go to bed earlier. If you find yourself terminating your prayer because of time, real intent drives you to wake up earlier. Real intent causes you to assume that God will appear to you every time you pray, and influences you to create a situation where you would not be rushed to end that visit. Real intent causes you to pour out your soul. Real intent causes you to pray as if your life depended on it. Peter prayed with real intent when, as he was trying to walk on water, he lost faith and began to sink in the turbulent water: “...he cried, saying, Lord, save me.” (Matthew 14:30) The disciples prayed with real intent when they woke up the Lord on another occasion as their boat was sinking in a storm. “And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.” (Matthew 8:25) God has provided a vivid type of what praying with real intent looks like in sexual intercourse. In fact, one reason God created our sexual characteristics is to teach us about our relationship with him. Marital relations teach us to subjugate our body to another entity, in this case a husband or wife. It trains us in what it takes to subjugate our body to God. In our daily, visible, tangible interactions with our spouse, we can learn how to submit our own concerns to the concerns of another. Gradually, we can learn how to do the same with an unseen God whose needs are not as easily discerned as our spouse. Good sex requires total, absolute focus. No one stops to scratch an itch. No one stops to talk about an idea that just popped in their heads. There is utterly complete focus. Good sex takes time, and there is a preliminary process to ensure a positive experience. It is not something you can do while thinking only about yourself. In fact, it is most intense when you focus totally on your spouse’s desires. Like sex, good prayer results both in waves of euphoria and a culminating climax of communion—but with God instead of your spouse. This is a concentrated feeling of love in being one with him and being in his presence. Good prayer will drive you to desire more good prayer. As more time passes from the last good prayer, one’s desire to again experience it increases. Sex teaches us how our communion with God matures. At first, an individual pursues sex solely as a way to satisfy their own desires. As they mature, they begin to see that the best sex occurs when both partners are consummately seeking the welfare of the other. If prayer is used for asking for one’s desires, this is a cheap substitute for real prayer. God consummately seeks our welfare. When we make prayer a matter of seeking and submitting to his will, and focus our entire being to that end, prayer becomes the immensely positive experience it is meant to be. Real intent doesn’t quit. Knowing God is hard. There is no shortcut. It takes time. Even the Lord, who was perfect, required hours of prayer per day in order to establish the required connection with his Father. Should we expect to be able to do this in less time being so much less than Jesus? Many say, “well, I do not have that kind of time.” The Lord said, “the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and [makes people] unfruitful. (Matthew 13:22) When the care of the world chokes off your prayer, choke it back! Every time you turn away from a potential distraction to your prayer, God will recognize it as evidence of your real intent. The cares of the world have far too much control over Christians. Your relationship with God is more important than anything in this world. Don’t let the world abort your relationship with God before it is consummated. When you have real intent, you won’t quit praying until your prayer is answered. The Lord taught the parable of the importunate widow to illustrate that we should not give up until our prayers are answered. How long will you have to pray before God grants you what you desire? It could take one quick prayer, several hours of prayer, several days of prayer, and maybe even months or years. There is no set time. To be successful, you have to be resigned to pray daily with real intent for as long as it takes, even for the rest of your life. The Lord blesses those who persist in seeking him. When God grants you a taste of what is possible, it will be enough to motivate you to try for however long it takes. When Joshua accompanied Moses into the tabernacle, he would remain behind even after Moses had left. Joshua had real intent in seeking the Lord. You should, too. Without real intent, our prayers will never draw us from the cares of the world into the peace and power that a relationship with God can offer. When we practice real intent, we will achieve the kinds of prayers we are meant to have. Reverence for God Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13) When I was in the military, we were taught the protocol to follow when we came into the presence of a superior. We were to stop whatever we were doing and come to attention until told to stop. Even then, we were to assume a rigid and uncomfortable posture known ironically as “parade rest” until the superior left. You stayed that way for as long as it took. When we expected a visit from even higher authorities, all normal work ceased as everyone turned their attention to making sure the entire environment was transformed into unlivable perfection. It amazes me how willing we are to modify our behavior for worldly potentates, but how casual we are with God. In the military, you live by the protocol first out of fear of punishment. It is preferable to hurt a little from the protocol than it is to hurt a lot from hundreds of pushups. Eventually, you come to appreciate why it has to be that way. If men are willing to go through such great lengths for fear of men, why are we so unwilling to live by a protocol in our interactions with God? If so much is possible through fear, how much more through love? God is not petty enough to require that we bow and scrape to him. He is unbelievably willing to condescend and endure much harsher abuse than our disrespectful attitude towards him. His glory does not depend on our willingness or ability to comprehend it. Reverence of him is not for his benefit. We are too insignificant to effect his glory one way or the other. Instead, like all other aspects of the gospel, our reverence of him is for our benefit. As we realize who he really is, and who we really are, it changes our behavior. Did you know that powerful angels, with glory great enough to knock you to the ground were they to appear to you, fall to their faces in reverent worship every time the name of Jesus Christ is mentioned in heaven? Yet, here on earth, many who profess to be his followers refer to him in casual terms, as if he were their gym buddy. The Lord Jesus is the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, the Redeemer, the Son of God, the Everlasting Father, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. He sits on the throne surrounded by concourses of powerful beings who actively worship him and conduct the government of heaven. Which of us would casually approach an earthly king? Who would dare approach and converse with a powerful mortal man without great care for what we say? There isn’t one of us who would act casually in front of the ruler of a great nation. Yet, we are so casual with God. If you truly believe God is the creator of the earth and heavens, has all power, and has worked out salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, why would you act any less casually in front of him than even the most powerful man in the world? When we approach this awesome being in prayer, we ought to pray to him as if we were physically in his presence, in all his glory, seated upon his throne. We ought to kneel before our king. We ought to never approach him in a hurry if it can be helped. We ought to have great reverence for his goodness and glory, and cautiously respect his power. We ought to have great appreciation for his mercy in allowing us to converse with him. We ought to seek a private place, where we will not be interrupted, and where we can pray vocally without thinking about who can hear us. For those with families, this almost always means praying very early in the morning, before anyone else has awoken. This is reverence. Consider the following prayer that provides a wonderful example of reverence. Here, a righteous man instructed to build closed boats to cross the ocean petitions the Lord to miraculously convert stones into sources of light for the voyage. In this example, we see the cautious, godly fear of the petitioner. He does not simply blurt out his request. Though his heart is completely focused on his objective, it is carefully wrapped with sincere expressions of his respect for God. He does not presuppose that he has a right to call on God. He does not presuppose that he can dictate what the Lord does. He acknowledges that his petition’s merit comes from the the mercy of the Lord, not any entitlement. You can see this petition being appropriate to offer to a king on his throne. Our reverence for God is an indicator of our faith in God. This is he who created the heavens and the earth. This is he who descended from the highest heaven to the earth, endured the cruelest, crudest treatment from those he came to save, and gave himself as a sacrifice for sin. This is he who is so holy that he dwells in everlasting fire so pure that it is described as unapproachable, yet is so humble and meek that he routinely appears without it. This is he who is so glorious that even the devils must bow the knee and acknowledge him. He is the source of Samson’s strength, Moses’ power, Elijah’s fire, Solomon’s wisdom, and Noah’s salvation. He can raise the dead, level armies, control the elements, and save souls. He is the Messiah. He is worthy. He is God. Reverence him. Be Still and Know that I am God For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. (Isaiah 64:4) Prayer is meant to connect the supplicant to God in a powerful way. Effectual prayer is an absolute requirement for getting to know God. One reason that many prayers are ineffectual is that they do not overcome the gravitational pull of the body. Prayer is a channel to God in the spirit, not the flesh. While your mind is inclined towards the body, it is essentially impossible to offer an effectual prayer. How can you know whether you are praying in the spirit or in the body? When you pray, are you aware of your surroundings? Are you aware of your body? Are you aware of the passage of time? Do you worry about all the things that you have to do? Do you hear background music or the last show you watched? Does your mind flood with a remembrance of everything under the sun? These are all signs that your prayer is in the body, not in the spirit. Prayer in the body is an obstacle to true prayer, but it is not insurmountable. In actuality, transitioning from bodily prayer to spiritual prayer is a process that everyone must learn. As you learn this process, you will be able to transition faster and faster, until you can instantly pray in the spirit. Until then, it will require sustained effort. The first step in achieving spiritual prayer is