I hope you enjoy some insights from my Come, Follow Me for Doctrine and Covenants 93, If you missed last week’s insight, for Doctrine and Covenants 89-92 click here for it. Please share this with your friends or use this picture to save this pin to read later:
Seeing the Face of God.
“Verily, thus saith the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am” Doctrine and Covenants 93:1
This is the ninth reference so far in the Doctrine and Covenants to seeing the face of God. (See 35:21, 50:45, 58:3, 76:23, 76:117, 84:22, 84:23, 88:68, 97:16, 110:2, 130:3, for more see TG: God, Privilege of Seeing). Are you getting the message yet? One of the most prevalent messages of the doctrine and covenants is that the Lord has prepared a way to see His face!
Jesus Christ declared that Life Eternal is to know God. To KNOW God Joseph Smith taught: “No one can truly say he knows God until he has handled something, and this can only be done in the Holiest of Holies” One of the reasons we build temples is to provide dedicated places where Jesus Christ can come to earth. One of the roles of the Holy Ghost is to lead us to Christ, who then, in turn, leads us to the Father. Joseph Smith also taught this: “when any man obtains this last Comforter, he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even He will manifest the Father unto him” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,149–51).
For more on seeing the face of God and the holy of holies see Blackmail, Washing Of Feet, And The Holy Of Holies.
The God who created worlds loves you.
“The worlds were made by him; men were made by him; all things were made by him, and through him, and of him.”
Doctrine and Covenants 93:10
Regarding the power of God and our relationship to him, Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught: “Imagine that — the most powerful being in the universe — the being who formed stars, nebulae, and galaxies has your eternal happiness as His greatest priority.” Think about that! Look up at the night sky and realize He who created all the stars in the sky loves you! Trust in His plan. Surely if He can create a world for us to come and dwell on he will also provide every opportunity and blessing to ensure our success!
What do we worship?
“I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship, and know what you worship, that you may come unto the Father in my name, and in due time receive of his fullness.”
Doctrine and Covenants 93:19
What do we worship? Who is God exactly? What is He like? And what is our relation to Him? These are very basic questions that every Christian must answer because Jesus taught in John 17:3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Bu the problem is that the vast majority of Christians know far more about Jesus than God the Father. In a matter of fact, what most Christians believe about God their own clergy and Church oftentimes don’t even believe!
When I was a missionary I would ask people to describe God. They would tell me about a loving Father. I would ask them, “Is He literally our Father? Or is that only symbolic?” To which they would fiercely declare God was literally our Father. I would ask them Does God the Father have a body like Jesus? They would then affirmatively state they believed He did. Then I would warn them that this belief is actually not what their Church believed, they believe it because the Spirit has taught them it is true, but that if they went to their minister he would disagree as Trinitarian Christians (90% of all Christians) believe that God has no body, He has no parts, He has no passions.
They disagreed, and I would invite them to ask their minister and we would see what he said. But that they would then needed to choose what to believe? Do they believe in the God who is their literal Father, who loves them, who has a body like Jesus Christ, who wants us to become like Him? Or a God that does not have a body, a God that is not our literal father, and honestly a God whose status more closely resembles the damned status of Satan (No body, no progression, no fatherhood) than the exalted status God, The Father.
I invite you to watch this amazing talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on this subject: The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent
Relativism Satan’s counterfeit of the truth.
“And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.”
Doctrine and Covenants 93:24-25
This is one of the most important verse(s) in the Doctrine and covenants. We live in a world that is preaching that everyone can have their ‘own truth’ that everything is relative, also known as relativism. The apostles and prophets have decried relativism as Satan’s counterfeit of the truth. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Relativism involves the denial of the existence of absolute truths and, therefore, of an absolute truthgiver, God. Relativism has sometimes been a small, satanic sea breeze, but now the winds of relativism have reached gale proportions.”
But Elder Maxwell was not alone, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf urged us to “seek for eternal truth in a world of relativism, confusion, and of fear.” and Elder D. Todd Christofferson declared “We need strong Christians who can make important things happen by their faith and who can defend the truth of Jesus Christ against moral relativism and militant atheism.” We live in a world of fake news and propaganda. Now more than ever we need the eternal truths of the gospel.
The Joseph Smith Translation.
“And, verily I say unto you, that it is my will that you should hasten to translate my scriptures, and to obtain a knowledge of history, and of countries, and of kingdoms, of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion. Amen.”
Doctrine and Covenants 93:53
The story of the Joseph Smith Translation is quite amazing. Emma carried the manuscripts in her dress from Missouri to Nauvoo when the Saints were driven out. When Brigham Young led the saints to Utah after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum, Emma kept the manuscripts that contained the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Eventually, the RLDS church (now known as the Community of Christ) copyrighted and published the Joseph Smith Translation or Inspired Version of the Bible.
During this time in Utah, most members did not know there was a JST for the Bible. It was not until 1979 when the Church produced new editions of the scriptures that the JST’s were included. Most members today do not realize that the Community of Christ Church still owns the copyrights for the JST. Not only that, Joseph Smith made 3400 changes in the JST. In 1979 the Community of Christ Church allowed us to include 600 of those 3400.
In 2013, the Community of Christ Church allowed us to add even more JST’s now we have just under 700 of the 3400 changes that Joseph made. Of the Joseph Smith Translation, Bruce R. McConkie has said: “The Joseph Smith Translation, or Inspired Version, is a thousand times over the best Bible now existing on earth”
*Special Thanks to my Institute Teacher Dr. Ronald Bartholomew for sharing his research on this topic and providing these stats. For more on this topic see: The Most Far Felt Legacy Of President Thomas S. Monson