HELPING ME BECOME MY ETERNAL SELF 5

Celestial Mentors

JESUS THE CHRIST

(Doctrine and Covenants 20:77; New Testament-John 14: 15-18;
Book of Mormon-Moroni 7: 47,48)

As I mentioned in last week’s Thoughts, mentoring by celestial mentors has a propensity to diminish as we ascend the hierarchy of the Godhead. Hence, any direct mentoring we might receive from the Savior will not only be rare, but for most of us not at all during our mortal probationary period.

Preparation:

It seems that the conditions which would precipitate direct mentoring to a mortal by the Savior of mankind usually seem to fall into two very unique categories. First, the Lord has need of a strong and faithful voice to be an instrument in bringing universally needed repentance or to usher in a new dispensation. Such as we find in the cases of Moses, Paul, Alma the son of Alma and Joseph Smith. Second, an individual or groups of individuals have acted in all holiness to the point they have reached a level of faith and sanctification that they have become pure enough to be in His presence. Such as we find in the cases of the people of Enoch or the
Book of Mormon people who were visited by Him shortly after his resurrection.

(Doctrine and Covenants 67:10-12; 84: 19-25; 50:40-46; 88:68; Book of Mormon-1 Nephi 11:1; Helaman 3:35; Alma 5:54; Moroni 10:33)

Process:

Mentoring from Jesus the Christ is usually referred to by using the words revelation, vision and visitation. I will again attempt to help us understand this process by using a chart I have found useful but is somewhat difficult to explain when not involved in a question and answer forum.

Jesus the Christ  Holy Spirit (condensation or translation)  Personal spirit mentor  Physical mortal mind

I will attempt to explain this chart. Since the Savior is a resurrected Celestial Being in order for him to be in the presence of mortals through the power of the Holy Spirit will either diminish His glory, which is called condensation or the Holy Spirit will increase a mortal’s glory which is called translation.

Once again we can see the essential passage most of us must go through by becoming familiar with the mentoring from our personal spirit and from the Holy Spirit so that we will be somewhat prepared if and when we ever have the privilege of personal mentoring by the Savior during our mortal sojourn.

(Doctrine and Covenants 76:14)

Caution:

I won’t spend much time talking about cautions which relate to being personally mentored by Jesus the Christ, since the prerequisites are so stringent that most of humanity will never be in this type of setting. However, we are warned that if a person were to have the privilege of being mentored personally by Jesus the Christ and then fall away, that denial might fall into the realm of the unforgivable.

(Doctrine and Covenants 76: 53; 132: 26; 88:33)

ELOHIM – THE ETERNAL FATHER OF OUR SPIRITS

(New Testament-John 14: 23; Doctrine and Covenants 130: 3)

Preparation:

Since there have been so few instances of our Father personally coming to this earth to mentor, which He has assigned to His First Born Jesus the Christ to administer, we probably don't need to spend a great deal of time worrying about preparing for His mentoring while we are abiding in our mortal realm.

However, all of what we do during mortality is in preparation for the day when we will stand before Him as He mentors us toward our Eternal existence.

(Doctrine and Covenants 66: 11,12; 137: 1-3; Pearl of Great Price-Joseph Smith History 1:17)

Process:

Jesus the Christ as our mediator will always be the means by which we are able to approach the Father’s presence.

(Doctrine and Covenants 132:12; New Testament-John 14: 6)

Caution:

Since during the time we spend in this physical shell we are most constantly impacted by the teachings of other mortals; since our most continual extra mortal communication comes when pondering and are able to interact with our personal pre mortal spirit; since the Holy Spirit is our most frequent and available mentor from the Godhead; and since the mentoring we receive from Jesus the Christ mainly comes through his servants and the veracity thereof is witnessed to us by the Holy Spirit, we could if we are not careful have a tendency to forget the Omniscience of His Eternal Existence.

We must always remember that all mentoring in whatever form it exists is a gift from our Heavenly Father to His children.

(To be continued)