Seven of Everything

The New Testament has very little direct reference to understanding the organization of the Kingdom of God the way that it has since been revealed to Joseph Smith. But now that we know more about how the Kingdom of God is organized, we can look back and understand more clearly what was meant by Jesus. In Luke 15, it is instructive to note that it is one parable with three sections. This becomes clear when we look at verse 3 where it says, "he spake this parable [singular] unto them." There is also a very clear single theme of saving that which is lost throughout the whole parable. It is clear that this parable is talking about heaven because it has direct reference to heaven in three verses (7, 18, 21) and talks about "in the presence of the angels of God" which is understood to also be in heaven. (10) The first part represents the highest kingdom in God's kingdom (celestial kingdom) where many are compared to sheep and are righteous; and, the chosen who go astr...

  Degrees of glory This is a modified version of the Wikipedia page of the same title taken on February 16th, 2024. This is the way I would modify the article to be more doctrinally accurate and correct. In the  theology and cosmology  of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in heaven there are three degrees of glory (alternatively, kingdoms of glory ) which are the ultimate, eternal dwelling places for nearly all who will have lived on earth after they are resurrected from the spirit world . A depiction of the Plan of Salvation , as illustrated by me. Members of the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement , The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that the apostle Paul briefly described the degrees of glory in heaven in 1 Corinthians 15:40-42, and in 2 Corinthians 12:2. Joseph Smith received a vision with Sidney Rigdon in 1832 which enhances the understanding of heaven and recorded it in Doc...

I was asked to teach a lesson on Jonah to children and I wanted to tie it into what they already know about God's Plan of Salvation . In my searching, I was not able to find any writings, in or out of the church [ the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ], about how Jonah's story parallels the plan of salvation. It seemed to me to have the basic elements of going away from God and then returning to God; but I could not detail out which aspects of the story paralleled the plan of salvation. In my searching and reading, my mind was recalled to a class I took at BYU Campus Education Week back in 2007. The first 6 elements below I learned from Patrick D Degn . The rest I discovered and saw parallels that I will outline below. 7 Downs Down to Joppa ( 1:3 ) Down into a Ship ( 1:3 ) Down into the Sides of the ship ( 1:5 ) [Down] into the Sea ( 1:15 ) [Down] in the Belly of the [great] fish ( 1:17 ) Down to the Bottoms of the mountains ( 2:6 , Roots ) [Down into] the Earth w...

There are a few ways to submit a reimbursement request for expenses incurred as part of your calling. If you are in a leadership calling, you should have access to submit a request directly from the church website (under Tools >> Leader and Clerk Resources >> Finances after you log in) or in the Member Tools app ( Apple , Google  See 'Enter Expenses' below). If you are not a leader you can submit your receipts to a leader of your organization (1st preference) or directly to the bishopric, ward clerk, or ward assistant clerk over finances (2nd preference). The reason for submitting directly to your organization's leader (president, counselors, or secretary) is so they can keep track of your organization's budget and make sure you don't go over budget. Before you submit, make sure that you have a receipt or receipts which show who is being payed, what is being paid for, and all of the values of the expense. If there are only select items being reimburs...

Dear Debi, I enjoy our brief conversations. They always get me thinking and encourage me to do better and be better; even when we disagree, I feel that your opinions are heart felt and made out of love. I was discussing with a coworker a few weeks ago a concept I've believed for decades which I am about to share with you; and, I was able to put it into new, and hopefully better, words using different scenarios: The spirit of contention is of the devil - If you take two people who each understand the Doctrine of Christ 99% and they constantly focus on and argue about the 2% they don't understand and disagree on, eventually, they will lose all the understanding they had including their belief in God and Christ. On the other hand, you take two people who each only understanding 1% of true doctrine and have 99% misunderstandings and wrong opinions about all kinds of things, but they approach each other with love, a desire to know and understand more truth, reject the spirit of cont...

The Kingdom of God After we are resurrected, those who go back to heaven will enter the kingdom of God. This is called salvation and eternal life. This is the greatest gift of God. Revelation from God shows us that although everyone who fully repents will be saved in the kingdom of God, not everyone will receive the same glory from God. Those who were the most wicked in this life and did many bad things, after they repent and are resurrected, they will receive a glory comparable to the stars in the sky in brightness. Because these people have been so bad, repentance will be both very hard and very painful but because of Jesus Christ it will be possible. It will also be worth the difficulty because they will become clean and holy. These people will enter the kingdom of God and be in a lower kingdom called the telestial kingdom. These people will receive the Holy Spirit and become servants of God. Those who were mostly good in this life, after they repent and are resurrected will recei...

While I was listening to 1 Samuel 26:12 (5-12) the other day, my mind took a tangent into some false logic. While I was exploring the train of thought of this false logic, I was reminded of the conversation I had with a good Christian friend a while ago, where I thought to share with him some truths which bring me joy and which help me to become a stronger follower of Christ. Let me start with the false logic. The scripture says "no man saw it, nor knew it." It doesn't give conditions for this statement, therefore we know no human on earth saw it or knew it; we can say human, including woman, because in old Hebrew, 'man' referred to mankind and not just the gender of the person. This tells us also that the ones who were involved in the act also didn't see what they did and must not have known what they were doing. Also, as God is a Man, that is - by gender He is a Man - therefore this scripture must extend beyond humans on earth and include God, so He didn...