What is truth?

Do you believe that if you say something long enough or loud enough that it will become truth? Or is truth really defined as things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come?

Truth should be black and white. Like in a computer something is either on or off. It cannot be both. It is either true or false. If I ask a bit if it is on and it is on it will return true. It doesn’t find some way to lie to me.

How can you find the truth of things? How can you ask a liar to tell you the truth? Ha! You cannot! You won’t know if he is lying or telling the truth. You may not even know if he is a liar at all.

This women is attempting to tell the truth at the very cost of her life:

I don’t know how long that will be up, but that woman Scarlett Yan is from China and is bolding speaking out that the Chinese Communist Party has lied to the world about the origin of the Covid-19 virus and that it was not from a bat or any other animal but that it was sent out into the world as a biological weapon to destroy economies and kill people.

So, is she telling the truth? Or do you believe Communist China’s version of the origin?

Look I cannot convince you if it came from a bat or if China purposefully released it into the world and lied about that and other details or if there is another version of the story. All I am saying is that in reality if we could really see the real facts like from some hidden camera then we could know the truth as long as someone didn’t manipulate the camera. But the bottom line is that there is only one truth about anything.

We can only believe things though based on evidence that we can see or hear and our own biases usually get in the way as well, so people know this and can attempt to manipulate the truth into what they believe we can accept.

That is very, very scary.

For most things maybe it doesn’t matter too much. But for a country that could have an agenda to kill you and does not care about what happens to you and would like to own you and control you, then the truth mattering is paramount to your very survival.

What if you were fearful that variations of the virus continued to come out as if somehow by nature the virus was evolving itself to more deadly versions and more vaccines would have to be taken to combat the virus?

Or, what if, instead of the virus mutating by itself that there was literally a timeline by an evil nation controlling scientists to release variations of the virus, such as this image suggests:

That seems made up, doesn’t it. Like why on earth would they just keep trying to get us sick with different variants of this virus. Well, the problem with truth is that you can lie at both extremes and so someone may have just made this up to lie to us so we now don’t know what to believe.

Do you believe that Joe Biden was honestly voted in as President of the United States, or was the election a fraud and the system corrupted in such a way that votes were switched? You probably believe one way or another. But just because you believe it to be one way, does that make it true? Wouldn’t you want to know the real truth about whether there was really voter fraud, enough fraud that would change an election? How did some of those states where Trump was really ahead all of a sudden in the middle of the night switch over to Biden winning? I don’t have evidence one way or another to convince you. I am not a judge or a jury. But there is a truth. Either some group tried and succeeded in frauding the system or they didn’t and Joe Biden actually got the votes even though it seemed like no one showed up to his rallies.

I just want the truth. I don’t want to be lied to.

There is one truth that I believe that I cannot prove but I have felt in such a real and astonishing way so many, many times that I cannot deny that it comes from a source outside of myself. That truth I have come to know is that God is real.

I believe that God has three members referred to by some as the Trinity or the Godhead: God the Father; Jesus Christ, the son; and the Holy Ghost. I believe this scripture to be true and the best way to find the truth of all things: “And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:5)

The bottom line is that if we want to know the truth of anything, we must pray to God and He will answer us by the power of the Holy Ghost who is the member of the Godhead that reveals all truth.

In fact, He is also described as a teacher, than when we receive Him he will teach us everything that we need to do to follow and serve God (see 2 Nephi 32:5) and frankly anything else that is important. It doesn’t seem to suggest there is a limit to what He can show us about what we should do.

Sounds like God wants us to know truth and He is providing a way for us to find the truth. Do you think He tells one person something and a different person something else? Or do you think that maybe one person can tell it is the Holy Ghost who gave them the answer, but the other person may have been lying or maybe they were lied to by Satan or some other unholy being trying to throw everything off just to create confusion any and everywhere.

How do you know if it is the Holy Ghost or something else that is talking to you in your heart? Hmm. You’ll have to figure that out on your own. Trial and error and living according to God’s commandments will start heading you down the right path. I have felt the power of the Holy Ghost in such a way that I thought I would burst into flames. Nephi gives us a taste of this in his writing: “He hath filled me with his ^alove, even unto the ^bconsuming of my flesh.” (2 Nephi 4:21) That is what it felt like to me and I have felt it again and again. It was not a one time experience. It felt joyous and heavenly like what Paul talks about are the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,” I think if you get some answer and you feel uneasy, and irritable then it is probably not of God.

