A Mormon Life Filled with Purpose
I have never read the best-selling book by Pastor Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life. It’s never been on my reading list, probably because I’m too busy living my purpose-driven life to feel the need. My life is bursting with purpose, and it has been since I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the Mormon Church. At the time that I found the Church, I was hungering. I felt an emptiness and yearning that had to be filled, and I was attending various churches with friends and neighbors. I enjoyed them all but one. But when I crossed the threshold of a meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ, I had an amazing spiritual experience, something I had never...
The Amazing Mormon Missionary Program
The missionary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often mistakenly called the Mormon Church) is remarkable in all the world. Recently, the LDS Church lowered the qualification ages for Mormon youth who desire to serve missions from 19 to 18 for young men and from 21 to 19 for Mormon young women. As soon as the announcement was made, applications jumped nearly five-fold and now remain double what they previously were. At the time of the announcement, in October 2012, there were over 50,000 Mormon missionaries serving full-time around the world. The increase in applications means that the LDS Church may soon have 80,000 young people serving globally. Fifty-eight new missions have been created (in...
Do Mormons Believe in Birth Control?
Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church“) tend to have large families. They are encouraged by their leaders (a living prophet and apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ) not to put off or refrain from having children for material or worldly reasons. Because of this, you will see young Mormon families, with dad in medical school or graduate school, who already have two or three young children. The Plan of Salvation shows us that we are all eternal beings, created spiritually by our Father in Heaven. His desire is for us to become like Him, and receiving a mortal body and experiencing mortality on earth is an important step in that eternal...
Being Mormon: Living by the Spirit
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often mistakenly called the “Mormon Church“) teaches that the heavens are open. It has always been the desire and habit (when received in the proper spirit) of God to communicate with His earthly children. We are able to approach Him in personal prayer, and He is willing to answer us through direct revelation from heaven. Worthy Mormons have the great blessing of the “gift of the Holy Ghost,” which is the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost as a comforter, testifier of Christ, discerner of truth, and conduit for the words of God to us. It takes experience to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost, and the Lord is willing to help little...
Spiritual Gifts in Mormonism
A few of the gifts of the Spirit are described in 1 Corinthians 12:8 – 10: For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues…. All of the possible spiritual gifts were had by Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry, but none of the rest of us have them all. Thus, we are to gather together to share and to edify others by “magnifying our spiritual gifts,” which means to use them in the...
Living by the Spirit
When I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I was then privileged to receive another ordinance—the conferring of the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. This meant that if I continued to live worthy of the gift, the Holy Ghost would always be there to prompt me, testify of truth, warn me of danger, help me make decisions, and enlighten me on matters of faith and even help me gain worldly knowledge. However, learning to recognize and heed the spiritual promptings is a process, perhaps the most important process of this mortal life in God’s church. One thing that makes recognizing and heeding the promptings of the Holy Spirit difficult is our own logic. What is...
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