to find an appropriate place to pray. We are meant to pray always, but this does not mean that wherever we happen to be is an ideal place to pray. Like learning to ride a bike using training wheels and a smooth, flat surface, helps you focus on the fundamentals, learning to pray in the spirit is much more attainable if you use an ideal setup to train yourself. The ideal spot for prayer will be private enough that you can speak aloud without any concern of discovery by others. You must find a place where you will not be interrupted no matter what—no phones, no alarms, no external sounds, and no intrusion. These requirements are not arbitrary. Prayer requires incredible focus and sustained concentration. As you work in prayer, you will move closer and closer to your goal, building to a crescendo where a connection with heaven is made. Any distraction will pull you out of this process, and your prayer will end fruitless. In our modern world, it is very difficult to find such a spot. If you live with others, it is likely that you will have to wake up very early in the morning to create an appropriate environment. Waking up very early in the morning is a sacrifice. It requires that you go to bed much earlier, meaning you go without all the things you typically do at night. Normal prayers are very short. True prayer could go on unceasingly. Once you start to experience true prayer, where you actually come into God’s presence, you will find yourself not only requiring more time to pray, but desiring more time to pray. As you allocate more time for prayer, you may run out of sufficient evening time to counterbalance your early rising, and may have to deal with being tired all day. Some struggle with this, some do not. What I can tell you, as one who acutely feels the effects of sleep deprivation, is that the benefits far outweigh the costs. What good is anything else you do in a day if you do not know God? Like fasting, sleep deprivation is an honest metric of how much you really desire God, as it will effect every aspect of your life. The next step is to learn how to silence your mind. True prayer requires that the Lord speak to you. He will reply to what you say and, more importantly, he will give you what to say. It takes serious work to obtain the Lord’s inspiration, and anything but a clear mind just won’t do. Thoughts about work, school, family, or any other concern must be totally silenced. This may seem counterintuitive, as we are taught that prayer is mainly about bringing our concerns to God. This is not true, “...for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.” (Matthew 6:8) The point of prayer is not to tell God what you need, but for God to effect your desires and soothe your soul. Prayer doesn’t change God, prayer changes you. As a proof that prayer is meant to change you, consider the meaning of each statement in the Lord’s prayer. “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” Lord, you are holy and powerful. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” I submit myself to you and your will. “ Give us this day our daily bread.” Lord, I rely upon you for survival. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Help me forgive others, that I may be forgiven. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” I will choose not to succumb to temptation, but to follow you because of your goodness to me in teaching me of your kingdom, power, and glory. (Matthew 6:9-13) You must give God a blank slate. In order to quiet your mind, you must completely turn off any music or video in your mind. There is no secret to how to do this, it just takes practice. Whereas finding an ideal spot for prayer can be done in a day, it takes time to learn how to silence your mind. As you pray in your prayer location, first try to clear your mind for 5 minutes. Once you have kept a clear mind for 5 minutes, try 15. Keep doing this until you can keep a clear mind indefinitely. As you are learning to clear your mind, you should also learn how to keep still. Mental stillness is of limited effect if it is not accompanied by physical stillness. Just as it would be inappropriate to turn on music while in the presence of a king, it is equally inappropriate to fidget, scratch, and so on. Every movement risks breaking your concentration, and many movements will detract from your demonstration of submission and respect towards God. Remember, one key of true prayer is to act exactly as if you were in the presence of God, because that is your goal. If in the presence of God, you would be so transfixed by his beauty, glory, and goodness, that nothing else would be on your mind. Your body would be frozen in reverence. If you pray and are moving around or wandering in thought, you are not focused enough to pierce through to heaven. When we think of prayer, we think of speaking to God. Yet, this is only a small part of what true prayer consists of. True prayer also includes silent waiting (sometimes called watching). Though lost to our modern memory, this process would have been familiar to those living in historic monarchies. To gain an audience with a king, it was not uncommon to have to wait silently in the presence of the enthroned king until he acknowledged you. We see this recorded in scripture in Esther. Esther did not approach or speak to the king until he held out his scepter. She was well aware of the protocol of dealing with a king. We do not know how long she waited there before the king noticed her. In another account, a man is required to wait a full hour before the king responds to him (see Alma 18:14). If the Lord is your king, you ought to wait upon him! Waiting on the Lord sometimes yields blessings that occur during the process. There are several scriptural examples of God blessing someone who was waiting on him. This includes the appearance of heavenly messengers, hearing the voice of God, or the taking place of some other miracle. However, the most common effect of waiting on the Lord is the turning of the heart towards God. Waiting on God allows his Spirit to work on you and turn your heart towards God. This process sanctifies you and prepares you for more significant experiences with him. It is mostly imperceptible in the moment, but its effects are long-term, cascading, and bountiful. Interactions with God take time. When Moses ascended mount Sinai, he did not immediately come into God’s presence. Instead, he waited on him in prayer for six days. It was only on the seventh day that God spoke to him and brought him into heaven. Moses spent six days on his knees waiting on the Lord. The Lord wanted to see him immediately, but six days of sanctification were required. This teaches us an important lesson on waiting. What would have happened if Moses, upon climbing up the mountain, decided that God’s absence meant that he should quit and go back down? What would have happened if he came to that conclusion immediately, after one day of prayer, or after five days? We should never cease seeking the Lord until we find him, no matter what or how long it takes. Many times it is not just you waiting on the Lord, but the Lord waiting on you. Moses’ six day waiting period teaches us something very important about preparing to enter the presence of the Lord. If the Lord were to appear to you without acclimating you to his presence, you would be consumed. Even if the Lord appears without glory, as he can, you will be overwhelmed. Your immediate reaction will be to say, “it is enough Lord!” as you feel as if you will die. Seeing the Lord is like getting into a very hot bath in cold weather. Your immediate reaction is to immediately retreat after only dipping your toe. A better way is to get into the empty tub, and gradually increase the temperature as the water is running. God builds our capacity to endure his presence by gradually exposing us to him, with ladder-like cascading experiences, whether perceptible or not. After his resurrection, the Lord appeared to two men on the road to Emmaus. He appeared as a normal man, and they did not perceive any glory. When he left, they reflected on how their hearts burned within them. Had these two men not been well accustomed to being in the Lord’s presence in his mortality, it is unlikely they would have been able to bear his resurrected presence, even without any glory. Waiting on the Lord is like a charcoaled log in the woodstove. Though the log may appear cooled, it may spring to life if you crack the door and leave it be. When you first wait on the Lord, it seems like nothing is happening. Don’t judge with your natural eyes. Keep praying. Your goal is to pierce through the veil each time you offer your morning prayer. It takes time to do that, both in terms of number of sessions of prayer (as you learn to quiet your mind for longer and longer periods of time) and in each individual session (as you refuse to quit until the fire is lit). Waiting on God is like boiling water. You can’t see what is happening until the water suddenly breaks into a boil. Even if you do not receive any communication, you are still changing. Waiting on God is like walking out of a cold, dark house into a bright, sunny day. The very act of waiting on God makes you more holy, because you are exposing yourself to God’s glory. Don’t give up! Our attitude ought to be like Habakkuk’s: “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.” (Habakkuk 2:1) Sometimes these things just take time. Patient persistence pays off. Usually, the longer we wait, the greater the blessing. But why do we need to wait before we perceive God’s response? Sometimes, instead of us waiting on God, God is actually waiting on us! Despite the fact that God had commanded Moses to come up to the mount to come into his presence, it took six entire days of waiting upon him to prepare Moses for the experience. God had to wait 6 days for Moses to be sanctified enough that he could visit him. Why does God wait on us? Sometimes we are not yet focused enough. Sometimes we are not yet humble enough. Sometimes God is waiting until we are ready to obey what he needs to tell or show us. Sometimes there are delays caused by workings in the spirit realm. God’s response to Daniel was delayed because of an angelic battle (see Daniel 10:11-13). Beyond immediate blessings, waiting on the Lord provides blessings after the fact. “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” (Psalm 40:1) The way this happens is very similar to what happens when we fast. Although blessings can happen during a fast, fasting also provides enduring blessings after the fact. For example, consider the devil that the twelve disciples could not cast out. The Lord Jesus said that devils of this class could only be cast out through prayer and fasting, but then immediately cast out the devil without praying or fasting. The Lord fasted and prayed very often. When the time came, he had already qualified for this blessing with recent prayer and fasting. Similarly, waiting on the Lord produces blessings outside of prayer, including frequent revelations, prophecy, and the ability to teach with power and authority. Waiting on the Lord prevents you from being tempted: “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:38) Waiting on the Lord makes you more humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love, and long-suffering. Waiting on the Lord brings about deliverance. Waiting on the Lord brings peace and power in God. There is a reason that the Lord Jesus spent so much time in prayer during his mortal ministry. As Jesus waited on the Father, the Father’s glory recharged his spirit to the point that he could radiate it to the world throughout the day. Our daily experience is one in the body. We find ourselves subjected at all times to the fallen nature of this world. When we wait upon God, we silence the body and cut off the influence of this fallen world. As we wait upon God, we operate in the spirit and connect to a higher level of glory than is found in this world. If all these benefits were not enough, waiting on God is also a commandment. