Saturday, September 17, 2016

The Holy Spirit/Ghost? Part:1


I am still formulating my thoughts on the Holy Ghost. I have a good foundation and have attempted many times to put them all into a singular document. Since I seem unable to do so, I am going to share with you the rough drafts of everything I have tried to write about the Holy Ghost. Each part is not a piece of the whole. Each one is an independent work that I started but was not quite able to continue. Perhaps as you read them, ideas, concepts, and inspiration will come to you that you can share with me. Thus, collectively, we might come to a greater understanding of the Holy Ghost in our lives.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not trying to draw any attention to myself. If you knew who I was before turning my heart to Christ, if you knew my life and the detestable things I have done, you would know why I feel like the least Saint among you. I am a weak and fallible individual who is trying to share my experiences with others that we might all grow. I hope that by sharing my experiences, others might be open to sharing theirs and we might all be edified by the Spirit.

Over the past couple of years I have moved from feeling the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to hearing the words of Christ through the power of the Holy Ghost. Although to the inexperienced this may seem one and the same, they are two completely different interactions. There is a stark contrast between driving by a homeless person and feeling that you should help them and driving by a homeless person and being commanded to help them.

I’d like to share an experience with you to illustrate the point. There was a time in my life when I was contemplating attending BYU to pursue a degree in Near Eastern Studies. Through a series of answered prayers “the way had been opened unto me.” Throughout a certain week, barrier after barrier seemed to come down and it was as if God had parted the red sea to make a path for me to pursue, (what was to me), the only degree worthy of my intellect. All of this was overshadowed by the fact that I had not yet beheld my Savior, God had not spoken to me audibly, and it seemed that all my effort to gain an audience with them was in vain.

While driving home at the end of the week, I pulled off the freeway and up to the intersection at the end of the off ramp. I had passed this intersection over 600 times and knew all of the homeless people. Though I can barely recall any of them now, I do remember them with their cardboard signs which read, “Anything Helps God Bless!” I could recognize each one by sight as they were imprinted on my mind, and whenever I had some left over change or money in my wallet, I would help.

This day, however, someone new occupied the street corner. A man with red hair, sun dried skin, and a scraggly beard seated on an orange Home Depot bucket. I pulled out my wallet and found it to be empty. “Oh well,” I thought. Then a thought came to my mind, “You should give that guy money.”

“I don’t have any money,” I replied to myself.

“Your bank is right around the corner. It will take you less than 5 minutes pull out some money and help him out.”

“I’m not going to go to the bank and pull out some money. I help when I have some spare change or dollars, but I am not going to turn around and get money out of the bank.” No more thoughts came and I considered the matter closed. As I pulled up to the next light, however, I felt a pull at my mind like my subconscious was trying to get me to make the right choice. I pulled the car into the opposite turn lane and proceeded to drive to the bank. “This is crazy. Where am I going to break this 20?”

“Don’t break it. Just give him the whole 20.”

“No way. I still have another week till payday and we only have 150 bucks left for groceries. I can’t give him the whole 20.”

“Don’t break it. Just give him the whole 20.”

“Fine!” I shouted in my mind. “What am I going to say to him when I hand it to him? Here man. God bless you?”

“Tell him, God knows of your struggles, and He loves you.”

“That is about the kookiest thing I could say to him. There is no way I am going to say that.” By this time I had already pulled into the bank and gotten a 20 out from the ATM. Because of where the man was sitting, and the way the intersection was located, I would have to park my car and walk up to him to give him the money. I pulled into the parking lot and thought, “What am I going to say to him?”

“Tell him, God knows of your struggles, and He loves you.”

“Fine,” I thought dejectedly. Though I felt like a fool and thought it a weird thing to say I resolved to do just that. I would walk up to him and hand him the money and…

When I arrived at the intersection, the man was gone. I looked at my watch and it had taken less than 5 minutes. I turned around from the corner and looked up into the heavens. “What was the point of that?”

“John. God knows of your struggles, and He loves you.”