I begin where I started: Truth is things as they really are, as they were and as they will be. Do you think when you die you get to pick what happens, or is what is really there what will really happen to you. It is like saying when you drop a coin in the water you get to choose if it floats up in the sky or if it bounces off the water or if it transforms into a million dollars. No! There is cause and effect to everything, that is the truth. I am not telling you what happens when you die, I am telling you that you don’t get to choose what happens any more that you getting to choose to stay alive forever. No! We are all going to die and there is no amount of effort on your part that will keep you alive forever.

God sees all things and He therefore knows the truth of all things because He can see everything that happens. No one can hide anything from Him. There is no escape from His all seeing eye. And He will come to us all with our truth of what we made of our lives and what we did or did not believe and how we acted upon that knowledge. So, if you don’t feel good or right about something; anything, then pray to know if it is of God or not.

In the book of Revelations John warns of someday there being a mark of a beast and that people will have to choose whether to accept this mark. If you accept it you will be able to continue to buy and sell, but from God’s viewpoint, if you accept that mark you will be thrown with the beast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone (Revelation 19:20). So there will come a point when you will have to decide to walk the way of the world so you can have food, or to walk the way of God. Is buying stuff so important if you know that you will be thrown into a lake of fire burning with brimstone? Some people even think that the vaccine of Covid-19 is this mark since many are being told they cannot do things like get on a plane, etc. without the mark. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Best to pray and find out whether you should take it; and don’t just take it because someone told you to. Maybe at best the vaccine is a forerunner of the mark because someone is encouraging you to take something and threatening you with a recourse if you do not take it, so it seems similar to the details around the mark. All I know is that I have prayed about it and I don’t feel right about the vaccine for me. I don’t think it is necessary, but I also don’t feel like it is good for me. I won’t go as far to say that God has told me it is the mark of the beast, but maybe my health is such that it will not do me any good, so why take it? So I will not take it unless I pray and feel otherwise. Shouldn’t that be advice to anyway to say to them “Let God tell you what to do and follow His counsel.” That is the advice I give you about anything in your life.

May God bless you and guide you in all you do. The truth is He created you, He loves you, He knows you better than anyone, and He wants to help you. So pray to Him for everything.

Why For Senor?

I tried to keep my life going according to God’s will today. It is not an easy thing to continuously seek His will through pray to know what He wants me to do and to not just live according to what I want to do and according to how I am feeling instead of focused on what He wants. But that is the route I know my life must take to just live by what I feel He is telling me to do from moment to moment.

I listened to some talks from Spiritual leaders today and listen to a chapter from the scriptures this day and the Holy Spirit was super strong while I did these two things. It is amazing how God can come into our life at moments with such power and influence that it is literally breath taking. I guess we have to spend the rest of the time trying to remember that God was there at those times and try not to forget and get side tracked into doing things that He does not want us to do.

I use a cool app and I am trying to make sure I stay focused on being faithful to the goals I have set for myself and feel that God approves of in the app. You can download it from the app store. It is called HabitNow. It seems that it is easier to stay close to God and do the things He wants me to do if I strive to mark off each of the tasks daily. One of them is to write in this Blog, so I am glad I have taken that opportunity today. I think in that way I am doing God’s will.

If I don’t stay focused on God’s will then I tend to either do things for Dr. Jekyll or I do things for Mr. Hyde and I just want to do things for my Heavenly Father. Dr. Jekyll would have me seek to do things for me to pursue earthly Goals to be better at stuff of the world. This is okay if I use these talents to help others and to seek to glorify God. But then there is Mr. Hyde and he only seeks to please himself and his sensuous appetites. This song is intense and profane, but it really fits the bill about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so if you are okay will a bit of profanity and intensity check out the Music Video here.

I hope I can continue to strive to seek to do God’s will each and every moment of every day and find the peace that surpasseth all understanding (see Philippians 4:7) and the Eternal Life that God has promised (see St. John 3:16)

Have a wonderful day!!

Trust in the Lord

The 3rd step in a 12 Step Program for addiction is to Trust in your higher power / God and submit your life and will over to that Power. Proverbs 3:5-6 states: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path.”

We could probably agree that a higher power such as God does have a better perspective than us, especially since He created us. He gave us commandments so that we would obey Him, not to test His patience with. Jesus said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” I have found that keeping God’s commandments is not an easy thing. We seem to always be tempted to do the opposite of what He commands. Why is that and how can we get around that?