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14) “Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God.” (Job 37:14) We come to know God through waiting on the Lord: “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10) Worship the Lord ...Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. (Isaiah 6:3) Have you ever felt as if there was a barrier between you and God? Have you ever knelt for prayer and felt like your prayers weren’t leaving the room? Have you ever felt a total absence of desire to pray? Have you ever felt overcome with anxiety, grief, or depression? God has placed within your hands the power to connect with him at any time, and in any place. Establishing that connection will dispel darkness, fill you with light, open your spiritual eyes, and give you a sure knowledge of his existence and his love for you. That power is prayer, and the principle way to open the connection is through worship. Worship is a word frequently used, but rarely correctly. The scriptural words translated into English as worship do not mean to sing or to dance or to attend church. Rather, they mean to hold someone in high respect by showing reverence and awe while bowing oneself to the ground. Worship is a behavior and an attitude, both confined to prayer. All worship is prayer, and most effective prayer is worship. The best example of worship comes from the description of the behavior of the heavenly hosts. Though their behavior merits an exhaustive study, for the sake of length, we will analyze just one example describing what happens in heaven as the Lord Jesus opens the book of seven seals, beginning the events that comprise God’s judgment of this world. In the first part of this description, we are told that opening this book requires special power, power that is not present even among the mighty angels in heaven. Next, John is told that the Lord Jesus is specially qualified to open the book. John then sees the reaction of the heavenly hosts. What John sees is the true order of worship. Consider the elements. The posture of the elders is part of their worship. They are not standing or sitting. They fall down before the Lord Jesus. They sing to him. Is this a feelgood hymn? Is the focus the music? No. They don’t rehearse canned lyrics. They celebrate his eminent acts in spirit-led praise. And the elders are not alone. They are joined by countless numbers of others in heaven, celebrating the works, goodness, and glory of the Lord Jesus. Worship is the key to open the connection to God. Real worship is the consummate focus on and enumeration of God’s goodness. It is God’s goodness—not our own—that provides us the opportunity to be saved. When we praise God, we come up to where he patiently waits for us by focusing on and filling ourselves with his goodness. Real worship comes from the Holy Ghost. It is difficult to immediately connect with the Holy Ghost in worship. You’ll typically have to kick start the process by focusing your mind and heart on the goodness of God, producing your own worship. The glory of God quickens us when we speak of the goodness of God. When you do this, the Holy Ghost will flood you because when your heart focuses completely on God’s goodness, your whole body fills with light (see Luke 11:34). You move from a lower state of awareness to a higher state, where your perception begins to be quickened by the Holy Ghost. You’ll be given what to say. You then produce the same quality of praise given by the angels of heaven because you speak from the same source. When you achieve this, you will be completely focused on what you are saying, not on what to say. In real time, you will be producing praise as rich and beautiful as anything in the Psalms, but customized to very specific things in your present life. You become lost in it. When you achieve this, you’ll notice how real worship is like waking up from sleep as your physical presence fades and is replaced with the brilliant richness of the Spirit. Worship takes us into a holy place. In the temple, when the high priest entered into the holy of holies, he did so in a cloud of incense. The sweet smelling smoke covered the stench and sight of his imperfection. Our worship of God acts like incense to allow us to enter into the presence of God. When you arrive at the quickened state of worship, and you have praised God with everything that the Holy Ghost has told you to say, you have entered into the holy place where God resides, and you can continue with the rest of your prayer with special access to God. We ought to include this kind of worship in our prayers. In fact, we ought to begin our prayers with this kind of worship every single time we pray. Praise and worship create heaven-piercing humility. They open the door to access to God. Without worship, prayer runs as smoothly as an engine with no oil. When we worship God in this manner, we take on a fruitful mindset in the rest of our prayer, and truly open a channel to heaven. A beautiful example of worship is provided by David. David received unique commendation from God, yet we focus so often only on his sin—that while grave in degree, was so rare in frequency that it is the only one we have record of. We would do well to pay more attention to his life, asking ourselves why God commended David’s heart as like his own. Read these words from 2 Samuel and consider the accurate picture this king—the most powerful man on the earth at the time—had of the Lord. David began by comparing the Lord’s greatness to his own nothingness: “...Who am I, O Lord God? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?” He spoke of God’s knowledge of things to come and how that was a superhuman trait: “...thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?” He spoke of God’s ability to see a man’s heart: “And what can David say more unto thee? for thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant.” He spoke of God’s character: “For thy word’s sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things, to make thy servant know them.” He praised the Lord: “Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.” He recognized God’s care for Israel. It was only after all this praise that David asked for God to bless him. Worship takes us into the presence of God. It is like the incense that covered the high priest when he entered the holy of holies. It is from that place that you can offer prayers and receive answers. When we focus our efforts on worshiping God, and wait to make any requests until after we have entered the holy place, we will achieve efficacy in our prayers—they will become what they are meant to be. Prayer without praise and worship will rarely yield the sought after blessings. Prayer with praise and worship rarely fails to yield the sought after blessings. Worshipping God is not a matter of sweet-talking him into doing what you want. Worship fills us with his glory. When we are in that quickened state, we are more in tune with his will, and the Holy Ghost will tell us what to say. It is a tangible, immediate way to supercharge our faith. Praising God reminds us of just how good, merciful, holy, and just he is. Recounting the characteristics of God can also stir us up to greater trust in God, causing us to recommit ourselves to serve him. The prayer of the repentant elders in Nehemiah provides a rich example of how to enumerate God’s goodness. Consider the duration of the worship here. It’s a long passage, but you need to read every word to grasp the level of detail and patient listing that Nehemiah gives to God. Compare the length of praise and reflection of God’s goodness to the very brief request made at the end. The act of praise overcomes any fear or doubt we may have, and empowers us to work mighty miracles in God’s name. A wonderful example of how worship overcomes fear is given by Nephi’s reaction to his brothers after God commanded them through an angelic visit to do something that seemed impossible. His brothers feared because Laban—a man whose private army far outnumbered Nephi and his company—stood in the way of their objective. Nephi responded with worship for God. This intervention increased their faith sufficiently to persuade them to return to Jerusalem—where many waited to kill them—as the angel had commanded them, in spite of the danger. Though the scriptures contain many excellent examples of worship, we will add just one more here. This is the prayer that Hannah prayed after the Lord healed her barrenness. Worshipping God is an art that can be refined over time. As you practice this art, you will notice that you can tap into your inward self to stream out a list of very specific instances of his goodness, mercy, holiness, and justice from the scriptures and from your own life, and that this list will be different every time you pray. The Holy Ghost will give you the words to say to the extent that you can focus on your inner man, and as you channel this through your soul and body in worship to God, the Holy Ghost will quicken your mind and body. This effect will empower you to then transition to the rest of your prayer still remaining in the spirit. In a sense, your reverence determines your standing with God. Those who revere God as the king and creator of everything, as much when he is unseen as they would if he were seen, are guaranteed eternal life in the highest glory. This is because it is impossible to revere him to the fullest while sinning. These will always submit their flesh to his will. They will always be found in obedience. They will always have a grateful heart full of worship. Because of this, no matter where they are presently in their climb towards God, they will eventually attain eternal life. Asking and Receiving Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. (James 4:3) The Lord Jesus is the inheritor of all that the Father has. His express desire is to make us co-heirs with him, “...heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Romans 8:17) With an understanding of his design and a recognition of the deficit between what he has and what we have, it is natural for us to seek blessings from him. We are even commanded to do so. The Lord taught. God desires to bless us, but we frequently misunderstand the way he will do so. While it is good to pray