Zion

 I don't believe Zion will be an intentional community. I don't believe a group of people (led by a "moses" or not) will buy or overtake a plot of land and build Zion. I believe it will happen naturally. I believe that people will become zionlike in their own minds and hearts, then in their families. I believe it will spread to friends. I believe God will physically move like-minded people together in small groups, and that none of them will be thinking, "We are creating Zion."

I believe Nephi when he said he saw many small groups of people all over the planet, "armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory." (1 Nephi, chapter III, page 24 in the 1840 reprint of the Book of Mormon I have). I believe they may not even realize they are armed with righteousness, nor that they are armed with the power of God. I believe they may just think they are ordinary people. I believe these groups are "zion" even though they are not the official Zion built in the western hemisphere (likely "in the tops of the mountains" as recorded by Isaiah), with the temple that the Covenant Christians are waiting for the command to build. (See Denver Snuffer's most recent conference talk if you haven't heard of Covenant Christians.)

I believe God is working among all peoples, among all nations, quietly and diligently. I believe there may already be such groups of people as Nephi saw. I believe there will be more. And I think it possible that most of these groups will be unknown to most of the world (except to local people).

I think it's wrong and prideful to attempt to buy a piece of land for the express purpose of creating a Zion. All attempts I know, from two or three hundred years ago until today, have failed.

May we be humble and teachable before God, willing to do God's will even if it is as simple as learning not to be critical of others, and allowing people the freedom to be who they genuinely are, with out complaining that they are "trammeling on my rights" while being blissfully unaware that the truth is that we are trammeling on their rights.

May God bless all of us on this planet to be humble enough and teachable enough that not one of us is a danger to another person on the planet. 

Trammel - to deprive of freedom of action

Gethsemane - Forgiveness - Repentance

This morning, I read the Gethsemane chapter in Come, Let Us Adore Him in preparation for my personal celebration of Easter (the Resurrection) tomorrow. I don't know how anyone can read it and not be sobbing by the fourth page in.

For this post, I just wanted to share a few quotes from this chapter, which is an apostolic eyewitness of Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection as seen by Denver Snuffer. All emphases are mine.

To enter into the kingdom of heaven, all [people] must lay down their sins. But this they cannot do when they claim the right to restitution for any offense from their brother [meaning all other humans]. All claims must be set aside, the greater and more difficult being the righteous claim against another for their deliberate offense. Yet in asking for justice for yourself, you always require justice be answered in turn for all of your offenses. A [person] will not be given mercy if he is not merciful. (pp 228-9)

Denver talks about paired waves of torment our Lord suffered, the first being the suffering for those who harmed others (the perpetrators) and the second being the suffering for those who have been harmed by others (the victims), then he writes the following:

The greater difficulty in these paired waves of torment was always overcoming the suffering of the victim. With these waves, the Lord learned to overcome the victims' resentments, to forgive, and to heal both body and spirit. This was more difficult than overcoming the struggles arising from the one who committed the evil . . . The victim . . . always feels it is their right to hold resentment, to judge their persecutor and to withhold peace and love for their fellowmen. (pp 220-1)

In the final wave, the most brutal, most evil, most heinous sins men inflict upon one another were felt by Him as a victim of the worst men can do. He knew how it felt to wrongly suffer death. He knew what it was like to be a mother holding a child in her arms as they are both killed by those who delight in their suffering. He knew how it was for ambitious men to rid themselves of a rival by conspiracy and murder. He knew what it was to have virtue robbed from the innocent [this would include the rape of toddlers and children]. He knew betrayal, treachery, and abuse in all its worst degrading horror. There was no cruelty, no offense, no evil that mankind has suffered or will suffer that was not put upon Him.

He knew what is it like for men to satisfy their ambition by clothing their hypocrisy in religious garb. He also felt what it was like to be the victim of religious oppression by those who pretend to practice virtue while oppressing others. He knew the hearts of those who would kill Him. Before confronting their condemnation of Him in the flesh, He suffered their torment of mind when they recognized He was the Lord, and then found peace for what they would do by rejecting Him. In this extremity there was madness itself as He mirrored the evil which would destroy Him, and learned how to come to peace with the Father after killing the Son of God, and to love all those involved without restraint and without pretense, even before they did these terrible deeds. . . .

As a result of what the Lord suffered, there is no condition - physical, spiritual or mental that he does not fully understand. He knows how to teach, comfort, succor and direct any who come to Him seeking forgiveness and peace. (pp 222-3)

I share the above in the hopes that it gives comfort to some, and that it helps someone who is struggling to forgive a person or people who have caused them harm, no matter how terrible that harm.

P.S. You can forgive without putting yourself in danger, and without ever having to contact or talk to a person who is dangerous to you.

Thoughts

 You cannot learn to forgive if you have never been wronged.