I think it is so since this life is a test to see if we will obey God’s commandments or not; and the other side does not want us to keep the commandments and so the Satan inspired media is riddled with material that would entice us and tempt us to do contrary to the commandments of God. To literally break them. The 3rd step teaches us that we have to turn our lives over and our will over to God. We must allow every decision we make to bring Him into the process and determine if it is something that He would have us do, or would the doing of said thing in question break one of His commandments or be contrary to His will. We make decisions all day long, how could we possibly involve God in all of them? I don’t know… lot’s of prayer? The prophet Nephi in the Book of Mormon teaches us that we must not do anything without first praying about it to God. This is so important that I will quote the entire 2 verses here:

8 And now, my beloved brethren, I perceive that ye ponder still in your hearts; and it grieveth me that I must speak concerning this thing. For if ye would hearken unto the ^aSpirit which teacheth a man to ^bpray, ye would know that ye must ^cpray; for the ^devil spirit teacheth not a man to pray, but teacheth him that he must not pray.

9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must ^apray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall ^bpray unto the Father in the ^cname of Christ, that he will ^dconsecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the ^ewelfare of thy soul.

2 Nephi 32:8-9

Wise words…. yet not so simply applied. We are created to desire to do our own thing in our own way. We fear to give our will and agency to another turns us into a robot that cannot think for ourselves. Right? How do we give our will over to God? If it were that simple I would have already done it and stop fighting the Spirit for my right to choose my life. I want to give God my will. Is it just to merely decide to give it to Him day in and day out and continue to choose to follow a path that would be pleasing in His eye? Is that what it means to live a Christ like life and give one’s will over to God? Feel free to leave comments below as to whether you believe one should give their will over to God and what it means to do so. Enjoy your day!

13th Article of Faith

I received this email today from Hope of the World and it corresponds to the 13th Article of Faith:

In Philippians 4:8, it is written, “.. whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if there is anything of excellence or worthy of praise – let your mind dwell on such things…” Now let’s take this as a standard and apply it to your life, entertainment, magazines, music, internet sites and television you watch. Are those soap operas, daytime and late night talk shows true and right? Imagine if television had a Philippians Network – how much of contemporary television could they broadcast? Are you sitting in front of that television and letting these things fill your attention, thoughts, heart and soul? Who knows how it’s affecting your life; the bondages you may still be in, and the blessings you’ve never known. In fact, the very verse leads into a promise… those who dwell on the things of God, the peace of God will be with them. Do you want the blessing? Change the station. Turn off the junk. Turn on to the Word, the Presence, and the joy of the Lord, and your heart will always be tuned in to the shalom of God.

The 13th Article of Faith states: “13 ^aWe believe in being ^bhonest, true, ^cchaste, ^dbenevolent, virtuous, and in doing ^egood to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we ^fhope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to ^gendure all things. If there is anything ^hvirtuous, ⁱlovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

I have a daily goal to not watch sensual TV or view sensual stuff on the Internet. I am in bondage to it and it is highly addictive, but I would rather have myself “Turn on the Word, the Presence, and the joy of the Lord”. He enlivens my soul and does bring Peace to my life. I hope I can always turn to Him for true fulfillment, everything else is a counterfeit to His ability to fill us with what we need in our life. I love Him, so I hope I can show Him by seeking for virtuous things and keeping His commandments.

Change My Brain!

Email Post from Hope of the World on Friday, June 11, 2021 :

Reposted from an email I received from Hope of the World: When a baby is born, his or her brain contains 100 billion neurons. Then the brain begins forming trillions of neural connections depending on the flood of information going on within it. The end result is that every brain is different having been molded by what we saw, heard, touched, remembered, or imagined. So it’s not just a matter of what kind of brain you have, but what you did with it. The Word of God tells us to put on the ‘mind of Messiah. Your brain actually changes depending on what you think about. The word for repentance in the New Testament, ‘metanoia,’ means to “change one’s mind.” It doesn’t matter if you have an impure mind – that can all change. Dwell on what is good – and you will end up with a pure mind. Choose to focus your mind on love, on salvation, on heaven, on God, and you’ll end up with a mind that is heavenly, loving, forgiving, and joyful. So you’re not happy with your mind? That’s okay. Start focusing your thoughts on God and the things which are above. And you know what? You’ll actually end up… changing your mind.