to God for what things we need, it may surprise you to learn that this is not the principle purpose of prayer. He said that if we seek the kingdom of God, everything we need will be given to us (see Matthew 6:33). God already knows what we need. If asking for blessings isn’t the principle purpose of prayer, what is? It turns out that we can experience incredible growth with God by focusing on communication with him rather than asking things from him. Prayer is a tool to ease the information asymmetry between you and God. While most of our prayers focus on the line of communication from us to heaven, it really ought to focus on communication from heaven to us. The purpose of prayer is not about telling God what we want, but getting God to tell us what he wants. Many prayers go unanswered because the requester seeks to fulfill their lusts. “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” (James 4:3) What is lust? It is not merely sexual desire. Lust is any desire born of the flesh. Lusty prayers are those that contain requests stemming from the flesh. The topic of the prayer does not dictate whether it is a fleshy or spiritual prayer. Even something so apparently spiritual as seeking a vision of heaven could actually be a fleshy prayer if it is done for lustful reasons, such as curiosity. Note the lack of distinction between temporal and spiritual issues in the following instructions on prayer. You can offer a fleshy prayer concerning matters of the spirit, and a spiritual prayer over temporal concerns. The difference lies in whose will we are seeking. The Lord Jesus sought the will of the Father, not his own. His entire life demonstrated this. He did only what the Father told him to do (see John 14:24). This pattern holds for all of us. God once blessed one of his servants because he had unceasingly sought God’s will and not his own. This should be our motivation and attitude as well. In order to offer successful prayers, we ought to exert great effort in seeking God to know what to pray for. This effort usually exceeds what we exert on what we actually pray for. God’s will informs what we ask for, because successful prayer asks only what God wants. It informs how we will ask, because obtaining God’s will requires deliberate, focused, and often times prolonged effort. This deliberate, focused, and often prolonged process is sometimes called inquiring of the Lord. Inquiring of the Lord connotes that you are seeking God until he answers you. Because of this, inquiries to God result in revelation. They result in the receipt of the word of God. Observe how Mormon describes the process of inquiring of the Lord. He says the word of the Lord came to him. Mormon didn't get feelings in response to his inquiry. He received transcribable information. Mormon was able to write out the information that was conveyed. He was able to quote God. God spoke to him like one man speaks to another, through the Holy Ghost. There are other pitfalls to prayer. Wickedness will hinder our prayers. If you are in willful sin, repent first. The Lord answers the prayers of the wicked more slowly than the righteous. Though it takes extra time, God will eventually respond to the cries of the wicked. It takes time and happens by degrees and only in response to great humility and repentance. God does not heed the prayers of those who ignore the cry of the poor and needy. If you want God to respond to your prayers to him, first make sure you answer the requests of others to you. If you want God to respond to your questions of doctrine, first make sure you have already consulted the words he has revealed to others in the scriptures. If you want God to forgive you, first forgive others. Care for the poor, fight for the oppressed, and do what God has asked you to do. The strength of your connection with God will be a factor of how fully you keep God’s commandments, how intently you worship God, how much desire you have to commune with him, how humble you are before him, how much you revere him, and your level of compassion for others. What we should pray for comes from God through the Holy Ghost. “For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.” (2 Nephi 32:5) Each time you pray you must make this connection. Typically, this connection is established through worship. Other ways to establish it include remarkable intent, such as when you are unusually distraught, have a burning desire to commune with God, have a heart broken to pieces in compassion for another’s suffering, or are in immediate danger. The process of establishing a connection with God so that he can tell you what to pray for takes far more effort than asking things from God. Once you connect to God through the Holy Ghost, a powerful prayer will flow through you without much effort on your part, like water flowing downhill. This inspiration comes as we focus on God and what God wants. “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3:6) Most prayers are ineffective because they reverse the process. They rush through or skip the process of establishing a connection with God, and jump right into the asking. These types of prayers are unlikely to be effective. Once we successfully establish a connection and are asking according to God’s will, we obtain answers to our prayers through several techniques that will always result in getting answers to every prayer—either in the form of a granted request or a reason why God will not grant it. Several chapters in this book are dedicated to some of these prayer strategies. Understanding the routing mechanism for answered prayer can help you pray in a way that results in response. The government of God consists of far more than just God. Your prayers must not only be granted by God, but be considered by him in the first place. Though God knows all things, including the content of your prayers, the scriptures reveal a mechanism whereby our prayer requests are granted. Many prayers remain unanswered because we choose to ignore what the scriptures reveal about that mechanism, and replace it with the traditional naïve construct of treating prayers to God like a wishing well. The routing mechanism is akin to how sacrifices were routed in the temple. The supplicant brought a sacrifice to door of the tabernacle. The lower priests received it, prepared it, and offered it on the altar in the outer portion of the temple. They were the interface between the people and the high priest, and their office sanctified and added significance to the contribution of the supplicant. There was also a high priest. The high priest used the fire from the altar from the outer portion of the temple to light the incense of the inner portion of the temple, making another offering in holier spaces to combine with the offering from the supplicant burned on the altar. The supplicant’s offering of animal flesh, despite sanctifying rules of purity concerning the animal, was consummately rooted in fleshy limitations. It was a bloody sacrifice, it was intertwined in source and use with carnal food, and its burning resulted in smoke that wasn’t particularly pleasing to smell. The incense, on the other hand, was made fresh daily of rare and expensive ingredients. It was prepared according to an exacting recipe whose duplication for any other use was strictly prohibited. It was a more holy offering, with a strong, sweet odor. Like rising smoke, the Holy Ghost takes your prayer to heaven. There, the heavenly priests collect the prayers of mankind. Like the priests on earth, heavenly beings add independent, more holy offerings to your prayers. After collection, consideration, and addition by other heavenly beings, the Lord evaluates your request. The Lord is our high priest in heaven. If he supports it, he will take it to the Father, through whom all prayers are finally answered. Now, none of us are aware of our prayers ascending to heaven. We do not see them routed through the heavenly authorities. We do not see the Lord interceding for us with the Father. So why do the mechanics matter? The reason this process is critical to understand is so that we know the criteria for success and can engineer our prayers to be successful every time we offer them. At any stage, the prayers can be rejected. How do your prayers get past heavenly beings (angels, elders, creatures, etc.)? What causes them to support your cause? What will inspire them to plead for you? They are constantly observing our lives, and taking a record of what they observe. In a sense, they are our first-line judges. Part of their mission is to minister to “...them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.” (Moroni 7:30) Prayers are forwarded by and added to by the angels according to our faith and our diligence in all of God’s commands. In other words, our requests are amplified by heavenly beings inasmuch as we are true and faithful in all things. Angels can be our advocates with the Lord, or witnesses against us, depending on our righteousness. In spite of the channel through the angels, there is also a channel directly to the Lord. The Lord Jesus is a singular king. While he presides over a vast heavenly government, he also reserves a personal, intimate involvement with each of us. In spite of our nothingness, through the unfathomable grace of God, our faith can be sufficient to provide direct, inalienable access to the Lord Jesus Christ. The following story from the mortal ministry of the Savior represents both how we have direct access to God and how, through mighty faith in the Lord’s goodness, we can bypass the heavenly authorities and gain direct access to the Lord. Instead of transmitting the message to the Lord, those that went before the Lord tried to silence the cries of the blind man. This did not deter the blind man. He cried even louder and with even more earnest, until Jesus himself heard him and acknowledged him. Another example of bypassing the heavenly hierarchy is given by Hezekiah. Isaiah, a prophet of God, delivered the word of the Lord that Hezekiah would die at a young age. In response to the Lord’s word, Hezekiah pleaded with God directly to spare his life. God heard and answered his prayer. He sent word once again through Isaiah that his life would be extended. What kinds of prayers are granted by the Lord? He is our advocate with the Father (see 1 John 2:1). What causes the Lord to intercede for your cause? The Lord loves all his children, but he bestows special favor on the righteous. “Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God....” (1 Nephi 17:35) The Lord Jesus supports those who believe in him. The Amplified Bible, a translation that attempts to recover the breadth of original meaning lost in translation from the source languages to English, describes belief as “adhere to, trust in, and rely on.” This is a beautiful definition that transcends our normal understanding of the word. When we adhere to, trust in, and rely on the Lord, we will successfully obtain his attention. He will bring us near to him and ask us what we want. That is the connection we seek. Those that adhere to, trust in, and rely on the Lord will frame their prayers in terms of the Lord’s will. After