8 - A personal take on revelation and the gospel of Jesus Christ

The Gospel of Jesus Christ


 The gospel of Jesus Christ is super simple at its core. Yes, I know the Bible teaches lots of things, many of which are important, but the core can be simplified into 4 parts

 1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
2. Repentance (we have talked about this already)
3. Baptism as a symbol and promise to follow Jesus Christ
4. Receiving and being open to the gift of the Holy Ghost

 I look at the gospel of Jesus Christ as a guiding path to receive revelation. You will see that I used many of these principles in my previous blog posts. Let me show what I mean.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

In Blog post 2 - How to get revelation, I said walking the path of faith is doing what you know to be right according to your best knowledge every single day. It also means that you are continually seeking and asking for God to play a part in your path.

 I also introduced the idea of finding your true self in blog post 2. Almost 8 years ago, I talked with one of the top religious leaders in the world on this. he said that asking to know your true self is not something to be taken lightly. You need to really want to know the answer and you need to be ready for it. It turns out there are parts of yourself that you won't like very much. Sometimes that knowledge is soul-crushing. That is why we try to hide from our true selves.

 Faith in Jesus Christ gives us at once something to aim for higher than ourselves, and a way to overcome the barrier to seeing our true selves. First, Jesus showed what living a perfect life was. He is the highest good we can aim for, and if we follow Him, we will be better able to do what we know to be right under all circumstances. Second, he died for us, not only as a sacrifice for our lives, but also a sacrifice for our sin, and weakness. This means that he thought that we had intrinsic worth. When we continually seek and ask God to play a part in our path, we can by the same token ask to understand why Jesus performed this sacrifice and what he saw in us.

 Practicing these things gives us greater faith, and allows us to do all those things we have mentioned to a greater extent.

Repentance

In blog post 6 - Repentance and revelation, I noted how repentance really means changing and getting better aim. When we have faith we learn where to aim and what to do to aim there. When we repent, we change so we can improve our aim.

 In blog post 3 - Rolling back the distractions, I pointed out six major distractions that put off our aim. Repenting is getting rid of these distractions. It is getting in a state where we are showing the world and God where we want to go. If we are constantly showing that we are improving our aim, it is an open invitation for the divine to come into our lives and help us.

Promise and Baptism

Baptism is a symbol of a promise. First you show that you are ready for it by faith and repentance. When you show that you are aiming for God, and that you are not letting anything distract you, you have demonstrated that you really want revelation.

 One key to baptism is the promise. A promise is like taking all your evidence you have accumulated that you want revelation, and then committing that you will do it in the future and stay on that path. There is a lot of power in that. You show God that you are serious. You show Him that you are sincere. When you can make promises like this, it is not a game anymore, it is the real deal.

 If you have observed a baptism or been baptized yourself, you notice that it is done in a very specific manner by specific persons. The symbolism of this means you want to have a real connection with God, so you are acknowledging that you will connect in the way He asked you to.

 You can make other promises besides the baptismal promise. I'm highlighting the baptismal promise because it works the best of any promise I know and because it is directly part of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but you can use it as a pattern for other promises you make to God as well. Use this as a pattern to understand what you are doing, both if you have made a baptismal promise, and if you have not made a baptismal promise.

The Gift of the Holy Ghost

The gift of the Holy Ghost is the promise itself that you have a channel to revelation. It is also the manner of fulfillment of you fixing your aim. Up to this point you have been reaching up to God. The Holy Ghost is the way that God reaches down to you.

 Paul called the gift of the Holy Ghost 'ineffable', which means he would not be able to describe it even if he knew how. Because of this, I will not write more on the gift of the Holy Ghost here. If you are looking for resources to learn more about this gift, you can ask me.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Pattern to Live by

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a one time thing. Many of us have been baptized only once, it is true, but we repeat the pattern over and over again in a great spiral to lead us upwards.

 We walk the path of faith.
We improve our aim.
We promise to God we have done this in the past, and will continue to do so.
We receive greater presence of Him in our lives.
We continue on the path of faith.

 As I mentioned previously, you can follow many things in this pattern even if you aren't baptized. I don't know if it will work as well, but I do know that this pattern will help anyone get at least a little better if they try it.

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