I could barely see where I was going as the love that filled my soul brought me to tears.

This experience was during a period of my life where I wanted to go from spiritual infancy to Enoch status overnight. I did not understand the maturation process, nor did I want to go through any such process. To me, I had read that I could be in the presence of the Savior while in the flesh. 

"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). - AND MANY MORE!

That meant that if I prayed hard enough and had enough faith (even though at the time I had no real idea what that meant), I could have an audience with the Savior. 

In the context of that setting, I would later look back on this experience as my own mind trying to reassure and reinforce the effort I was making. Although this experience did reassure me that the path I was walking was the straight and narrow, and it did reinforce my decision to see it through to the end, I did not understand at the time the nature of the Holy Ghost and the method of communication that the Lord uses to speak to us.

Fast forward several months. I was not accepted into BYU and had found a lot more information on the Near Eastern Studies degree. Pretty much the only career I would be able to get with that degree would be a CES instructor which I most definitely did not want to become. I wanted to be like the Indiana Jones of the Mormon community, and now that dream was gone. I find it amazingly wonderful how Heavenly Father puts us through Hell so that we can find Heaven. Doubt had crept into my mind and: 

Where doubt and uncertainty are there faith is not, nor can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time; that persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence; and where unshaken confidence is not the faith is weak.” (Lectures on Faith).

For months I let my doubt tear nearly every shred of faith to pieces. Every experience, every feeling, every hope was reasoned and rationalized away into the ravings of a mad man. I wanted desperately to believe that a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior were just on the other side waiting to come down and visit with me. But for all my efforts, daily I would raise my voice to an empty sky. In the darkness of my closet, hours would pass while I stared up into the ceiling hoping beyond hope that I would see something that could not be rationalized away.

One day, I got into my car and drove across the city. I prayed with all of my soul asking God why He didn’t want to talk to me. I can say that I cried out to the Lord. I arrived at the job site and wiped the tears from my eyes. “Just a fool talking to himself,” I thought sadly as I went to work. An hour later I got back into the car to drive back to my office. I pulled out of the parking lot and continued the prayer.

“Lord, it’s so hard to believe. I don’t want people to call me a fool. I don’t want them to think I am stupid and following after nothing. I can’t continue on this path with nothing but my own thoughts as company.”

The best way I can describe what happened next is to say that time paused for a moment and everything around me became still. A thought entered in with such force and power to make an impression upon my soul forever.

Doubt not, but be believing. For so they persecuted me while I was on the earth. They mocked me and called me a fool. They crucified me and hated me. The world will think you a fool. They will call you a fool and they will see you as foolish. Have faith in me.

Then all returned to normal. Tears streaming down my face, I thanked God for his love. I thanked him for my life and the light he had given unto me. I promised that I would not doubt, ever again. I can gladly testify that I have been true to that promise and the Lord has blessed me with greater light and truth.

I have had other experiences since then where Christ has spoken to me through the power of the Holy Ghost as mentioned above. That phrase, “the power of the Holy Ghost” has taken on a deeper meaning to me and has become real. I want to try and explain it to you in the hopes that you can develop faith and trust in the Lord.

In order to understand the power of the Holy Ghost, one must first understand “what” the Holy Ghost is.

There are two personages who constitute the great matchless, governing and supreme power over all things-They are the Father and the Son. The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and fullness: The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle…And he [Jesus Christ] being the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and having overcome, received a fullness of the glory of the Father possessing the same mind with the Father; which Mind is the Holy Spirit, that bears record of the Father and the Son; and these three are one, or in other words, these three constitute the great, matchless, governing, and supreme power over all things; by whom all things were created and made, that were created and made: and these three constitute the Godhead and are one: the Father and the Son possessing the same mind, the same wisdom, glory, power, and fullness; filling all in all-the Son being filled with the fullness of the Mind, glory, and power; or in other words the Spirit, glory, and power of the Father-possessing all knowledge and glory, and the same kingdom; sitting at the right hand of power, in the express image and likeness of the Father-a Mediator for man-being filled with the fullness of the Mind of the Father, or in other words, the Spirit of the Father; which Spirit is shed forth upon all who believe on his name and keep his commandments; and all those who keep his commandments shall grow up from grace to grace, and become heirs of the heavenly kingdom, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ; possessing the same mind, being transformed into the same image or likeness, even the express image of him who fills all in all; being filled with the fullness of his glory, and become one in him, even as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one.” (The Lectures on Faith, Lecture Fifth, Paragraph 2 (my own emphasis added)).

