We talk about being Christ-like all the time. Our hymns repeat the refrain and our children sing about how they are “trying to be like Jesus.” But what does that mean? What was Jesus like as a person? And how could we hope to emulate Him? The question may seem impossible to answer and we may feel despondent under the weight of it. We can know Jesus Christ and we can fulfill His commandment to become like Him. This lost LDS Classic explores what character is, what Christ’s character is, and how we can manifest His character in our thoughts, words, and deeds today. This is how we can possibly, happily, joyfully be like Christ!
Tag: Joseph Smith
This Is What It Is Like After You Die
People have been asking the question of what happens after you die for tens of thousands of years, for millions of years. As long as humans have existed. It has been said that if you could bring someone back from the dead and ask them about what, if anything, happens next it would be the most important thing any of us ever could learn.
Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore. It has happened. People have died. They have had intimate visions of what happens after death. And they have returned to life to explain what they experienced and what we need to do to prepare in this life for the next. This is just such an account, a vision of the next world as shown by God to Elder Jedidiah M. Grant, Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Revealed here is what a modern-day Prophet, Seer, and Revelator saw when he looked beyond the veil of death and into the world of spirits.
This is what happens after you die.
This is what the afterlife is like.
This is what comes next.
The Great Blessings of A Modern Prophet
This article is a talk I was asked to give in church as our ward prepares for the coming General Conference. In it I talk about how the importance of the modern prophets, how they actively receive revelation from God for us right now, the blessings and truth to be gained by following the Prophets and Apostles, and exactly what so many in the world are so threatened by the existence of modern prophets. (Hint: It has to do with their money and power.) I end by sharing a tool that we can use to get the most out of General Conference and the talks of Prophets and Apostles. Come, brothers and sisters, let us listen to the Prophet’s voice and hear the Word of God!
What Can Men Do Against Such Reckless Hate?
I recently finished a rewatch of the Lord of the Rings. As always, I was struck by the drama and courage of Théoden and the Riders of Rohan as they made what seemed like a last stand against the overwhelming might of the armies of Saruman. Instead of surrender or retreat they trusted in the words of Gandalf the White and stood against evil no matter what the cost to them, even if it cost their lives. There is a great lesson for us to learn here about how we should live. Using examples from throughout the scriptures I discuss how we can stand against the reckless hate of the world we live in today.
The Human Side of the Book of Mormon
Why are there so many biblical quotations and allusions in the Book of Mormon? Why are there errors in the Book of Mormon’s grammar, spelling, and language? How did Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon? How did the Urim and Thummim work? How did the Seer Stone work? Why would Joseph need either in the first place? What impact did the knowledge and mind of Joseph Smith have on the Book of Mormon and its translation? Why would God choose an ignorant ploughboy from upstate New York to be His prophet when much more educated, enlightened, and respectable men existed? What does the answer to these questions say about the authenticity of the Book of Mormon?
Professor N.L. Nelson answers all these questions and more in this excellent essay and explains why the answers to those questions should only increase our faith in the Book of Mormon as Christian scripture.
Is The Book of Mormon Racist?
The claim that the Book of Mormon is racist is a common refrain among our critics, some of their most potent ammunition to destroy the interest of investigators and sow doubts in the faithful. But they’re wrong.
The Book of Mormon isn’t racist. And in this article I prove it by taking a detailed look at the symbolic and literal interpretations of the Lamanite curse and “skin of blackness” to demonstrate that it not only isn’t racist, it has nothing to do with race at all. The Book of Mormon, when understood in its proper context as an ancient document reflecting the language and ideas of people whose culture and understanding of the world was fundamentally different than ours, is very clearly not racist. When someone sees it as racist they are only demonstrating their ignorance of the document itself and projecting our own modern problems onto it.
How Mormonism Influenced The First Mistborn Trilogy
I recently finished Brandon Sanderson’s first Mistborn trilogy -The Final Empire through Heroes of Ages – and loved all three books. They’re incredible works of storytelling and some of the best fantasy out there. Sanderson is easily one of the best fantasy writers alive. He is also a devout Latter-day Saint. As I was reading his books again and again I kept coming across ways that Mormonism influenced his writing in crucial ways, but was shocked to find so little online exploring these influences. This article is my attempt to demonstrate some of the major ways that LDS scripture, history, theology, and culture deeply influence Sanderson’s writing and appear in these books.
Save Jesus Only: The Greatness of the Prophet Joseph Smith
With December being the Christmas season I feel like we often get so caught up in celebrating the birth of Christ that we overlook the birth of the second greatest man in history – the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., born December 23, 1805. This year I wanted to take a day and celebrate his birth as well. Second only to the Savior, the Prophet Joseph is worthy of all the admiration, respect, and honor the Saints give him. This article was written to highlight some of the many ways that the Prophet Joseph was a paragon of Christianity, worthy of learning about, learning from, and following the example of in our lives.
The Mormon Pioneers Were Refugees and Illegal Immigrants
Pioneer Day is today. Celebrating the first time a company of Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley to permanently settle there, it is the closest thing we Latter-day Saints have to our own church holy day (holiday.) But there is a lot to this story that we don’t tell on Pioneer Day, a lot of our history and precious truth that we leave on the cutting room floor. For example: The pioneers weren’t really pioneers. They were really refugees illegally immigrating into Mexico in order to escape the decades of pogroms, ethnic cleansings, exterminations, and genocide they had suffered in the United States. This article is an attempt to tell this story of our spiritual and literal ancestors so that we can apply to real lessons of our history to the world we live in today and make it a better place, a more Christ-like place, a Zion-place.
Scriptural Proof The Earth Is More Than 7,000 Years Old
There are two different but connected errors that seriously plague modern Christianity. The first is the common error throughout segments of Christianity, including among Latter-day Saints, that the Earth was created in a single week. I addressed this error and corrected it last week. The second common error is that the world approximately 6,000 to 7,000 years old. That is what this article is about. The idea that the world is only 6,000 years old, an error that has damaged the faith of tens of thousands, even millions, of people, is based on a couple of fundamental misunderstandings of the scriptures. Both have also been refuted by modern revelation starting with the Prophet Joseph Smith. In order to correct this error and demonstrate what the scriptures truly teach on this subject I will combine a proper understanding of scriptural context with modern revelation to establish what it is about the Age of the Earth that the scriptures do teach so that we Latter-day Saints will not continue to fall into the error that other Christians have.