all, if we are focused on our own will, we are adhering to, trusting in, and relying upon ourselves instead of him. We arouse the Lord’s advocacy when we frame our communication with him in terms of his attributes and his promises. God has made many promises to men, and he is bound to them by his faithfulness. God’s attributes are also a gateway to answered prayer. God is just (always consistent, always fulfills his promises), he is merciful (quick to forgive, slow to anger), he is loving (desires to bless, desires to fulfill desires of children), he supports the oppressed, he fulfills his promises, and he is a warrior. Leveraging the Lord’s characteristics and promises will result in answered prayer. This process is discussed in later chapters. When you ask, seek, and knock, you are not fawning to obtain the fickle favor of an arbitrary God. God is not arbitrary, and he is not fickle. God already wills to give you greater blessings than you can imagine: “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9) The lack of desired blessings in your life is not a result of God’s contrary will, but of your contrary heart. The effect of crying to the Lord is not changing God’s mind, but changing your heart. As you cry, you submit. Submission to God results in answered prayer because it results in requests according to the will of God, and the Lord grants requests that align with his will. Some prayers go unanswered because the supplicant has not yet obeyed God’s teachings corresponding to the requested blessing. Often, requests for blessings are answered with a test from God so you can see for yourself whether or not you will obey him. Tests are a gift from God to help you discover your self-deception. We tend to think we are better than we are. God’s tests show you what your desires truly are—how different your desires are than his, and how different they are than what you would like to think. Sometimes that test is explicit, but most times it comes without being noticed. Sometimes, granting a prayer request requires the Lord to teach the supplicant new things, new things that they are not yet quite ready for. Our obedience and humility can be significant limiting factors in what requests God can grant. As you submit to God, you prepare your heart to receive a new commandment or obey an old one. You actually increase your capacity for obedience. As you yield your heart to God, you become sanctified because your capacity for obedience increases. Once you have sufficiently increased in capacity, God can send you the blessings corresponding to the teachings you have obeyed, which might include new teachings he will reveal to you as part of the process. On a final note, when we seek God for what to pray for, let us consider that God is so much greater than any material blessing. Any father delights when his children ask him to share his wisdom with them, rather than simply asking for material goods. The greatest blessing he can give us is a habitation with him—to focus on having him instead of having some subset of what he has. It brings him great joy when this is our chief desire and a subject of all our prayers. Leveraging God’s Promises in Prayer ...whatever I say will be fulfilled. (Ezekiel 12:28, NIV) Throughout time, God has made promises to his people. God does not violate his promises. One sure way to move heaven is to prayerfully invoke the promises God has made through our faith in God’s trustworthiness. Jacob invoked God’s promises when he prayed for God’s protection in returning to his previously hostile brother after years away. Jacob said, “God, you told me that if I came home, everything would be well with me. You told me that you would bless me and make my seed as the sand of the sea. That blessing cannot be fulfilled if I am destroyed by my brother. Please protect me.” He invoked two of God’s blessings, and as a result, Esau’s wrath was miraculously abated. Elijah invoked God’s promises. In his famous encounter with the priests of Baal, he prayed and reminded God that he had told Elijah to hold this demonstration: 36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. In other words, he was saying “Lord, you’ve told me to do this, and now I have done it. Please do what you said you were going to do, and send fire to consume this sacrifice, that your promise may be fulfilled.” David received great promises from the Lord, and they brought him great peace despite a tumultuous life. You can be bold with God when he has not fulfilled his promises. Consider Moses’ attitude when he reminds God of his promise to deliver the people. We can see that having personal promises from God are one key to miraculous responses to prayer. Promises are invoked through prayer, but they are also largely obtained through prayer. Whether God has given you promises or not, with great skill, you can leverage promises God has made to others. On one occasion when God wanted to destroy the Israelites, Moses interceded for them by reminding God of the promises he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Though the blessings were to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, their fulfillment required the survival of the Israelites. God’s promises do not expire. Nehemiah invoked promises made many years earlier through Moses. Nehemiah’s people were in captivity. He said, “Lord, you promised that if we repent and turn to you, you will gather us. We have repented, so please turn the heart of the king so that we can return to our land.” There are many promises God has made not to specific people, but to anyone who fulfills certain conditions. Your ability to leverage God’s promises in prayer is limited to your knowledge of his promises. A sustained study of the scriptures to extract promises that could be useful in prayer will significantly increase your power in invoking his promises. Consider the abundant promises you can invoke if you have kept all of God’s commandments. If you are overwhelmed, you can remind the Lord of his promises: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18) If you need to witness to others, you can count on him to give you what to say. You can remind God of his promise to provide for the righteous. You can ask anything according to God’s will and have it done. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7) “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” (John 16:3) You can invoke the promise of obtaining the Spirit. You can invoke the promise of his presence. Truly, as the Lord said, “blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” (Luke 11:28) Leveraging God’s Character in Prayer He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. (Psalms 33:5) God’s character is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Among other things, he is holy, all-knowing, merciful, loving, just, and trustworthy. Those who know and leverage these traits will be successful in obtaining answered prayers. Do not mistake leveraging God’s character as somehow forcing God’s hand. There is no coercion or magic in this technique. Rather, it is the fulfillment of what God has asked us to do. It is the fulfillment of his commandment for us to ask, seek, and knock with faith in him. Faith opens the door to miracles that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Faith is much more than belief, it is belief in something that is true. By identifying situations where God’s character suggests his intervention, you can exercise your faith in him to bring about miracles that wouldn’t otherwise happen. To illustrate the connection between faith and leveraging God’s attributes, consider the story of the Canaanite woman who successfully obtained a miracle from the Lord. The woman knew that the Lord was merciful. She invoked his mercy. Even when he told her all the reasons he could not do as she asked, she pressed on. She knew that the Lord’s mercy was greater than all of those reasons. She was right. In granting her request, he commended her by saying, “O woman, great is thy faith.” The Lord wants to bless us with far more blessings than we actually receive. Our failure to invoke his character in our petitions is one reason for this. As demonstrated by his answer to the Canaanite woman, the Lord is merciful to those who lean upon him in total submission. Another example of this is found in Matthew 20. The disciples tried to quiet this man. Instead of being daunted, he cried even louder! Imagine this man—imagine his intensity in crying. He truly had full trust in the Lord. The angels are not as merciful as the Lord is. Cry right past them! Contrition moves the Lord. He healed the ten lepers who said “Master, have mercy on us.” (Luke 17:13) He forgave the sins of the contrite publican. The Lord is merciful to those who lean on him. Abraham knew God’s character. He knew that God would not destroy the wicked with the righteous. He invoked God’s justice in an attempt to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. God loves us and does mighty works to help us have faith. He realizes that men will struggle to have faith in a God who appears to be inconsistent, fickle, or weak. We can leverage his desire to help men see his greatness. Elijah invoked the justice of God in behalf of the widow whose son died. This woman had sacrificed much for the benefit of Elijah because he was a man of God. Elijah reminded the Lord of the woman’s kindness to him, as well as the inevitable ill effect of the death of the son on his ministry and God’s reputation. Moses frequently leveraged God’s reputation to intercede for Israel. He reminded God that if he destroyed the Israelites. He focused on the fact that the surrounding nations would interpret their destruction as his inability to deliver them. Without Moses’ skillful leveraging of God’s attributes in behalf of Israel, they would have been destroyed. Though this prayer strategy is simple, it can be used to work great miracles. When the Assyrians threatened Israel, Hezekiah sought the Lord’s protection through invoking his jealousy. He brought to the Lord the Assyrian general’s mockery of the Lord. Hezekiah pointed out how God’s action against the Assyrians would distinguish God from the false gods of previously defeated kingdoms. By crushing the Assyrians, God could help men have faith in him. The Lord destroyed the Assyrians in a day in a great miracle. Hezekiah’s tack was very wise, as his righteousness was not mirrored by his people, and it would have been difficult to make a case for intervention from God by pleading for his people directly. Nothing is impossible with God, and he enjoys proving this to men. Consider the Lord’s reaction when his servants were unable to help one particular child. We can leverage his omnipotence by providing opportunities for him to do what is impossible with men. The Lord is merciful. We can invoke God’s mercy, as Nehemiah did. The Lord is just. Those who know this can invoke his justice. The Lord delights to bless those who love him. Righteous king Hezekiah was able to secure a blessing from God by asking him toremember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight....” (2 Kings 20:3) Moses frequently employed