Joseph Smith taught a sermon near the end of his life. It has been called the King Follett discourse. Some have summarized that discourse with the couplet of Lorenzo Snow, “As man is, God once was. As God now is, man may become.” As I’ve studied the gospel, fasted and prayed and had experiences, this to me is one of the crowning, liberating doctrines that Joseph restored. Any doctrine less than this will ultimately dam our progression.
There are many scriptures Joseph used to develop his thoughts that we are here to become as God is. One must commune with God. One must understand who He is and rise up to see and feel the way God does. He instituted the Lectures on Faith into our canon, with the approval of the church, to help us know how to come to know God and become like Him.
Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
In other words, eternal life is KNOWING God and Jesus Christ. Is knowing about Them eternal life? Can I study the scriptures and everything that has been written about them to the point that I know Them?
If I were to study the life of George Washington and become an expert on everything he did and said I would still fall short of knowing him. These things will aid me in my quest but to truly know him I’d have to walk the same steps he walked. I would have to know what it felt like to lead a rag tag army against the most powerful army on the earth. I’d have to see my troops starving and frozen, giving up everything for freedom’s sake. I’d have to be away from my family, suffering in the cold with my troops over the holidays and cross the icy Delaware River, praying that we could somehow, with God’s aid, get a victory that would give us hope in winning the war.
There is no way to KNOW someone until you have experienced the same gut-wrenching experiences. So, when we know that eternal life is coming to know God and Jesus Christ, we will need to make a conscience decision that we are willing to walk the path of Jesus. I believe embedded in the statement, “come, follow Me.” Jesus is inviting us to enjoy eternal life. He is inviting us to walk the paths that He trod. Feel the sorrow, the pain and the agonies that He felt. To experience the true joys that He feels and the peace that comes from faith to fulfil the will of our Father and Mother in heaven.
We learn a great truth from Alma. He shared this about the Lord, Jesus Christ, “ And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
12 And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.
13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me” (Alma 7:11-13).
From these verses we learn that the Lord could have known through the Spirit how to succor His people but He suffered according to the flesh, a mortal experience, that He may know according to the flesh how to succor us. In other words, the Spirit could have whispered to Him the mechanics of how to do it but by going through it Himself, He could now know what we feel and therefore, come and really help us because He walked the path we walk.
Same with us. In order to know the Lord, we can’t just be told by the Spirit what it feels like to be rejected by our own. As we keep the commandments of the Lord, we will go through many similar experiences to the Savior.
For example, He preached repentance to the church and was rejected and crucified by them because of it. He was unfettered by the traditions of men and as He sought to break down the false traditions and false beliefs He was ridiculed and shamed. They mocked Him, spit upon Him and completely rejected Him.
If we are sincere about discipleship and about receiving eternal life, it will not happen academically only. It will be a physical, mortal experience. It won’t be a video game that we fake we are experiencing, it will be a tangible, heart-wrenching walk and even a crawl at times. We will come to know why the Lord cried out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).
Line upon line, precept upon precept, we learn the commandments of God in scripture and as we act upon them He reveals more and more of His word to us. The scriptures don’t change, we change and the scales of unbelief drop from our minds and hearts as we gain capacity to live the full meaning of the law.
Eventually we become like the great disciples in the scriptures. We are given specific assignments by the Lord. For example, Lehi, a normal member of the Jewish faith community, was asked by the Lord to preach to the people that destruction was coming to Jerusalem. He learned a lot about how the Lord would feel 600 years later. He felt what rejection by family and friends felt like. He was rejected by the leaders of the church that Moses had established. We know this because most stayed behind and were destroyed for their unrighteousness. Some of his sons came without a completely believing him.
Another example is Nephi. He was given instructions to build a boat. Were these instructions given in the Ten Commandments? No, it was an individual assignment. He learned to hear the word of the Lord to him, individually. He learned what it was like to be given more information, from time to time as he completed each part of the assignment. He also learned what it felt liked to be mocked by his brothers as he worked on the commandment given to him.
The sons of Mosiah forsook an earthly kingdom to preach the word of God. Again, this was not a commandment given to everyone, but rather one they desired to do and felt the approval of the Lord. They came to know what it felt like to have their lives at risk because of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We cannot receive eternal life by simply being baptized, going to the temple, being sealed to our spouse and then going to church to take the sacrament. These things are great steps that help point us to the Savior but we must be very aware that as we enter the path and are faithful to His commandments, He will invite us to follow other commandments from HIm and then also be creative in doing many things of our own free will to bring to pass much righteousness. Like the brother of Jared, he brought stones to the Lord and asked Him to light them. The Lord is a creator and the closer we come to Him, the more He will allow us to use our own creativity to choose how to help Him in His work of bringing to pass the eternal life of man.
I love the description of Ether, “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27).
If we follow Jesus’ divine injunction, “come unto Me,” we will see our weaknesses. As we conquer those weaknesses and are cleansed through His blood through faith and real repentance, we will be coming closer and closer to Him. The closer we get to Him, the more His light reveals further weakness and we are given the chance to repent of those things as well. Eventually we enter the fulness of His presence, His rest. This is why we read so often in the scriptures about entering into the rest of the Lord. Once we have become like Him, we find rest to our souls.
This process happens line upon line. We feel portions of His spirit as we strive to keep His commandments. When we arrive at peaks along the way, it can be tempting to think we’ve arrived. After time, we sense there is something more as He opens our minds and hearts to that reality. At that point, we can decide to leave the current plateau and go to the next peak. Each new peak brings new gut-wrenching challenges.
I love the way John describes why Jesus was rejected. We can learn if we are rejecting Him or receiving Him by pondering these words, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John 3:19-21).
I pray for strength to keep coming unto Him again and again. I pray for all of us to walk the path that He hast shown. We must be aware that as we take the steps on the well marked path, we will eventually arrive at points on the trail that are only faintly shown. Few have sought to continue to climb the mount. In fact, in Moses’ day we learn that the children of Israel wanted Moses to climb the mount and know God and allow them to live their normal lives at the base of the mount.
We read, “Now this Moses plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness, and sought diligently to sanctify his people that they might behold the face of God;
24 But they hardened their hearts and could not endure his presence; therefore, the Lord in his wrath, for his anger was kindled against them, swore that they should not enter into his rest while in the wilderness, which rest is the fulness of his glory” (Doctrine and Covenants 84:23-24).
Let us be faithful to Him. The gospel is simple but difficult. Simple to understand because we learn that all we need to do is become as God is. Difficult in the fact that to become as God is requires time, experience and faith to act on further light and knowledge. The path keeps opening up into greater vistas of opportunity and challenge. Will we take those steps that we sense we need to take? Will we come unto Jesus and be perfected in Him and receive eternal life by knowing Him? This is our great opportunity and challenge. Praise be to God and the Lamb that we can walk this path in the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