Original Testimony of Ian McCormack - Jesus is Real, Heaven and Hell are Real

A friend brought Ian McCormack to my attention around 9 years ago. I looked him up again today, to rehear his experience.

It's one of those "I died" experiences, but not one of those "I saw awesome end-of-the-world things, and now I'm a great prophet because of it," things. I don't know if that has changed. I don't know what he's doing now, but up until about 6 years ago, he was still a humble man, as far as I could tell.

I'm sharing his first (1988) testimony, but before you scroll down to it, I think it's important to read what Ian McCormack said in regards to this first video (the same words are in the description on YouTube under the video). What he said is below, and the video is below that. Enjoy.

Notes on this 1988 video from Ian :

I have spoken my testimony thousands of times and sadly I make mistakes .... but that does not, I believe, take away from the story ... other than the fact that we all can do it ... either accidently or on purpose ... or if you don't want to share all the details you can cut some things out in an attempt to condense the story because of time restraints / energy levels ....

When I first publically shared my testimony in 1988 in New Zealand the people at the meeting wanted to record it ... but I didn't want any one to do it because I felt it was something you shared personally rather than through media { I have since changed my mind on that } ... But one of the people at the meeting had a family member who was dying in a hospital and so they wanted them to hear it as they couldn't come to the meeting in this farmers house.

I found it abit unnerving with a mike & video camera in front of me and because the experience took place in 1982 and so it was now 6 - 7 years later I was reliving it while I spoke. It was very emotional for me ... and realize later that I had made a couple of mistakes while sharing it .... and I knew that when I loaded it up on the web for free along with all the other videos I have put up over the years .

So on the 1988 video I did say that I woke up and they were about to wheel me off to the morgue ... I remember how nervous I was that day and was wondering if anyone would believe me, if I said I had been dead and woke up in the morgue ... so I do remember distinctly trying to tone it down ....

But in reality I had woken up & I was already in the morgue ... They had moved my dead body from the Accident & Emergency when I died to the mortuary section of the hospital ... and it was a completely different doctor that was working on me. He was pricking the base of my foot with a scalpel. And when the nurses saw me wake up & come back to life, they ran in fear .... not exactly something they would do if I had only been in a coma ....

Teach Your Children to Honor God

These are just some random thoughts I'm having. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about.

Teach your children to honor God. How do you do that if, like me, your kids are grown? What does "honor God" mean anyway?

I thought about that, and came up with nothing about a week ago. But, today, something did come to mind. We honor God by loving and forgiving each other. We teach our children to honor God by loving and forgiving them, as well as loving and forgiving all who cross our path.

For example, this latest fiasco in the restorationist movement. A blog post written in haste, accusing Denver, casting aspersions on the new scriptures, raising an alarm about a man no one knows - only to find out that the person writing the blog had her facts wrong. What was wrong with her heart? Nothing? Something? That is only for God to judge. My point in bringing her up is that I, also, have reacted in alarm and anger in my life, saying and doing foolish things that I later regretted, things that did not show charity toward my fellow humans.

Matt Crockett wrote a blog post some time ago, in which he essentially commanded Denver, using God's authority (in vain/erroneously, in my opinion) to be our king. This was because Matt did not know that many of us did not need Denver to be a king, and would resent having one, because we were working with God, even if we listened to and believed every word coming out of Denver's mouth (believing every word is probably not wise, as he is a man and prone to error; I simply used that as an example). I reacted to the post uncharitably. I even emailed Denver, complaining about the post. I was so focused on that part of the post that I did not notice the good things in it.

Here is some insight I have gotten recently (quoted from messages I wrote on Skype to a couple of friends):

I think we each saw different parts. Kind of like the blind men and the elephant. I saw that part and was "offended" that he would command Denver to be my king when I was relishing my freedom from kings, thank you very much! I think I feared that if he was listened to I would be brought back into bondage. I've been in bondage to [exhusband], to the LDS Church, to the school system, to the judicial system, and to the medical system (albeit only when I was young, as far as the medical system goes), and there's no way in hell, on earth, or in heaven I wanted someone to push bondage on me again.

You, having no such issues, saw more expansively. You saw several good things in there that I saw later (after you pointed them out, most likely), but my fear of Matt having the power to force me into bondage to Denver ticked me off, and made me protest.

One of my friends replied:

Yet the bondage would have been of your own choice.

I replied:

But I couldn't see that. In fact, the insight I'm sharing here in regards to my own feelings was something I couldn't clearly see then. But now, today, I can clearly see that it was all my own issues. The problem was me, and whether or not Matt was out of line really made no difference - because, as you say, I still had a choice though I feared that choice would be taken away from me.

My point in sharing all this: We honor God by owning our weaknesses, and ceasing to be offended by others. We honor God, and teach our children to do so, by our willingness to own our offenses and not project them onto others, who are only acting as humans will act. We honor God by our willingness to forgive and to love.