this tactic. On one occasion he said. King David asked the Lord to bless his son Solomon and the people in recognition of his acquiring materials for a temple in the “uprightness of [his] heart”. The Lord is the definition of selflessness. He recognizes this trait in his servants. Seeking blessings on behalf of others is one way to move heaven. Solomon’s prayer for wisdom was answered because he asked for it not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of his people. More about how to seek blessings for others is explained in the next chapter. The Lord is willing to work mighty miracles for those who invoke his righteousness in faith. Learning God’s attributes and leveraging them in prayer is one way to secure answers to our prayers. Intercession Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:8, NIV) God is exceptionally merciful, more than we can imagine. Yet, he is also just. The dynamic between these two qualities is something that, when understood, can be navigated to a yield stronger, more fruitful connection with God. God loves us so much that he wishes to give us many more blessings than we receive. What keeps us from receiving them? We do not possess the character or live the life associated with them. It is very common for God to want to bless an individual, but is curtailed in his ability to do so by his justice. Through his sacrifice, the Lord Jesus made it possible for divine justice to endure while still extending forgiveness to those whose disobedience would otherwise subject them to punishment. He did not rob justice through his sacrifice, but rather satisfied it with his sacrifice. He paid the price of our penalty. Intercession gives us the ability to obtain otherwise unmerited blessings for others through our own sacrifice. Just as the Lord Jesus paid the price of our sin, making it possible for us to obtain forgiveness that we didn’t earn, we can intercede for others to call down blessings on their behalf that they do not merit on their own. Even though the sacrifice on our part is miniscule compared to the sacrifice of Christ, the intervention of a righteous man can and does move heaven. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much...” (James 5:16) Intercession is a special kind of prayer for other people. Normal prayer for others—supplication—consists of asking the Lord to take care of something for someone else. In intercession, the praying person invests their heart and soul into the problem for the other person. Intercessors are willing to stand in the gap, or risk their own life and salvation for the person. They truly love those they pray for more than than they love themselves. They pray as if their fate were tied up in the fate of those they pray for. In fact, they love those they pray for more than themselves, because they are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing for those they pray for. This kind of sacrifice tips the scales of justice by adding merit to the cause of the subject of prayer. By tipping the scales of justice, intercession can secure blessings that would otherwise not be secured: postpone prescribed judgment, reduce prescribed judgment, extend new truth to men who could otherwise not obtain it, and provide answers to prayers beyond what people would normally be willing or able to receive. Why would anyone want to pray like this, almost always for those who abuse you, and many times for those you don’t even know well? “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) You will be hard pressed to find a greater expression of charity than intercession. In fact, you can’t have charity without intercession for others, and you can’t conduct intercession for others if you don’t have charity. The Lord Jesus Christ is the great intercessor. We cannot follow his example without interceding for others. He sits at “the right hand of God, [and] maketh intercession for us.” (Romans 8:34) Paul said “he ever liveth to make intercession for [us].” (Hebrews 7:25) Examples of his intercession include his atoning sacrifice, his condescension in coming to earth, how he forgives sins, and how he constantly pleads for us to the Father. Without the Lord’s intercession, the justice of God would require all of us to be immediately slain in our wickedness. The Lord advocates for each of us with the Father. Kneeling before him, he displays the marks in his hands and shows him his blood which was shed. He pleads “Because of my righteous sacrifice, have mercy on them.” Just as he intercedes for you at the throne of the Father, you are to intercede for others at his throne. You become their advocate with the Lord as the Lord is our advocate with the Father. The Lord’s joy is great when we emulate him. He is very close during intercession. He smiles upon those who do it. When you intercede for another, you are filled with the love that God feels for them. This draws you nearer to him. The Lord Jesus is not the only intercessor. Intercession happens throughout his kingdom. A good example of the intercession that occurs at the throne of the Lord Jesus is given by the cherubim who stand beside it. Their form and function is described in the ark of the covenant. These angels face the Lord, and form a two-way veil with their wings. From us, they veil the glory of the Lord, which would consume our flesh. From the Lord, they filter the wickedness of men. The name “mercy seat” comes from the fact that their mission is to constantly remind the Lord of his merciful nature. Their loud, constant cries of “Mercy! Mercy! Have mercy Lord!” cover the violent noise produced by our sins. As we intercede for others, we embark on the spiritual errands normally reserved for angels, who are constantly interceding with the Lord on behalf of men, preventing the outpouring of judgments that would otherwise justly occur. Intercession is fully for the benefit of others, but you cannot intercede without receiving blessings yourself. Intercession brings you closer to God because it unlocks real intent in your heart that can propel and elevate your desire for righteousness and strengthen your connection to God. It will cause you to grow in compassion. Compassion is a quality that, unlike gifts of the Spirit, will persist in your character far after this life has ended. Compassionate prayer has a special power to pierce the heavens. When you have compassion for the subject of your prayer, your prayer somehow will overflow with fervor beyond what is found in your normal prayers. In a strange way, compassion makes you willing to sacrifice your own needs for the needs of others, even when your needs are not trivial, and even when the benefit to the other person is less than the cost to you. This is an incredibly godly exercise, as it follows the Lord’s example. Intercession is crucial to the Lord having a people on earth. When God makes covenants with people, there are consequent curses that go along with the blessings should the people turn away. When they fall short, it is up to intercessors to stay the Lord’s judgment and prolong their lives. To Ezekiel the Lord lamented: “I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30) It is possible for a people to be so wicked that even intercession cannot stay the Lord’s judgment. In Ezekiel’s time the people had become so wicked that the Lord said that even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were praying for Israel, they would be unable to deliver anyone but themselves (see Ezekiel 14:14). Eventually, a people can be so wicked that God says to stop praying for them. Until then, we are under the admonition to “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Intercession requires sincere, patient, and intense sacrificial prayer. You may find yourself praying for someone for an entire day. You may find yourself fasting for three days or risking your life. You may find yourself fasting for forty days and forty nights. Self-abnegation for others produces results with God. Like our prayers themselves, sacrifices have a critical mass commensurate with what we are asking for. Intercession in any significant way requires the person to present a significant sacrifice. Typically, the person offers up their salvation or their life. The more righteous you are, the more weighty the sacrifice. Moses once offered his salvation to God in order to spare the Israelites from destruction for worshiping the golden calf. If Moses’ name was not in the book of life, he could not have offered his salvation as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. Those whose lives have not been spent in the service of God have less to offer, and those who have not yet obtained salvation cannot offer it in sacrifice. Offers of sacrifice to God are serious. Do not make this offer to God unless you mean it. God sees all hearts, and he doesn’t respond well to those who mock him. Moses was completely serious when he offered his salvation. In his case, God granted the requested action without requiring Moses’ life, but that doesn’t mean he won’t require it of others. John the Beloved provides another example of intercession. When he asked the Lord to delay his entrance into heaven so that he could bring more souls to the Lord, he was exercising intercession. The people did not deserve Moses, and they do not deserve John, but the sacrifices of Moses and John allowed a just God to transmit great blessings to them anyway. Sacrifice isn’t the only mechanism in intercession. All the prayer tactics discussed in this book apply, such as leveraging God’s character and God’s promises. For example, as Moses was receiving the ten commandments, God sent Moses down to the people to interrupt their worshipping of the golden calf. God told Moses he would destroy them. As he related later. Most of the examples in the chapters on leveraging God’s character and God’s promises in prayer are examples of intercessory prayer. They are valid techniques, and they work. Here is an example of Daniel applying the techniques in intercession. Notice how, despite the fact that he is righteous, he includes himself with those whose sins he is praying for. He is pleading for forgiveness of sins on behalf of people who have not yet repented. He also invokes the promise of God. When you attempt to intercede for someone, be ready to have a conversation (even a debate) with God. He once said, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord...” (Isaiah 1:18) He wasn’t speaking figuratively. Elijah’s experience with the widow’s son gives us an example of how we can make a case with God in intercession. Elijah’s host had sacrificed a great deal to care for him. To have such tragedy befall her would irreparably damage her faith. Meanwhile, he was a well-known servant of God. If this sort of thing happened to those who helped him, what would that make people think about God? Elijah took this petition to God, and God granted for him to raise her son from the dead. Much of the gospel is about rising to God’s blessing through your consistent obedience, then condescending to sacrifice those blessings by sharing them with those who will not appreciate it or accept it. When you exercise mercy, especially