August 20, 2018
by Vicki C Stull
I am 71 years old at the time of this writing. I will be 72 in February of 2019. At this time I am still active both mentally and physically. My children and grand children here in Arizona and the ones in Idaho and Utah know that I love to garden and they all have helped me to garden either in their own yards or mine. The ones in Oregon only know of my love of gardening to some extent. I am glad that all my children and grandchildren know that I love to garden but there are some other things that I hope I can pass on to them, (and whatever other posterity may be able to read this) that are much more important than gardening.
First. God our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, who is the testifier of truth, are real and separate individuals. They live and they have all knowledge and all power. And they use that power to bless us, even when we don’t understand it or believe it. —— I know that what I am telling you is true. I don’t just believe it. You can read shorter accounts of some of my experiences in other places but here I want to concentrate on a foundation. I want you to know some of the things that help me maintain an eternal perspective as I try to live my life in a way that will allow me to draw closer to my Heavenly Father and his Son, my Savior Jesus Christ.
It was under the direction of God the Father that Jesus Christ created this world for us. Actually they have created many, many worlds but it is this world that concerns us. They are glorified eternal beings who love us and want to help us become glorified and perfected. They are not remote or non engaged. They are very real and are as close or as far away as we decide to let them be. We knew them before and wanted to be like them. They want us to learn of them and to draw on their power to help us use this earth life to become more like them. But to do that we must desire to be like them and choose to put our life in their hands (trust them and want their help ? easier said than done sometimes). We can not on our own, in this life learn enough or do enough to be like them. But with their help we can come to be like them and live the kind of lives they live now. Lives of love, and power, and great creativity. There are many, maybe most in the Earth today who do not believe what I have just written. They seek after other things, some of them good and some of them bad. God blesses all of his children and many know of him party through their own faith traditions and the portion of His Spirit that he has granted to them. We, however, have a fullness of his plan and because of that are under certain obligations to be his servants here on the Earth.
God created a plan whereby we could become like him and have the knowledge, and power that he has but we had to learn how to use that power in the way he uses it, to bless the lives of others around us and not as a way to gain self-importance. In order to understand the plan you need to know a little more about yourselves. If you have grown up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, than you know some of this, but you might not understand it completely yet. I am not sure that I understand all of it yet but I understand a lot more than I used too. The words may be easy to say but the implications for you and your behavior and for me and mine may not be so straight forward or as easy to implement as we would like them to be.
We are the spirit children of God the Father and a Heavenly Mother. They clothed our eternal intelligences with a spirit body and taught us in their presence in the eternal realms where they live and where we were with them for a long time before time existed. However, they knew that we needed to learn some things on our own. Things that we could not learn if we stayed in their presence. We needed to have an experience where we were free to choose how we, each of us individually, were going to handle things. We also needed a body like the one God the Father had. A body that could be the tabernacle of our spirit body and would look like it. A body that gave us more power and more capacity to create and to help others but one that we would need to learn to make subject to our spirit.
God had a plan for us, his children, to learn what we needed to learn. However, there was a risk. This plan involved us being sent to a place where we could make wrong choices. Choices that could and maybe would hurt us, both physically and spiritually. And choices that could and maybe would hurt others, innocent others. Also there could be choices by others that would hurt us physically or spiritually even though we might be innocent of wrong doing. We could be the victim of both our own actions and the actions of others. We would be in a world that sometimes valued the words of God our Father and sometimes didn’t. A world where the truth about who we were was not always going to be easy to see and where sometimes it would be easy to forget about who we were altogether, or where, we might not want to learn, when we were taught because it might mean living in a way that we felt would require too much of us. It could look too hard, or feel too hard to make choices that brought us closer to God. (Especially if we didn’t really know who He was or if he really cared about us.) We could and definitely would make mistakes in this place that He proposed that would result in our being unclean and not being able to come into his presence again. It would also result in us being subject to illness and death.
God knew all of this, all of the risks and more and His plan had a way to work through all of them. He knew that none of us could live in His kingdom with Him unless we were totally clean and pure and that we couldn’t be that way without help. His plan called for a Savior. Someone who could pay the price that was created when we made bad choices or when we were hurt by the bad choices of others, or when the world itself overcame us through sickness and death. The Savior would have to give Himself as a sacrifice for us. He would need to provide a perfect example and show us how to reach out to God and how to deal with all the horrors that could be inflicted upon us by both our friends and our enemies. If his daily life didn’t provide all of this than in a way known only to God he would have to suffer the depths of all sorrow and overcome it. He would have to live as a mortal and die as a mortal and take his life back up again as a God. He would need to be one of God’s sons and be willing to do all of this because he loved us and he would have to do it in the way that God the Father wanted it done. As a willing, obedient servant subject to his Father.