From Message #1081 – The Ten Minds

Scripture: Philippians 4:8

TODAY’S MISSION – Make up your mind today to memorize Phil. 4:8 – and think on those things instead of the impure.

My comments on this post:

It is mind bending to me how complex we are and how the systems in our bodies work together to allow us to move and think and choose. It is easy to get caught up in thoughts of sadness, or loneliness, but if we work on what we are thinking about and trust in God and think of how we can help others and seek for God’s guidance and love then we can allow God to pull us out of our negativity and into His light and allow Him to change our thoughts, our brains, and our nature. I like this quote from a previous LDS Church Leader, Ezra Taft Benson, that goes along with this post: “The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.”

Philippians 4:8 says: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

So it encourages us to think on good things, to dwell on things that are lovely, honest and of good report. There is so much evil in the world and I think that dwelling on this will have an effect on us. I will try harder to only think on the good things of the world and the good things of God and hope that it will help lift my spirits and that it will in reality Change My Brain to one that is only focused on good and only desires to do good and to become like those people in the Book of Mormon that said the following: “Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty ^achange in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do ^bevil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2)

Finally I would add what the Lord teaches us also in the Doctrine and Covenants, Section 121: “

“Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

“The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever” (vv. 45–46).”

Quite a promise for focusing only on virtuous things. I hope this can be my focus from now on and that I can gain that confidence in the presence of God instead of always feeling unworthy of His love and help.

Shalom!!

Nothing to Say

Today I do not feel like I have anything to say. So I will just say that. My sister, Melissa, posted a cool meme on Facebook yesterday, so maybe I will share that. It is about how we all seem to criticize each other instead of just accept:

I am way too hard on myself and that leads to negative self-talk and depression. It is hard not too do. I am my own worst critic and I always get in my way. Today I decided to not just take the easy route at night: plop in front of the TV and just veg. I made a list of things I would and would not do for the next few hours before I go to bed. They say “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” So I will plan and stick to my plan each day and see how I do. Writing in this blog was on my list of things to do, so BOOM! One thing checked off!

Now on to me focusing on my own programming project. I was going to have an interview with a company but they saw that I have a consulting company and wondered if I was going to stop doing consulting if I got the job with them. I have a consulting company active right now because my current contract did not want to make me an employee. So ludicrous. I think that is why they haven’t called me back because they thought that would interfere and yet they are a consulting company too. They just want a bunch of slaves working for them. I saw an interesting meme from Robert Kiyosaki:

3 of my 4 children did and so did I. I guess I am insane. #richdad I have to stop thinking in the mindset of get another job, no I want to build products that others can use. My job is in my way of doing that and starting another job is not going to solve that problem. I need to figure out what product could be useful for others then build it, then improve it, then sell it and then keep doing that until I get really good at it. That is why I have to focus on my own stuff in the evenings because working for the man during the day never gets me anywhere. That is Insane to work for the man.

Robert also tells us what F.O.C.U.S means and I love it! F.O.C.U.S. = Follow One Course Until Successful

So now I go to FOCUS on my product after I share this one other final thought from Kiyosaki that I saw recently:

So I better keep up the learning!

Until next time….

My Christian Rock Playlist

I have started this Christian Rock playlist on Spotify. What do you think? Leave comments of other songs to add:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2gyrAzDAiPvKmcHyexMTHu?si=CSZsGVabTv2hXnHYxHrO5g&utm_source=copy-link

New TinyUrl

Now I can share this tinyurl to bring others to this website: https://tinyurl.com/EternalBindings

Laus Deo

Praise be to God

It has been about 5 years since my last post. Time to start blogging again. I hope you will enjoy. Please feel free to share your comments.

Have you ever wondered how you came into existence? How can you think? How are you here? How do you have the ability to choose? How there are millions and billions of mechanisms inside of you all the time reproducing and carrying on various functions too many to fathom all in an effort to keep you alive. How they can mostly heal themselves and fight off disease for you? The vastness of the human complexity is mind boggling and yet, here you are.