in behalf of those you don’t know, and especially in behalf of those who don’t deserve it, you activate a law in heaven whereby God must act. God is much more merciful than any man, but he chooses to exercise mercy according to certain laws. For example, we are told that with what judgment we judge, we will be judged. There is no way to work around this law in this sphere of existence. Likewise, if we are righteous, we can place ourselves on the altar for the benefit of another and move heaven with our compassion to provide blessings to that person that they do not otherwise qualify for. We should not underestimate the impact of intercession. Have you ever considered how it is possible that cities and nations far more wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah are not destroyed? It is because of many intercessions by the righteous on earth and in heaven. That is the scope and magnitude of the work of intercession. If it weren’t for the intercession of the righteous, this world would have been destroyed a long time ago. Even on a much smaller scale, unseen intercessions by others impact your life every day. God’s kingdom runs on intercession. It’s a hidden ministry of men, angels, and even the Lord. By learning this art and practicing it, you will have a significant impact on the Lord’s work here on earth. Opposition in All Things Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1 Peter 5:8) It is important to understand how Satan and his minions respond to your attempts to walk with God. There is opposition in all things. When you attract the attention of heaven, you also attract the attention of hell. Hell’s response is often not only more obvious to you than heaven’s, but also can seem to happen faster and to a greater extent. The reason for this is that the devil’s primary operating area is the body, where your perception is welldeveloped, while God’s primary operating area is the spirit, where your perception is under-developed. If your eyes were open to the spiritual realm, you would see how extensive, immediate, and mighty heaven’s reaction can be to even your faintest attempts toward God. There are several ways the devil reacts to your attempts to come to God, and understanding the devil’s tactics gives you power over him. First, he counterfeits the interactions with God that you seek. Any form of interaction with God can be counterfeited by Satan: thoughts/impressions, dreams, voices, open visions, visitations, and so on. How frequently does this happen? Because there is opposition in all things, anyone who has had interactions with God has also had interactions with Satan. If you have had experiences with God, and don’t know of any experiences you’ve had with Satan, you should prayerfully re-analyze your situation, because it is very likely that at least some of the experiences you think came from God were actually from Satan. The easiest way to derail a seeker of truth is to provide them with some spiritual manifestation that surpasses their previous experience. The devil, having obtained great power and knowledge in the presence of God before his fall, can counterfeit almost anything that God can produce. He can give you impressions. He can speak to you. He can appear to you as an angel of light, and can even appear to you claiming to be God. He can work miracles. The best time for Satan to try to pawn false experiences on you is when you are new to a certain class of experiences. When you feel impressions from the Holy Ghost for the first time, that or the next time is the most likely time he will send you a fake impression. When you hear the Lord’s voice for the first time, that or the next time is the most likely time he will give you a voice based revelation. He does this because you are unfamiliar with how revelations from God operate in that channel, and he is most likely to deceive you. The second best time is when you are particularly desperate for a connection with God, such as if you have sinned and are seeking repentance, or if it has been a while since you’ve heard from God. Without great discernment, new and experienced believers alike have been led astray by spiritual counterfeits. Once Satan has enticed you with a demonic spiritual encounter, he can teach you false doctrine that will keep you busy with what you think will bring you to God, when it is actually keeping you from him. A great example of this is found in the story of Cain and Abel, where Cain was enticed by Satan to make an offering to God in a form other than what God had commanded. How can you tell the difference between a spiritual manifestation of God and one of the devil? Spiritual manifestations from God “inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God.” (Moroni 7:15) All men have been blessed with the spirit of God to discern good and evil, but that discernment must be developed. You must learn to evaluate truth not with your bodily senses, but by the power of the Holy Ghost. “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5) When an experience comes from God, it is always accompanied by the Holy Ghost, which will create a sensation in your spirit that is completely distinct to anything this world has to offer, but is closest to what we call love. Because this sensation is practically impossible to describe, the best way to learn to recognize it is by experience. Over time, you train yourself to recognize the Holy Ghost by taking note of the sensations you experience in the spirit in moments where you lived God’s word as found in the scriptures and as given to you in spiritual manifestations. The Holy Ghost can have a sanctifying effect on your body when your soul heeds it, but it operates directly on your spirit, not your body. Do not understand this to mean that the Holy Ghost manifests as a feeling in the body. It is common for the body to react to the Holy Ghost with sorrow, fear, or even anger, because the natural man is an enemy to God, and because what God teaches us usually causes pain in the natural world. Always be incredibly wary of feelings and emotions in your body. For example, the subtle distinction between compassion in your spirit and passion in your body can mean the difference between working a mighty miracle of intercession and being tempted to use the Lord’s name in vain by seeking or proclaiming a blessing that is not his will to give. The lust of many men and women who pray for God to justify the desires of their flesh has been mistakenly called inspiration from God. Though God was telling them “no,” they could not hear because the volume of their bodies was so much louder than the volume of their spirit. One way to recognize counterfeit spiritual experiences is that they support staying as you currently are. Satan lifts you by telling you how great you are. Satan’s interactions with you will gratify your pride and make you feel like you do not need to change. Experiences from God are uplifting, but also paradoxically harrowing. When God reaches out to you, he rarely does so only to encourage you. He will frequently also chasten you in love and invite you to progress further through repenting, abandoning sacred cows, accepting deeper doctrine, and taking on previously insurmountable challenges. God’s interactions with you will lead you to greater experiences with him and will change you for the better. They will subdue your natural man and lift you up by humbling you. God lifts you by showing you how great he is. Counterfeit spiritual experiences are common. You should be very careful to watch for them, but you should not fear them. Instead, you should rejoice when God helps you identify them and regard their presence as a sign that you are on the right path. Satan does not send counterfeit experiences to those who are not a threat to him. It is better to let those people continue to believe there is no devil, that anything goes with God, or that there is no God. It is only when people repent and attempt to come to the Lord Jesus that Satan needs to send them spiritual experiences. This is reminiscent of how a military plane will deploy “chaff”—a confetti of metal pieces—to distract an incoming missile from its original target. The plane will not just randomly deploy the chaff. It waits until it is in imminent danger. Satan tends to employ other people to attack you when you decide to follow God. Satan has an incredibly large network of people on this earth who are within his power. When we think of the demon possessed, we think of very extreme cases. The vast majority of people who are influenced by demons are not even aware of it, because it is something that happens by degrees. In everything we do, we are enticed by God on the one hand, and the devil on the other. What this means is that practically every moment of every day provides us the opportunity to be an agent of the devil, even temporarily. This can come in ways we do not even perceive. I might say something that is totally innocuous to me, but triggers some unknown temptation in another. Of course, this can happen on a much larger scale and in less innocuous ways. The moment we turn away from God in the slightest, we open the door to demons, and they will get progressively worse if we don’t repent. The fact that most people on this earth either deny God or refuse to come to him means that heeding Satan’s voice is the default position. Does that seem an extreme statement? Perhaps you think that, were that to be true, we would live in a world where terrible things are done by normal people on a daily basis. It may seem to you that the world is not quite there yet. The truth is that it is, but Satan wisely hides most of the evil from public sight as long as it suits his purposes. Christians are largely blissfully ignorant of just how evil “normal” people are. Satan is like the ultimate mafia boss. When you attempt to walk with God, Satan starts calling in his favors with those around you. They hardly ever have any idea what is going on. You will not see Satan’s power over seemingly normal but ungodly people until it suits his purposes. Consider a prison situation. It is easy to ignore the power wielded by the warden and his associates until an inmate tries to escape. The inmates seem to have a peaceful experience, until someone threatens the system. Then all hell will break loose. The same goes with you when you try to challenge Satan’s system, the fallen world. The moment you set foot on God’s path, you will see just how many and to what degree people in your life are influenced by Satan. You will find yourself without any reliable human support. Your church will not support you. There is no place for men and women who love the Lord Jesus and are willing to do what he actually said in any modern Christian sect. It may surprise you to see just how much of a hold Satan has on people who spend so much time and money in what they suppose is the service of God. Your family will not support you. The Lord Jesus was rejected of his own family, and taught “And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10:36) Even those who have no idea of your spiritual life will be used by Satan to upbraid you. People at