We were all involved in the ?councils in Heaven? where all of this was discussed. In order to grow to be like God we needed to be able to experience failure and to be saved from that failure. But we needed to choose willingly to submit ourselves to the help that was offered from the ?Savior? just like he willingly submitted to the Father. There were two who stepped forward to become this ?Savior?. They were both well known and powerful spirits. But God our Father knew which one could and would be like Him and sacrifice his own ambition for the good of the rest of us. He is known on earth by us as Jesus Christ. In the old Testament he is called Jehovah. The other one to step forward was Lucifer, also known as Satan. He was powerful but wanted God’s glory and did not want to get it in God’s way. He wanted to convince us that he would use his power and glory to make it possible for all to come back and he would let no one fail. Under this method (even though it may have sounded good) there would really be no test. He would do it all and we would have nothing to do but all the glory would need to go to him. We would never learn from our mistakes and we would end up being subject unto him not by our choice but because he would ultimately take choice away from us.
God the Father saw this and more. He saw that this was really a selfish plan and was not the plan that he put forth and He choose the first, Jehovah (Jesus Christ) to be the Savior. He would come and learn, little by little, to be like his Heavenly Father, knowing him and remembering him. He would follow his commandments and be baptized by proper authority, and he would teach and heal and ultimately atone for our sins in Gethsemane and on the cross. He would be crucified and resurrected on the third day. And through his atonement and resurrection we will all have the opportunity to repent but it will be a choice. We can decide to seek His forgiveness, to change and to be forgiven . We can do this over and over as we learn little by little, step by step to be like Him.
If we seek after Him he will help us to be better than we are. If we follow the commandments, keep them and let the life of the Savior be our guide and our comfort we will ultimately, through Him be perfected and able to be in the presences of God the Father and our Savior again. Through His death and resurrection all that came to this earth and received a body will be resurrected and live again. Those who have chosen to repent and learned to be like God (which may take more than just this life) will be exalted and rule and reign with God the Father and his son Jesus Christ.. The others will have lessor degrees of glory. Satan and his hosts will be cast into outer darkness and will have no glory. A sad lesson for one who because he wanted it all his way will get nothing. If he had chosen to be subject unto God he could have had all that the Father hath.
Satan was angry and there was a great war fought in Heaven. He wanted power more than he wanted to be subject to God and was cast out as a result of his rebellion. One Third of the Hosts of Heaven followed him. He and they did not ?keep their First Estate? and will never have the opportunity for a body and will never be able to live with God again or enjoy the peace that comes from growing to be like God. He wanted to be God and have all the Glory and never have to be tested and as a result failed to get to be a part of the whole opportunity that the plan was presenting.
He and his hosts now have access to Earth. He delights in confusing things, lying, making it easier for contention to be a part of the conversation, instigating murder, pitting one person against another and trying to make sure that no one every learns about the true plan or the true nature of God. He knows that he was not chosen to be the ?Savior? and did everything he could to stop Jesus Christ but was defeated. He knows that he can not win the war but he now delights in making life miserable for as many people as he can. He will try to tell you that what you have read here is not right. If there is a little flaw in my explanation above, he will find somebody to point it out to you and make you feel like an idiot for thinking about the things that I have written here. Or that are written in the scriptures or that are taught in the Church. Don’t let him do it. Turn your heart to God. For Satan will not always have power and you can be protected against him even while he still walks the Earth if you will seek for wisdom by looking to the Temple, going there to learn when you can, and keeping the covenants that you make there and at baptism.
I know that what I have written here is true. I know that God and Jesus Christ love us and want to provide for us a way to come home. They may let us experience things that are painful and difficult but they can and will be there through those trials if you will just hang on. We may or may not always be able to feel them there in the moment. However, when we have endured through a trial or difficulty we will be able to look back and see how they helped us if we were not able to feel the immediate support.
In the scriptures we read in 2 Nephi 2
5 And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto men. And by the law no flesh is justified; or, by the law men are cut off. Yea, by the temporal law they were cut off; and also, by the spiritual law they perish from that which is good, and become miserable forever.
6 Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.
7 Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.
8 Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise.
And again 1 Nephi 2
14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.
17 And I, Lehi, according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen from heaven; wherefore, he became a devil, having sought that which was evil before God.
18 And because he had fallen from heaven, and had become miserable forever, he sought also the misery of all mankind. Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.
19 And after Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the garden of Eden, to till the earth.
20 And they have brought forth children; yea, even the family of all the earth.
21 And the days of the children of men were prolonged, according to the will of God, that they might repent while in the flesh; wherefore, their state became a state of probation, and their time was lengthened, according to the commandments which the Lord God gave unto the children of men. For he gave commandment that all men must repent; for he showed unto all men that they were lost, because of the transgression of their parents.
22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
26 And the Messiah cometh in the fullness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
28 And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
29 And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most important thing in my life. Not just in my life but in your lives also. If you don’t know that yet than you need to seek to understand it. The sooner the better. Your granddad and I love you, each of you, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and beyond.