My Testimony of Jesus Christ

"I am the light and the life of the world..." (3 Nephi 9:18)
 By way of introduction to his gospel, John wrote:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness... He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name..." (John 1:1-14)


The life, the teachings, and the saving, healing power of Jesus Christ have been to me as a light, shining in darkness. The world may not know him, but, in my own small way, I know Him. I know what it feels like to become a redeemed child of God through a power that most definitely was not my own.

To do justice to what my Savior has done for me personally requires much more than what I can give on one page. To really bear witness of the saving grace of Jesus Christ, I have to tell you my story - a story that begins with my weakness and my need for help and healing, and ends with glory to His name.


Below, I have listed a series of articles or pages that, together, make up my testimony of Jesus Christ. 


As one who has experienced all of the things I describe in these articles, I bear you my witness that, no matter what challenges you face, there is nothing the Lord can't do, nothing He won't help you overcome, no wrong that He can't make right again. As the scripture says, nothing is "too hard for the Lord". Having personally experienced things that I knew to be impossible, I testify that, in and through Jesus Christ, "all things are possible to them that believe." (see Jeremiah 32:17, Genesis 18:14, Mark 9:23, Matthew 19:26)


Ready for a Change in Your Life?


For those of you who are reading this because you want to know what Latter-Day Saints believe, these articles will certainly tell you that about me.


For those of you who are reading this because you want to read something of spiritual nature, I believe this will be worth your time.


But if you are ready for a change in your life, if you are hungry - sorely hungry - to overcome challenges, or even just to know what it feels like to have Almighty God by your side, supporting you through every pain, weakness, or trial of mortality, then I want you to know that I wrote these articles specifically for you. 


The Lord's promise is sure:

"...blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost." (3 Nephi 12:6, compare Matthew 5:6)

The scriptures aren't just nice words on a page. They guide us to experience real, life-changing, soul-transforming power that can only come to us through the infinite grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

What's in the Bible? The Importance of Scripture Study: They Are They Which Testify of Me


What God Can Do for Us

Those of us who go to church regularly have had the "thou-shalts" and the "thou-shalt-nots" of gospel living - the things we do for God - pounded into our heads from day one. But we so rarely discuss in detail the things that God can do for us! These articles constitute my best effort to show you what He has done for me. Writing them has been a badly needed and long over-due opportunity to dust off some forgotten, yet powerful old lessons about the awe-inspiring power of the Savior's atoning sacrifice. 

I think most members of the LDS Church are converted to the restoration of the gospel in varying degrees - that is to say, we believe that God has restored His gospel to the earth in the form of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But I also think most of us - myself included - have a lot to learn when it comes to actually being converted to Christ. The articles I've linked to on this page will show you the things I've had to learn and the process I have followed in becoming converted to Christ myself. I have written them in the hope of helping others who need and are seeking to do the same.

It will take some practice, and some learning by trial and error to figure out for yourself how all these concepts fit together. But if you'll start working at it, I think you'll find that these things will bless your life immeasurably, as they have mine. There's no time like right now to get started!

The Perfect Lie: Me + More = Christlike 
Jesus of Nazareth: Our Savior and Friend! - Learn about the need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through prayerful, constant communication with Him.


What Jesus Christ Means to Me - I would highly recommend reading this article first. This gives you some background on some of the challenges in my life, most notably the one that caused me to seek to know my Savior. It shows you in condensed form the process I went through of changing through the power of Christ and knowing the joy that comes with that change.

 

What's in the Book of Mormon? The Pride of the World vs. Living Water - This article will teach you about warnings from the prophets of the Book of Mormon concerning a different kind of pride - the kind that is the cause of all sin. It is only by overcoming this particular kind of pride that you can begin to know just how very much the Lord will do for you, if only you'll just ask! Overcome this kind of pride, and not only will the sin you're working on right now start to fade, but you'll feel all sin in your life beginning to lift!

 

What's in the Book of Mormon? The Secret to Building on the Rock of the Redeemer - You may remember Jesus teaching his disciples about a wise man who built his house upon a rock, or the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. Latter-Day Saints are familiar with an ancient American prophet by the name of Helaman, who taught that Christ was a "sure foundation, whereon if men build they cannot fall." But what does it really mean to "build upon the rock of the Redeemer", and how do we actually do it?


What's in the Book of Mormon? The Depths of Humility -  Learn how entering into the depths of humility gives us great power. The Savior taught: "he that exhalteth himself shall be abased, and he that abaseth himself shall be exhalted..." (D & C 101:42, Luke 14:11) Humility helps us make the most of what we have to give to the effort of living the gospel. Humility helps us access the power of God that makes our weakness irrelevant. Humility - in the form of trust - allows us to see what the Lord is doing in our lives, and why.


What's in the Bible? Saved By Grace -  In our approach to living our principles, we so often make things harder than they need to be. Souls and vacuum cleaners both need power to do what's expected of them - learn how to plug in and get the Savior's loving power - his grace - helping make it possible for you to live and to love the gospel!

 

What's In the Book of Mormon? Salvation From Sin, Not In Sin - Sometimes when faced with overcoming something impossible in our lives, we ask ourselves this question. We blame our trouble on God's strictness. What we so often forget is that the very same God who has so strictly commanded us to do things that often feel impossible lived His life blessing, and loving,  and helping people, by way of doing the impossible! His strictness gives His commandments meaning, and make of His saving us from sin a cause for great joy!


