Seven of Everything

This post was spawned from the following question: If Eternal Life is the greatest of God's gifts (as D&C 14:7 says), what does that make Exaltation? My first thoughts about this question cause me to think: If it is the greatest gift then it is would seem to me to be the top glory of the Celestial Kingdom because how can you get better than that. If it is living in God the Father's presence then it is the same as living in the Celestial kingdom. If it is simply living in God's presence then it is synonymous with salvation or(aka) any of the kingdoms in the kingdom of God. Exaltation was not clearly defined in my mind either. I've heard that the endowment and sealing ordinances are exalting ordinances whereas baptism is a saving ordinance, well, the only saving ordinance. But given Elder Nelson's definition from April 2008 , the sealing ordinance is the only exalting ordinance (my interpretation of his definition). Although, we can't receive it witho...

This is from a portion of my talk that I did not have time to give back in June: "And blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth . " My purpose today is to inspire you to keep your covenants more fully. And to take action in so doing. There are several, varying definitions of meek. When it is so hard to find a consistent or meaningful definition, I find it helpful and more reliable to look at the etymology of a word – the study of the true sense – which tells its origin language and meanings. For meek a few of the original meanings are "gentle, courteous, kind," (from around 1200AD) "soft, pliant, gentle," (from Old Norse mjukr) which lead to the sense of "submissive" (from mid-14c) . If the term submissive is used then the scripture that comes to mind for me is Mosiah 3:19 “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy ...

This is from a talk I gave at the beginning of June: "​And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost . " ​We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness in order to be filled with the Holy Ghost. This could also be reworded to say that we need to hunger and thirst after righteous works or even after the Righteous One which is Christ. He has provided a way for us to hunger and thirst after Him and it is through covenant making and covenant keeping. There are three covenants that we make through the saving and exalting ordinances. These are made through baptism, the temple endowment and the temple sealing. For men, there is also receiving the Melchizedek priesthood. We see one very direct link between an ordinance and this beatitude when Christ expounded the sacrament to the Nephites. "And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wi...

I have pondered over this concept for some time since my last post The Seven Criteria of a Successful Goal and have modified it in some degree to include a pseudo-acronym: Plotted Success:     ​ ​      ​ ​​ ​ ​ ​ ​​P urpose    ​ ​  ​ ​​ ​ ​Va L ue  ​   ​ ​   ​ ​ ​ ​ ​C O mmitment Suppor T  ​ ​ ​    ​     ​​ ​ ​ ​ T ime  ​ ​      ​​  ​ ​St E ps   ​Rewar D The only differences are the first and sixth elements which I changed to 'purpose' and 'steps', respectively. The purpose is the simple stated and written goal but it needs to answer the question 'why?' and differs from what value it has. Steps need ...