work, school, or other associations will persecute you without knowing why, and make active attempts to trigger sin in you. This may come in the form of unfair treatment at work, severe persecution in spite of doing good things, inappropriate sexual advances, or any number of things that you’d never expect. This is spiritual warfare, but most of the few Christians who really turn their life over to God do not know what to expect or how to react to the opposition that will come. How long will a soldier last who doesn’t understand that the enemy is trying to kill him? Will a soldier who doesn’t know how bullets work think to stay behind bulletproof barriers? Use this understanding of what is happening to construct your battle plans. Get on your knees and intercede for these people. Ensure your behavior in the natural world is above reproach. React to persecution with kindness. Avoid even the appearance of evil. Satan does not work alone. Satan presides over a host of demonic assistants. Demons will work on you directly (through thought) and indirectly (through proximity). Most people are familiar with how Satan tempts us through thoughts. When you get random, external thoughts of doing evil, this is a demon trying to influence you. When you consider their message, you admit them into your soul. When you follow their inspiration, it affects your spirit. When you die without undoing these effects through repentance, those changes to your spirit remain even when your body is separated from your soul and spirit. Demons can possess you indirectly as well, through proximity. The Lord’s angels can as well. Consider the example of how the spirit of prophecy came upon Saul merely because of his proximity to righteous prophets under the spirit of prophecy. If the Spirit of God can cause the spirit of prophecy to fall upon a wicked man through proximity, it is possible for evil spirits to infect righteous men through proximity. When others come around you who are possessed by demons, they are like a parasitic dog shedding ticks. Lying propagates lying. Greed propagates greed. Adultery propagates adultery. Suicide propagates suicide. Homosexuality propagates homosexuality. There are both physical and ideological strongholds of demons. Demons can also travel through thought. This is why those who watch violent movies tend to be more violent, and why news reports of school shootings or suicides increase the number of both. Thinking about sin invites sin. Being around those who sin invites their sins into you. How do you avoid infection? You would do well to avoid the places that you shouldn’t habit, and treat places you can’t avoid (like work or school) as you would a radioactive site. You protect yourself from radiation through protective gear, minimized exposure time, and vigilance. Your protective gear against evil is the time and effort you spend in communion with God. Your relationship with God is what determines how strong your spirit is. The stronger your spirit, the more you will broadcast light rather than absorb darkness. You must also learn to decontaminate. Take care that you don’t import demons from work or school into your home. As you leave an environment where demons abound, you’ll notice the influence of that environment abate. Demons will cling to you when you go into these places, but they will flee from you over time as you resist them, especially when you actively participate in communion with God. Demons are driven by their hunger, and they will flee an unaccommodating host relatively quickly in order to search out a more willing host. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Demons feed on the acquiescence of their human hosts. Prior to the fall of Adam, demons had no need to torment mankind. Satan tempted Adam and Eve out of his own wickedness, not for any need to. As a result, God cursed “the serpent” to eat “dust” (see Genesis 3:14). In literal terms, demons were cursed to have a constant, tormenting hunger that can only be satisfied— and only temporarily—by feeding on the evil acts of men that they inspire. Peter said. Demons prowl around opportunistically—seeking to satisfy their tormenting hunger as quickly as possible—and also tactically—seeking to strategically reduce the righteousness on earth. Plan accordingly. Opportunistic strikes are something you always have to be ready for. Strategic strikes are something you can sometimes anticipate. If you are on the cusp of a personal achievement or project that will advance the kingdom of God, be extra vigilant against the demons you can count on coming. Sometimes, we pray and pray for a breakthrough with God, and don’t realize that many times that will come in the form of an increased demonic temptation. Realize that when you ask for an increase of light, you are also asking for an increase in the darkness Satan is allowed to tempt you with. Be prepared for it. The strategic sophistication of demons is evident from the account of the Lord exorcising demons from the man of the Gergesenes. Note how all the demons’ behavior was focused on maximizing the damage to the kingdom. They knew they would no longer be able to terrorize a whole city, but they thought by destroying a herd of swine they could cause enough damage to minimize Jesus’ ministry in that town. They successfully persuaded the city to ask Jesus to leave. The demons did not directly possess the townspeople. Instead, they worked through third parties (the man and then the pigs) to get them to sin in rejecting the Lord’s ministry. Do not underestimate the sophistication and power of demons! There are multiple ranks of demons. The Lord Jesus is. All believers in Christ have authority to cast out the lower ranking demons. However, to cast out the next rank of demons, it requires prayer and fasting. This is not reactionary prayer and fasting, but preventative prayer and fasting. If you are not regularly fasting, you are willingly exposing yourself to demons that are more powerful than you are. Still higher ranks of demons are beyond the authority of most men. It is not our job to rebuke these higher ranking demons, but to call upon the Lord and have him rebuke them. Understanding the opposition that will come as we turn to God is vitally important to resisting it. Satan is powerful, but the Lord Jesus is more powerful. His tactics are effective, but they are also well documented. As we trust in the Lord, adhere to him, and study his word, we will increase in our ability to withstand all the blows of the devil and his armies in the spiritual and physical worlds. Seek Ye This Jesus We know this is true, because it was told by someone who saw it happen. Now you can have faith too. (John 19:35, CEV) This life is not a passive experience. Our ability to discern the straight and narrow path amidst a chorus of detouring paths is critical. The Lord did not intend for us to have to guess. One tool he provided was the promise that those who are on the right path will experience miracles: both in the lives of those who preach his word and to those who accept the preaching. God never revoked this promise. It is still in effect. God still confirms the word with signs following. They include all the gifts enumerated in the scriptures. If you do not abide in God’s presence, it is because one or more conditions are true: either you are not keeping all of God’s commandments that he has revealed to you, or you are not yet in possession of the commandments you need to enter into and remain in his presence. If you are not yet obeying the commandments God has given you, you must repent. The manifestation of God’s power in your life can only happen to the degree that you are free from sin. The commonly accepted lie that it is impossible to be free from sin ensures that most will never experience God to any great degree. If you have not yet obtained sufficient commandments despite keeping everything God has commanded you to do, you have not yet received all the commandments necessary to prepare you to have a habitation with God, if you have not yet received all the commandments necessary, it is because you are not yet capable of obeying them. There is only one way of becoming so: you must become more submissive to God. To become more submissive to God, ask, is there anything God could ask me to do that I would not immediately do? If so, you must work to overcome it. How? There are two ways God helps you trust him more. The first is by suffering. Moses approached the Israelites to redeem them early in his life. They rejected him, and God allowed them to suffer for 40 more years in order to help them trust in him. Although it may seem brutal, suffering is a very effective motivator, and, like all things God does, is motivated by his overwhelming love for us. The second way God helps you trust him more is by providing miracles in your life and in the lives of others. The Israelites did not trust God when Moses was called to lead them out of Egypt. Moses went to the Israelites before he went to Pharaoh. They rejected him. God provided many rounds of experience between Moses and Pharaoh to give increasingly dramatic examples of his power to the Israelites. At the apex, the children of Israel were asked to demonstrate their newly increased faith in God by sacrificing a lamb and painting their doors. This was a substantial increase in faith from where they were when Moses first approached them. If you are already at the point of full submission, where there is nothing you would not do if God asked you, then you simply must wait on God. There are many instances in the scriptures where holy men were required to wait before they could enter God’s presence. Hezekiah, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and others all had to endure a waiting period before they could enter his presence. It was not necessarily a period in which they were actively repenting. They were quietly waiting, actively seeking God day by day and moving closer to him in small ways. Every day you should be tangibly closer to God than the day before. I invite you to lay aside the ignorance and false tradition that keeps the majority of this world—including the Christian world—from sharing in the experiences common to all believers as illustrated in scripture from the beginning of time until today. God lives, and he has not changed. Those who worship him with full intent of heart according to the instructions he has given will find themselves with the same experiences as the ancients—they will experience prophecy, healings, revelation, dreams, visions, tongues, and heavenly visitations. The words in this book are sufficient to bring a man to know how to be redeemed from the fall and obtain a habitation with God. If, by God’s grace, you have found this book, I commend you to seek this Jesus, of whom the prophets and apostles have written. I testify to you that he will literally appear to all those who obey him and seek him. He will come and make his abode with you. There is nothing in this world that is worth more than a habitation with God. Yield your heart to him. Seek him with full intent, holding nothing back. Obey his every word to you, and he will come to you.