What's in the Book of Mormon? Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Fountain of All Righteousness - So much of what we're trying to do in the gospel, we keep trying to do alone. We face frequent failure and discouragement, feeling like our efforts will never be enough. But when we get in the habit of asking the Lord to help every time we need it, He does, for He is the Fountain of All Righteousness. With Him helping, we begin to see success, which causes hope. That hope causes us to believe in what we're doing, so we get better and more frequent at involving the Lord in our lives. The more we do that, the more we realize just how very much He loves us, how very badly He wants to help us. Knowing that, we can't help but love Him, which gives us the power and inclination to sacrifice for Him like never before.


What's in the Book of Mormon? A Broken Heart and a Contrite Spirit
Why does the Lord expect so much of His people? Why are Mormons willing to give up so much to live their faith? The Lord wants us to experience a need for His love and power in our lives, so He expects things of us that we cannot do without Him. He asks us to offer up to Him a broken heart and a contrite spirit - a sacrifice made up of three things: I have to do it, but I can't do it alone; please help me! Believers in Christ are willing to get to this point in our lives because we know that beyond that come-to-Jesus moment lies the promise of great joy and freedom!




What's in the Book of Mormon? He Succors Us According to Our Infirmities
Most of the reason mortals make mistakes in life that violate gospel principles, it's because we don't feel like there's any other way. The problem usually centers around the fact that we don't know any other way. The prophets have testified that Jesus Christ is the way, the light, the life and the resurrection, that there is no salvation from sinning save that which comes in and by and through the name of Jesus Christ alone, relying on the merits of Him who is might to save. Learn how to have the Lord provide the exit - the way out of our figurative parking lots, our moral dilemmas, our choices between breaking commandments and doing without. Without Him, we can do nothing, but in His strength we can do all things. Let's learn together how to have Him succor us in our moments of infirmity!




Part I of III: What's in the Book of Mormon? Living Without God in the World: Why and How to Fix it
Do you ever feel like you're living in the "spiritual doldrums?", like it has suddenly gotten hard to feel spiritual things? Do you ever feel like your prayers aren't reaching heaven the way they used to? I wrote this article because I sometimes feel this way, and because I needed something to pull myself up by my spiritual bootstraps. In my mind, I've always correlated the scriptural concept of "the gulf of misery", "the gall of bitterness", "the natural state", or even "the carnal state" with this spiritual condition. Feeling this way is a state that is referred to in scripture as "living without God in the world." In this article, we'll discuss how it is that we get to this place in our lives and the great contrast - the deep joy and unbelievable sense of freedom and peace that comes of having God back in our lives!


Part II of III: What's in the Bible? Becoming a New Creature in Christ
What did the Savior mean when He said to Peter, who had already expressed deep conviction and loyalty for Him, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren?" (Luke 22:32) Discover the deepest, most powerful joy the gospel offers - that of becoming one with Christ by being "born again!" One of the things the Bible teaches us, by way of its fantastic stories, is that the powers of heaven can be made available to mortals, proportionate to our diligence in seeking and following Christ. That power is necessary for living the gospel. But once we're using it in this way, it becomes useful for other things - imagination and faith are the limits, and incredible great joy and freedom are the result!




What We Have to Do for Him

Putting together all the things I've suggested is nothing easy to do. Far from it. You'll find that the more you implement these things, the more the Lord will expect of you, the more He'll offer in return. I believe this is what the prophets and apostles in the scriptures mean when they talk about growing "line upon line", "precept upon precept", and "grace for grace". (see D & C 98:12, Isaiah 28:9-10, 2 Nephi 28:30, John 1:16, D & C 93:20

These are all areas in which I myself need vast improvement. It has been through getting glimpses of my own potential, with the help of my Savior, that I have found in these things something worth working for. To me, the incentive of such great joy, coupled with knowing just how very possible it is with Him helping, has motivated me to work harder than I ever have in my life as I've studied and written these things for you. True faith creates great hope. Great hope motivates hard work. Combine an increase of these things with an increased love for God, and you're bound to get glimpses of just how much more the Lord can do in your life, no matter who you are, or what you're dealing with!

The process of realizing just how very much our God can and will do for us will be quite a paradigm shift for most. Still, we must learn to do what it takes to have His help and His power, His love and His grace, to have the Savior make far more of us than we ever will be able to make of our own selves without Him. The potential for great joy in our lives is too infinitely high to pass up! We have got to make the change! If we will learn to love our God enough to sacrifice and do His will, He will love us enough to sacrifice and save us into the ability to live up to our eternal potential.


I Struggle Too

If you could see for yourself just how much I struggle to implement these things in my life, you'd think me a hypocrite for teaching them here. The Lord has always called the members of his church "saints", and I feel He has been kind in stretching the definition of the word to include me in it. (for what I mean about the Lord calling his people "saints", see my Church article) 

I feel a little bit like the apostle Paul did:

"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ..." (Ephesians 3:8)

But I know from tiny, life-changing successes scattered over the years that these principles really do work - at least they have for me - to the degree that we put them to use in our lives. After all that I've been through because of not knowing these things, after all that I've been through trying to learn these things, and after all that I've experienced in the little bit of success I've had in living these things, weak as I am in it, I just cannot see my way past sharing "the unsearchable riches of Christ" with as many as will hear me!

I'll be adding more articles to this testimony, so stay tuned!


Also of Interest

Jared's Experience With the Savior
Mormon Perspectives - The Christus: Who is Christ to Us?


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