Thoughts on Snuffer

I just read the stake confidential letter regarding Denver Snuffer’s writing.  It is interesting.  Most of it is what bothered me about his book, Pass the Heavenly Gift.  I am surprised that the author sometimes seems to take the position that the Pharisees did  with Christ.  That is my only concern when I read it .  We all need to watch ourselves so pride doesn’t enter in.  Denver disparages the church many times in his book.  He can’t seem to differentiate the sinful acts of members and the Church.  I believe the church and all the scriptures still point us to Christ.  I believe we can still progress.  I don’t believe the Church is barring anyone from getting into heaven.  I believe the Church still believes in the reception of the Second Comforter.  I don’t believe the Second Comforter will tell people to leave the Church.  We all need to be receptive to the Holy Ghost first.

It was an interesting read.  I have moved away from Snuffer.

Elder Ballard in the September Ensign says, "Do not spend time trying to overhaul or adjust God’s plan. We do not have time for that. It is a pointless exercise to try to determine how to organize the Lord’s Church differently. The Lord is at the head of this Church, and we all follow His direction. Both men and women need increased faith and testimony of the life and the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ and increased knowledge of His teachings and doctrine. We need clear minds so that the Holy Ghost can teach us what to do and what to say. We need to think straight in this world of confusion and disregard for the things of God."

Negative Thinking

As I read the scriptures I end up doing self assessments to see where I stand.  I then think about how I can improve one of the areas where I am deficient – knowing that this is fairly difficult since it is impossible to make a goal in the future regarding something that comes upon you in the present (be it in the future).  Character change (or Christ-like attribute development) is difficult because the negative thing happens in the moment and catches you unaware.  The only correcting influence is remembering the Savior at all times so you can’t be caught unaware.  A watered down version of remembering is to just be self-aware that you have fallen into a negative attribute (depression, hate, anger, impatience, etc.) and just stare at the negative thinking going on in your head.  Watch it, it is not your true self.  It is pretending to be you but it isn’t (why else could you just be observing IT).  It is your ego or natural man trying to take over.  By not identifying with it but just observing it, it start to shrink.  Over the course of a few weeks it disappears.  Just by observing it.  This is called watching yourself (Mosiah 4:30) in the scriptures.

Since negative thinking (the opposite or charity thinking) is just in your head, why not give it to Christ knowing that he suffered for all that?  Perhaps casting one’s burdens on to Christ is what is meant initially when the scriptures say to come unto Christ.  Why hold thoughts and emotions in your head when you have a being that is willing to accept them since he paid for them.  Perhaps negative thinking is sin and the way to get rid of it is to believe that there really is a God who can relieve you of them.

Since negative ways of thinking are bad habits, they will come back.  They are old friends but really demons.  It takes practice believing that because of Christ all feelings of shame (regrets of the past, not good enough now) and fear (of the future) can be taken by him simply by giving them to Him over and over again.  You can then carry a song away (Hymn 124).  Just believe.

Nowhere in the scriptures does it say we have to perform some great act to get to heaven.  But, I do believe that God will open doors and provide the way for each of us to fulfill our particular missions in life if we have been constantly relying on His grace and merits up to that point.  God opens the doors, we do not. 

The way is EASY for the person with charity.  He is constantly in a peaceful, relaxed, happy state.  He can’t offend anyone.  That is when God can use you.  You can’t be confounded (because you have no triggers).  Now that state upsets nasty people.

Whenever I feel like my Patriarchal Blessing has been thwarted (by my acts, or how I was raised), I give it all to God.  I have to.  It would be unmerciful (which is sin) not to.

Three ways to Come Unto Christ

In the scriptures I find that there are three ways to come unto Christ. This is very important to know since I have struggled for years trying to  put into context what it means to come unto Christ.  I believe the first way is neglected.  Here's what I found:

1. We come unto Christ by letting go of all our burdens and casting those burdens upon the Savior.  What are our burdens?  I will list a few: regrets of the past, unwillingness to forgive, harboring anger for the actions of others, sadness, fear of the future, anything that you fear, hating yourself, hating others.  This list can go on and on. What is the mechanism to release all your burdens to the Lord?  First, just believe (Alma 33).  Believe that Christ can heal you.  If you were bitten by a serpent and your spiritual leader stuck a serpent on a stick holding it high for everyone to see, saying, 'look upon the serpent and be healed', would you look?  Or, would you say in your heart, 'That will never work, how could that serpent on a stick heal me'?  There's a similar simplicity in believing in Christ.  Why would just believing heal you?  Because he is real and he is loves you and that is what he asks.  Believing in Christ is very powerful.

What happens to burdens after you believe, turn them over to the Lord? Ideally, the burden is removed from you.  Why? Because you believe in Christ and that he has taken upon himself all your sorrows, fears, etc.  What if you give them away but they don't transfer?  Or, you feel great that the burden has been removed but slowly overtime all the burdens return?  What is going on?  This is called unbelief.  Cast off your unbelief and reaffirm in prayer that you have given all these burdens to the Lord.  If you give something to somebody and immediately take it back what does that mean?  If you pretend to give something to somebody but you really don't give it what does that mean?  Believe that Christ really does exist.  You just can't see Him.  This is called faith.  If you give a physical person something, you no longer have it.  Right?  So, give you burdens to the Lord.  Do it in faith and you no longer have the burdens.  Look upon the serpent!  Don't say to me that that will never work.  The end result is all those burdens that you have been carrying for so long are lifting from you.  You feel so free that it's like carrying a song away.

2.  After you have come unto Christ and have felt his love and are free from all the emotional and mental baggage you have been carrying for so long, there's something else.  All you have really done so far is repented of all the emotional sins that have caused you to miss the mark of Christ.  There may be other sins in your life that need to be corrected.  Correct each one of those.  This might mean what is meant by Moroni when he exhorts us to deny ourselves all ungodliness (Moroni 10).  So, there's more to work on.  But, this step usually takes a life time.  As in the Way #1 above, reliance of Christ's grace and mercy is required. The gratitude we feel to our Savior for taking upon Him all our sins propels us to make more changes as we recognize them.  This constant exertion, I believe, is the principle of Justification.  We are perfect in Christ as we continue in the process of repentance.

3. We continue to come unto Christ as we put into practice Christ's teachings. We make our lives into lives of service.  We realize that this is where true joy is had.

As we follow the patterns laid in the scriptures we become fit, through our faith, to be members of Christ's church.  As we go through the process of change (requiring exertion on our part) we receive the gift of charity.  Continue forward and we become the sons of God.  You can't do this without dong the first step.

Mormon's Mormonism - Degrees

In Moroni 7, Mormon mentions three degrees of spiritual attainment.

1.       Fit to be a member of the church

2.       A follower of Christ

3.       A Son of God

We must have faith to be fit to be a member of Christ's church.  We walk peaceably among the children of men to be a follower of Christ according to Mormon  Later, Mormon clarifies and says we must have charity to be a follower of Christ.  One becomes a Son of God after he has gained the gift of Charity.

The gift of charity seems to be when one chooses to stop judging others.  You suffer long with others, you are kind, you don’t envy, you are not puffed up, you don’t seek your own purposes, you are not easily provoked, you don’t think any evil !!!!, you don’t rejoice in iniquity, you rejoice in truth.

If you don’t think any evil and you suffer long with others, what does that mean?  There are a lot of Mammonites out there.  There are a lot of crazy people out there doing strange things to their bodies.  There are a lot of Mormons who look very underdeveloped.  Can’t I think a little bit of evil?  Can’t I be non-long suffering and say judgments about them?  Can I take a stand yet not look like I am judging?