A Bunch Of Talk

[stemelbow]

He certainly leads them to the water but He can't make them dunk.

 

That is precisely why it is a biggie: everyone will receive the saving ordnances, living or by proxy, through the LDS Church.

 

It is just as esssential: without the earthly Church / kingdom there would be no link or passageway into the heavenly Church / kingdom. The earthly kingdom is where the ordinances must performed, that is why they are done by proxy. That is why the Lord's servants in this life's earthly kingdom continue to preside over its actions in the spirit world. The earthly kingdom is what is operating in the spirit world. That is how it was set up from before the foundation of the world.

 

Of course the earthly Church will give way to the Church of the Firstborn (and whatever other churches might be set up undet its authority to administer the lesser kingdoms) -- but let's not be too eager for its demise or too quick to minimize its importance to the point that the Lord actually leads people out of the Restored Church to accomplish any divine purpose that supercedes those stated in D&C 1.

I agree that the ordinances performed in temples are essential and are as essential for those who they are being performed for as they are for those who stand in proxy. we need it just as much as they. That says something to me, because if you think about it, we'll never be able to do the ordinances for most of those who have passed, at least in the way we currently do it. We simply don't know of everyone. I realize we pass this off with a shrug and say it'll be done later, but we don't really know. We don't know how it'll work in the future. We just like to guess and speculate. We're left searching and scraping the bottom of the barrel now, bypassing most of the names we could do because they aren't related.

This is tough stuff.

[Mars]

stemelbow, so what do you think it ought to be?  just everyone do the best you can with what you got and it'll all work out?  join the church, leave the church, whatever - as long as you're being honest with yourself?

 

how do you feel about the truth claims of the church?

 

how do you feel about its mission of missionary service?  i understand the numbers game - but do you feel it's essential to pursue it despite the overwhelming numbers?

[Mars]

i guess i've just been trying to solve your questions rather than commiserate that it all can be so difficult.

 

it is difficult.  it's a pain, sometimes.  it sucks.  it's also awesome.  (but it does sometimes suck.)

[stemelbow]

stemelbow, so what do you think it ought to be?  just everyone do the best you can with what you got and it'll all work out?  join the church, leave the church, whatever - as long as you're being honest with yourself?

I'm not sure what you mean by what it ought to be? what you describe is exactly what it is. How is life as we see it different?

 

how do you feel about the truth claims of the church?

Depends on which ones, of course.

 

how do you feel about its mission of missionary service?

mmm...I think a total revamp is in order. Would love to see more focus on service--which I think is happening in some places in certain circumstances. But my take is we're way overworking to achieve less converts than we could have.

 

i understand the numbers game - but do you feel it's essential to pursue it despite the overwhelming numbers?

oh...I started answering before I read your last line...silly me. Of course we should be reaching out in many various ways. but we should probably put primary focus on service.

[stemelbow]

i guess i've just been trying to solve your questions rather than commiserate that it all can be so difficult.

 

it is difficult.  it's a pain, sometimes.  it sucks.  it's also awesome.  (but it does sometimes suck.)

Thanks.

[Calm]

Better than what?

Better than I am when I am not following the gospel as well as I have at other times.  I do know that.

 

And since many in this world, who are not LDS, are just as good if not better, in so many ways, than LDS, why do we think we are blessed to have the gospel and they are not?

 

 

I don't know why some have been led to or born in the Gospel and others haven't.  That is one of the questions I am hoping to have answered eventually.

 

All I know is that the Gospel is a blessing for me.  In all probability, I would be dead without it (unless I had been in a faith that had as strong of a stance against alcohol and suicide as well as the promises of eternity to diminish the pain of some rather unpleasant realities and lost dreams in my life).  Almost certainly divorced as well (I could have had it annulled probably as a Catholic as we were just married) as it was the eternal commitment that kept me from running during a time I was depressed and didn't know it due to medication I was taking...having just married at about the same time as starting the medication, I thought it was the marriage relationship that was the cause and that it was a mistake but something I would try to turn around because I had made that commitment and he was a nice guy, I just wasn't the type of person who should be married I thought.  A few months later we found out that the actual cause.  I don't believe I would have hung around as long based on my behaviour in other situations I have felt were mistakes, I tend to try to act quickly to correct them and just don't insist on slogging through because I promised or others expect me to stick. 