I like to think of the age old question of which came first: The chicken or the egg? Whenever we build anything, what do we do? We plan. We think of what we want, we sketch it out, we give it all kinds of guidelines and get approvals on every aspect to ensure good structural quality, then we build. Didn’t something, or someone have to come up with a plan for both the egg and the chicken. They said: “We want the product to look like the chicken, but we need it to create more of itself; so we can have it produce eggs that can be fertilized and then create a brand new chicken over and over for generations of chickens.” But isn’t that how all of nature is at our level and at the atomic and sub atomic levels? Strategies of reproduction that despite the error that can be introduced are mostly perfect in their ability to carry on the reproductive cycles ad infinitum.

I believe that all of this is created and held in place by a being of such infinite power that nothing is outside of His purview. I don’t know how He is there but I believe we only know about Him because He has chosen to reveal Himself somewhat to us through holy men of His choosing. We will refer to them as God’s prophets since other uninspired persons could call themselves a prophet but I am only referring to individuals that have directly spoken to the creator of all things. We get tidbits and only if we believe will we get and understand more. He said it thusly:

“For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have” (2 Nephi 28:30) I hope He will choose to help me find more. 🙂

Here are a few thoughts I have had while pondering our creator, God:

1. If we are created in His image, where did that image first get its design? How like Him are we really?
2. He created this Earth to be a testing ground for us to live and then to die. He doesn’t die so He had to design death.
3. He had to design all the diseases so we could have trials and have a reason to want to have His help. If everything were easy, why would we turn to Him for help? Then He must have come up with all the other weaknesses, strengths, abilities, talents and everything else. These are all just what give us a way to serve Him and share ourselves with others, but it is all from His design.
4. He created prayer so we would have a way to contact Him always, and to ask for help for others. How does He maintain the contact back to us if His creations are as vast as the Universe? Does each person have angels from Heaven assigned to them to hear prayers and act accordingly? But I know that times I will pray and instantly receive a powerful message, so the prayer implementation is utterly divine and runs perfectly all the time.
5. I tried to fathom going back… way way back to try and see if it were possible to comprehend if God is a father, then He had a father, right? So us having children is like Him having children and that must have started somewhere 1.0 x 10 to the five million, million billion eons ago? Truth is things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. How were things really that long ago? It makes me want to think that evolution started it and then some beings conquered their universe and were able to harness all the powers in it and learned to live forever and then they designed a way to create spirit offspring that could go through a life / death test and become like them forever; otherwise how did it start? It is not comprehendible to my feeble mind.
6. Why are there so many organisms? Does God have teams of angels that design new creatures to test on Earth’s? What is the destiny for all these other organisms? Do they each have an opportunity to live forever somewhere?
7. We can only see what God allows us to see through a dimly lit veil. What else has He created that we cannot even see? As if this universe and its hundreds of billions of galaxies wasn’t big enough…
8. Have you felt love that was so strong it could not possibly have originated from this world? Without a belief in God, how can you explain it?
9. Jesus said: “This is Life Eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” What does that mean to you? How do you get to know the true God, and His son, Jesus Christ? Are they reachable? Why would we need to reach them? Do they give your life meaning and purpose?
10. To me They are EVERYTHING! My whole goal is to praise, love, honor and serve them all the days of my life until I die here and then forever there because I am nothing without them. They created me, they cause that all the particles and organizations and organisms moving and reproducing inside of me continue to function enough for me to live and feel love and joy and pain and sorrow. I am nothing but grateful for this life They have given me. May I praise Them forever!!! And ever!!! And Ever!! Amen! Laus Deo!!

Seeking the Welfare of Zion

I started this blog as a tool to help me find peace and solace in this world. An LDS bishop encouraged me to write out my feelings. I never intended at that juncture that anyone would ever read but that this was more like my personal journal. That bishop read and commented from time to time in the beginning which was nice. A few others since then have found this blog and commented, some of those comments seem random enough to just be SPAM.

Later I found a company that claimed to help you learn how to blog in such a way as to monetize your blog by adding advertisements, writing about products, etc. I thought that would be nice. I invested in that business and made back all the money I had invested. I have since thought about blogging and what it represents, and advertising and its allure. Websites are the same, right. Read this scripture and see how it applies:

2 Nephi 26:29

29 He commandeth that there shall be no priestcrafts; for, behold, priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.

Does this describe monetized blogs? Bloggers giving opinions, selling products? Or are they just attempting to sell a product?