The Holy Ghost is the mind of God. It is the mind that the Father and Son share. It is the mind that the Father will share with you, if you believe in the Son and keep his commandments. I can hear some people saying, “Holy Spirit is not the same thing as Holy Ghost.” Sorry, you are linguistically wrong. The Holy Ghost does not pop up in the scriptures until the New Testament, and in Hebrew and Latin, the word Ghost and Spirit are the same word. It is not until you have the English Translation of the Bible that Ghost/Spirit becomes forever Ghost and a third personage in the God Head. I’m not going to lay out the research on this one. You can take my word for it, you can take the Prophet Joseph Smith’s word for it, or you can find it out for yourself. Whatever you have to do to get there, do it.

Just in case people raise their pitchforks and cry heresy, this is from lds.org:

"They acknowledge the Father as the ultimate object of their worship, the Son as Lord and Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit as the messenger and revealer of the Father and the Son. But where Latter-day Saints differ from other Christian religions is in their belief that God and Jesus Christ are glorified, physical beings and that each member of the Godhead is a separate being" (www.lds.org/topics/godhead, emphasis added).

Ok, so the Holy Ghost/Spirit is the shared mind between God and Jesus Christ. It can also be shared with us. How?

Who cannot see, that if God framed the worlds by faith, that it is by faith that he exercises power over them, and that faith is the principle of power? And that if the principle of power, it must be so in man as well as in the Deity? This is the testimony of all the sacred writers, and the lesson which they have been endeavoring to teach to man.” (LoF Lecture 1).

God is upholding us day to day with his power. He has given us free agency to use that power as we see fit, but make no mistake, it is through His power that we are animated and have the ability to do all things. Move your hand. Power of God. Move your tongue. Power of God. Think a thought. Power of God. Everything we do is through his almighty power. We are beings connected with the very Father of Heaven and earth who created all things and through His power all things continue. It is when we submit our will/ability to think for ourselves to His will/ability to speak to us, that we begin to hear His voice through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As I was driving around the other day I was lamenting deep in my soul because as Nephi put it: 

O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities. I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.” (2 Nephi 4:17-19). 

Why when my heart wants to continually ponder the things of heaven does my mind frequently wander off into worldly thoughts? Worse so, why are some of my thoughts inappropriate?

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit…” (Mosiah 3:19)

I am a natural man and as such a natural enemy to God. If I choose to use the free agency that God has given me through His power to entertain thoughts of depravity and sin, then God will allow me to. If, on the other hand, I resist the natural man and turn my thoughts to Heaven, and open myself up to receive His words, He will speak to me through my thoughts and lead me to do His will on the earth. When that happens and we connect with heaven then those thoughts:

"shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord" (Doctrine and Covenants 68:4, emphasis added).

 I can tell you that Christ has given me commandments directly through the power of the Holy Spirit. As I have obeyed and fulfilled those commands, my life has significantly been blessed. This is only one meaning of “keep his commandments.”

I wish I could share with you the marvelous things the Lord has done for me. I wish I could share with you every opportunity I have had to serve others and the knowledge that I have gained from those opportunities. Suffice it to say, when you submit your thoughts to those of the Father and Son, they will speak to you.


If we can align our thoughts with the Father and Son, can we do so with the adversary? Can Satan speak through your thoughts to you? Can your thoughts deceive you?

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this powerful post!! You have given me many things to ponder and pray about!! I am grateful for your testimony and willingness to share the experiences you have had with the Lord!!

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