 

And given my health situation, I have married probably one of the very few people on earth that I could live the way I do without an ounce of guilt or criticism even passing his face along with certain other things that I have learned mean all the world to me while other standards I had that he didn't meet quite so well became trivial in comparison.  So if I had divorced him then that would have been a huge loss that probably would never have been filled.  And since I met him at BYU, it is in a way a miracle for me.

 

How do you know if you didn't have the gospel if you would be better or worse than you are? We would never know that, really. 

 

 

So yeah, I really know the Gospel is a blessing to me.  No other position of faith would have gotten me through what I went through due to physical inheritances and landed me with so much.

Edited July 16, 2015 by calmoriah

[Mars]

i think we agree - this is life.  it's life in church, business, family, etc... all of it.

 

i just don't think that the complexities of it all, the difficulty in gaining certainty, and such, mean that the decision to leave behind the covenants we make is ok.  i think that in the vast majority of cases, it's better to stick to those covenants and find a way to make it work.  that person will be better off doing that than if they were to walk away from their covenants.

 

i shy away from saying who is and isn't better off, personally.  i think everyone would benefit from covenants and ordinances and more correct understandings of God and His dealings with them, but like the parable of the talents - going from 2 to 4 talents is every bit as valid as 5 to 10 in the end.  so if i can get you to listen to my incoherent babbling about joseph smith then awesome.  if you don't agree, then that's between you and God.

[CV75]

Church is amounting to, more and more, people concluding well, God's in charge and He'll figure out how to make things right, as people can't quite connect with current and past leaders words.

 

Because it's my belief. It's a piece of what I call my faith. I don't need to see the end result in order to feel this way, and frankly even if I knew someone whom God led out, I can't prove it was so...not until we're all standing up there with God.

 

I have no qualms with the sentiment that God is in charge and things will work out when someone comes across contradictions and conflicts (real or imagined), or asserts unsubstantiated beliefs that others reject. These are far from examples of God leading people out of the Church.

 

I agree that the ordinances performed in temples are essential and are as essential for those who they are being performed for as they are for those who stand in proxy. we need it just as much as they. That says something to me, because if you think about it, we'll never be able to do the ordinances for most of those who have passed, at least in the way we currently do it. We simply don't know of everyone. I realize we pass this off with a shrug and say it'll be done later, but we don't really know. We don't know how it'll work in the future. We just like to guess and speculate. We're left searching and scraping the bottom of the barrel now, bypassing most of the names we could do because they aren't related.

This is tough stuff.

Some may pass off challenges with a shrug, but we are taught to approach them with faith, hope and charity. There is no contradiction between the Lord’s commandments and our inability to keep them, due to the Atonement and Grace. God is in charge and things will work out, including taking care of anything that prevents the faithful from getting the Lord’s work done as quickly or as well as we’d like (see D&C 57:49).

Edited July 16, 2015 by CV75

[Calm]

Yes. I see the Church of the Firstborn, as many have explained to me, to be not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but an invisible Church without borders, which perhaps encompasses some LDS and some not LDS.

I don't see it as identical.  I would say that the Church of the Firstborn is the perfect, godly association that the LDS faith is the closest approximation to on earth due to the Priesthood authority.  Other congregations may come close because they do as well or perhaps even better at times in serving others in other ways, in expressing love; but I think the Priesthood is necessary to bind (which is what I see covenants doing) earth to heaven and to really establish heaven on earth for us.

[Calm]

I missed this before:

 

not sure that members of the Church have the best possible lives.