This world is so twisted. So many trying to sell to each other. Where is the line between right and wrong when it comes to selling things? I am probably bitter because I never did well at either Network Marketing or Monetized Blogging, or maybe since I did not do well I became enlightened on the topic of how it is wrong to get gain and praise of the world and set yourself up for a light, but isn’t that what everyone knows the way to success is to be a subject matter expert and brand yourself that way you can charge more for your knowledge, etc. and people will flock to you because of your expertise? Praise of the word.. set themselves up for a light unto the world. Are monetized bloggers and successful network marketers just practicing priestcraft according to 2 Nephi 26:29?

Here is the last part again: “but they seek not the welfare of Zion.” Is that the caveat? We are told not to judge, but this scripture seems like a recipe to judge whether someone is practicing priestcraft or not. If they are popular in the eyes of the world, but are not seeking the welfare of Zion, then it is priestcraft, right? But then again, the scripture says that the “men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world.” Should we take that to mean that this is only in the context of religious speak and that it really does not apply to any other topic other than religion? If that is the case then I am sure a lot of bloggers could rest easy that they are not falling into this category of priestcraft. I mean, we still have to make a living, right? And who wants to let the big companies make all the money? That’s like saying that a corporation doesn’t have a soul, so it can spend millions on marketing to get us to buy its product without the fear of being judged as a “man” setting himself up as a light unto the world. But a direct result of how this affects humanity is when corporations take a stand on political and also religious topics. Where do we draw the line on religious topics that a corporation should or should not be allowed to comment? Here is the scary thing… the corporation has spent millions branding itself and setting itself up to be a light unto the world so that the world thinks highly of it and wants to buy its products, so then the world respects its opinion on political and religious matters. And yet we see corporations making statements of support for political policy occasionally based on an activist group within the corporation. A corporation is filled with people of mixed backgrounds, so to say that all the people within the corporation share the corporations view on a policy is nonsense. The view is only shared by a few who have convinced the board of directors that this is the view they should portray to the world. It is because of this type of marketing that politics are affected. Politics is getting into the changing of world views to circumvent the laws of God, so IT IS RELIGIOUS!

Isaiah spoke of this when he said “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

I contend that we are bombarded by views contrary to the will of God by organizations and corporations and men that are setup as a light, branded and praised by men and they make lots of money doing what they do, yet they are often contrary to the will of God and hence do NOT seek for the welfare of Zion. Why? Because Zion is a concept and a place that seeks only to follow and obey the will of God. You cannot change the ideals, ideas, rules, laws, values or standards of Zion. Zion is heaven on earth. It’s as close to heaven as we can get. If evil is not allowed in heaven, then by heaven, evil will not be allowed in Zion.

To seek the welfare of Zion is to aspire to the ideals of Zion.

Here is a wonderful definition of what Zion is found in Moses 7:18-19:

 18 And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.

 19 And Enoch continued his preaching in righteousness unto the people of God. And it came to pass in his days, that he built a city that was called the City of Holiness, even Zion.

Long ago Enoch build a city of God called Zion. If we are to build a Zion, we have to have this one heart and one mind as Jesus taught we must become One with Him and with the Father and always and only seek Their will.

So when your blogging about anything, are you seeking God’s will? Are you seeking to benefit Zion? That is frankly between you and God and the people you are affecting by your blog. Are they being brought closer to Zion? I don’t know what the answers are. I make money but I don’t like to blog to get people to buy my services. I like to be hidden away. Some people cannot make money unless they market and I am not saying that marketing your services is bad. Perhaps this only has to do with how we are lead to believe about religion, but God is everywhere and we can be influenced everywhere to, so we have to constantly be vigilant about how we are being influenced so we can live always according to the will of God. I have no hidden agenda here. I have no products that I want you to buy. But the dichotomy is in what Jesus told His follows to do. He said “Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” So we must let His light shine through us to glorify the Father, but not be the light to get gain and praise. Can we do that?  Is this the recipe:  buy whatever you need, help the downtrodden and the weary, glorify God the Father… Remember that Zion is a place where there are no poor and everyone is treaty equally. What a great place that will be. I believe that we will have Zion some day.

Joseph Smith taught in the 10th Article of Faith that:”We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.”  I hope that this prophesy of the future comes to pass in my day.

What are we doing to prepare for Zion? Seek to help the poor, live righteously, seek and do the will and mind of God and love Him with all of your heart, might, mind and strength. Maybe those things are the beginning of Zion.

May God bless you as you seek to do His will and prepare for His city and His coming in Great Glory, even the second coming of Jesus Christ prophesied and foretold since the beginning. Are you ready?