| Re: Forward - Do people really receive these blessings and talk about it? [message #471 is a reply to message #466] |
Sat, 09 June 2012 19:43  |
Amonhi
Messages: 237
Registered: June 2010
Location: Las Vegas, NV.
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Senior Member |
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Eve_ wrote on Thu, 07 June 2012 21:46I had never thought that it was right to share these experiences. I am still trying to decide if it is. Not that I condemn others who do. I have read the experiences on this forum and they are uplifting. I am wondering why people would talk about it. To make it widely known that it is possible. On the other hand, there may be a tendency to brag or a temptation to do so. What are other people's opinions on this (whether or not you have had this experience)?
Most people who have heard of the blessing but have not received it think that it is too personal to share with others. Some people believe that when you receive the promise you are sworn to secrecy.
When I received the promise I thought that I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. Then I spoke with Seeker who said that he and his wife were commanded to tel all their immediate family about their experience. He asked me, "Were you instructed not to share?" I thought about it and realized that I was not told to keep it secret and that I had picked that up from what I had heard from people who had not received it themselves. (Like they were experts or something. LOL)
So I prayed about it and was told to share it and that my witness would "bring many to the knowledge of the truth". Later when I was ordained by the angels to "bring as many as will come to the Church of the Firstborn" I realized that I could not do my job, as Dragon pointed out, without telling people that I have received the promise and so am not speaking from mere conjecture or theory but from personal experience.
Some missionaries who don't have a testimony themselves go out saying, "Pray and you will get an answer." But they haven't even gotten their own answers. They aren't sharing their own experiences because they don't have one. Other missionaries say, "When I prayed, I felt this and said that and then had this experience and it changed my life in these ways." I got am email just recently where a guy said that he prayed the 3 questions from the chapter "The Fastest Way to Make Your Calling and Election Sure". He then told me what happened and started describing to me an experience that was new to him. He told ma about his thoughts as he was having the experience and described it so perfectly that although he didn't realize what was happening, I knew it right off. I told him what was happening and pointed to some scriptures where others had experienced the same thing.
When people keep their mouths closed, we loose a number of very important things.
First, the events seem rare when they are not. When we think they are rare, then we can too easily exclude ourselves from the experience as only being reserved for a select few at the top of the priesthood/church.
Second, we don't understand them. They remain mysterious and unknown. Even though who have the experiences do not understand them well and have no one to discuss their experiences with. We all grow so much more when we are able to freely and openly share with each other our experiences. This is the entire point of the scriptures. This is why we all gain so much from reading the many stories and experiences shared here.
Someday, C&E will be as common as baptism is today. But that will not happen as long as we all keep our experiences to ourselves.
telling someone that you have received the blessing is not prideful, it is stating a fact. Pride is when we set ourselves above others. If we were to say, "I have it and you don't so I'm better than you and you have to follow me", then I would have been prideful and hopefully you would have the sense to NOT follow me.
Pride always requires a person to be above and remain above others. They don't try to make others equals. They want to be greater than others, not equals. So, The prideful have to tell you that you cannot do what they did because they are somehow greater than you. The moment you do what they have done, they need to find some other way to elevate themselves above you, to maintain their pride.
But when someone says, I did it and you can too, they are not setting themselves above other people. They are trying to make others equal with them. Raising others who want to do the same to the higher level.
Now, you have to ask who benefits if we keep our mouths closed and how?
What are the pros and cons for God if we keep our mouths closed?
What are the pros and cons for Satan if we keep our mouths closed?
What are the pros and cons for me if I keep my mouth closed?
What are the pros and cons for others if I keep my mouth closed?
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