 

I did not mean to appear to make this claim.

 

I would never wish my life on someone else because I've never met anyone who wanted it---all of it, they were jealous of somethings---but I see it as a great life for me because of my circumstances and personal limitations and it is at a level that I believe I could only have achieved with the Gospel, but also only have achieved with marrying the guy I did, living in Canada like I did, having the doctors I have now, etc. etc.  The Gospel isn't the only thing that has blessed my life.  And there are things that didn't happen to me that I wanted to happen in the past that didn't because I was a member and made certain choices.  Those things would have been blessings as well and I really don't feel it works to say that such and such would be a greater blessing that this other such and such.  I don't think you can measure life that way because it is all intertwined.

 

The best thing the Gospel has done for me imo is to put what is going on into a meaningful framework so I do not feel despair or loss over what might have beens if I had been a different person and because it gave my life that meaning, I continue to work at making my life that much better rather than giving up.  My personality being what it is, I am pretty sure I would have given up without it.  And maybe I am in this Church because I needed that to have a life at all while others didn't have that need.  I would never consider I or anyone else got to be born in the Church because I rate higher in some fashion.

[mfbukowski]

I have a slight quibble with his quote.

"The basic purpose of all we teach and all that we do in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to make available the priesthood authority and gospel ordinances and covenants that enable a man and a woman and their children to be sealed together and be happy at home."

Rather than being the basic purpose so people can be happy and sealed at home, it seems more like the basic purpose is so people can be sealed eternally and find joy and purpose in eternity. Some in mortality, though members of the Church and all that, may never really achieve happiness in their homes here.

Give me a break.

 

If you are not sealed on earth you will not be sealed in the eternities, THAT is why we do those ordinances ON EARTH BY PROXY. 

 

So we should wait to be dead and let someone else do the sealings- right?

 

No, the objective is to have a happy life.  Right here.  Right now.

 

If for some reason we cannot have that here and now, yes we have the eternities to look forward to and the sure knowledge that God will provide for us.

 

But the gospel is for LIVING PEOPLE with the "parachute" of knowledge that it will all work out if it doesn't happen here. Sealing after death is not the preferred path, it is for those who did not have the opportunity here.

 

His whole point is that ordinances have actual relevance for how we live our lives and the pragmatic effect of ordinances and how knowing your are sealed forever actually encourages happy marriages right here and right now.

 

This is a pragmatic gospel and that was his point.

[ksfisher]

I have a slight quibble with his quote.

"The basic purpose of all we teach and all that we do in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to make available the priesthood authority and gospel ordinances and covenants that enable a man and a woman and their children to be sealed together and be happy at home."

Rather than being the basic purpose so people can be happy and sealed at home, it seems more like the basic purpose is so people can be sealed eternally and find joy and purpose in eternity. Some in mortality, though members of the Church and all that, may never really achieve happiness in their homes here.

 

Orson Scott Card wrote a wonderful column in the Desert News a few years ago that deals with this.  I've linked to it before, but it seems like it's worth sharing again.

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700189566/Magical-thinking-is-not-the-plan.html?pg=all

 

On a personal note I believe that my family is much happier because we have the gospel in our home.

[St. Bookmark]

I was just talking to my wife about this subject a few weeks ago, I feel like we spend to much time studying the leaders and not enough time with the scriptures, I look at the scriptures as the rule, cannon, and reed of truth, I look at the words of the current leaders as a type of commentary to them, so if they don't jive I don't use them if they do then I keep them close.

Iam sola scriptoria for the most point.

[sethpayne]

I was just talking to my wife about this subject a few weeks ago, I feel like we spend to much time studying the leaders and not enough time with the scriptures, I look at the scriptures as the rule, cannon, and reed of truth, I look at the words of the current leaders as a type of commentary to them, so if they don't jive I don't use them if they do then I keep them close.

Iam sola scriptoria for the most point.

 

Amen!