Chapter 12: Align with God by Following His Example

God knows your potential and how you can achieve it

God knows how good you could be. He knows how you can become that way, and he knows why becoming that way would be worthwhile, correctly understanding the benefit that your achieved potential would render to yourself and others. He also knows everything needed to persuade you to walk in that way.

You don’t know your true potential any more than a slab of stone imagines the kind of statue it could be. The sculptor alone knows the stone’s potential, which combines the raw qualities of the rock with the skill of the sculptor. Similarly, God’s assessment of your potential lies far beyond who you are now. He can hone you into what has the greatest value, which is likely to be different both than what you would consider possible, and what you would consider valuable.

God knows your potential and how to achieve it because he already has done the same himself.¹ Because he has already acquired the perfect character, God’s appraisal of value is denominated exclusively in terms of similarity to himself. A person’s value consists of how much like him they have become:

Serve me by following me. My servants will do, think, and feel as they believe I would in all things, according to their present understanding. A man’s value in the eyes of the Father is accounted by how much like me he is. (John 12:26, Author’s Reflection)

The potential of man is to acquire God’s happiness through the acquisition of God’s character. The more you get to know God, the greater your idea of your own potential will become.²

God has an ideal character, but it is not easy to discover or emulate

God’s character qualities are those with the greatest worth. God’s character consists of all qualities that an ideal person would have. If we accept the idea that God is the happiest of all beings, and we seek greater happiness, honesty requires us to learn to think, feel, and act as he does.

Choosing to acquire the character qualities of God is a challenge because you don’t know them, and even when they are shown to you, you will find them less attractive the further you are from them.

Your present idea of God is very far from the whole truth. Because God is unique, nothing less than him can adequately and fully describe who he is. It is so difficult to convey how God is that it is not a stretch to characterize the whole purpose of creation as being for this end. The staggering scale and magnificence of the universe attests to the difficulty of the puzzle of conveying more of God’s character to mankind. The only way to learn more about God is to first live up to all you presently know. As you learn more about God’s character and live up to everything you learn, he will show you more about himself.³

The character qualities of God are not found attractive to those to whom they are revealed. The natural man has an embedded preference for things that are less than what is best. When improvements are revealed to the natural man, the natural reaction is to see them as bitter, not sweet. Invitations to improve will either be seen as requiring the loss of what seems more valuable—and therefore, as something other than improvement.

Everything God is, desires, and does leads to something better.⁴ However, it will only seem that way to you to the extent that you have and exercise faith—the ability to honestly perceive, reason about, decide, and act on what is logically best. Anything you are required to set aside in your path to become more like God is either something you don’t really have, can’t presently have, can’t enduringly keep, or wouldn’t want if you knew better.

Only the character qualities of God endure eternally against every opposition.⁵ Only God’s character qualities will yield the greatest joy over the greatest extent of time. Any degree of difference from God guarantees eventual disillusionment. What lies outside of how he is cannot remain.⁶ What lies outside of how he is will eventually either succumb to the need for change or face annihilation.⁷

Think, feel, and do what the Lord would in your place

The purpose of life is to have greater eternal joy by becoming more like God.⁸ God has designed this life to provide us with the means and potential to become more like he is. We accomplish the purpose of life by learning more about God and living up to everything we learn.⁹

The gospel is a process by which we become more like him through learning more about how he is and becoming that way ourselves. The gospel provides us a model of how Jesus is and sufficient reasons to make the necessary changes to become that way ourselves.¹⁰ The gospel provides us with teaching and examples to inform our idea of what Jesus would think, feel, and do in our place, opportunities to follow his example, and experiences to inform improvement and motivate further growth.¹¹

Christianity is meant to provide you with the courage and vision to see yourself accurately¹² and the tools to effectively change for the better,¹³ but it is so rarely used for this purpose. Instead, Christianity is routinely adulterated into an attempt to feel good while remaining bad. Almost all Christians believe that you can worship God while completely disregarding everything he actually says and does. Some honest people correctly identify how ridiculous this position is, and many have done so for a very long time.

Fool! When will you ever learn that “believing” is useless without doing what God wants you to? Faith that does not result in good deeds is not real faith. (James 2:20, Living Bible)

The invitation to think, feel, and do as Jesus would in your place is not some religious extremity. It is precisely what is meant to take place at baptism, which is meant to be a covenant to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death.” (Mosiah 18:9) Many incorrectly limit the definition of witnessing of God as vocally expressing your beliefs in him. Witnessing of God is not so much about proclaiming that you like him as much as it is demonstrating what he is like:

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5)

To stand as a witness of God requires you to think,¹⁴ feel,¹⁵ and act¹⁶ as Jesus would do in your place. The initiatory ordinance of baptism represents your submission to God. You are immersed in the water to symbolically symbolize surrounding yourself with his will in all you do.

Most Christians believe that the mortal mission of Jesus Christ was to absolve us of responsibility for our choices, but you can’t obtain the joy he has except by becoming like he is. The mortal life of Jesus Christ demonstrated to us the epitome of what a man can be. The Lord lived “after the manner of happiness”¹⁷ by discovering and living up to the thoughts, feelings, and actions that produce ideal eternal outcomes.¹⁸ Jesus has instructed us to follow his example:

...what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am. (3 Nephi 27:27)

Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do... (3 Nephi 18:24)

Verily, verily, I say unto you, this is my gospel; and ye know the things that ye must do in my church; for the works which ye have seen me do that shall ye also do; for that which ye have seen me do even that shall ye do; (3 Nephi 27:21)

If you believe that God is perfect, then every deviation from what you believe God would think, feel, or do in your place is dishonest. If God is what is best, then deviating from him in any way would require deep dishonesty, as it would require willful harm to oneself,¹⁹ intentionally choosing less than what is best.²⁰

Most people don’t believe it is possible to perfectly follow the example of Christ, but God doesn’t command what isn’t possible.²¹ As with all his other commandments, he provides all that is needed for us to obey his commandment to follow his example.²²

Some foolishly claim that it is blasphemous to believe that we can follow the example of Christ, denying his word,²³ his example,²⁴ and his power.²⁵ In reality, those who argue against our ability to follow Christ typically do so to cover the guilt they feel for choosing otherwise, not because they have a reason to believe it is impossible. While denying the possibility of following Christ might satisfy your conscience, it will never alleviate you from the anxiety and depression that will plague you as long as you fail to reach for and achieve the greatest meaning uniquely available in living up to the example of Jesus Christ in all things.

Part of the reason so many fail to follow Jesus’ example is because they focus on his works without ever thinking to change their motives. Following the example of Jesus is not limited to just copying his actions, but also learning the reasons for what he does.²⁶ What someone does can’t fully describe how they are. While very few Christians seek to learn and do what God would do in their place, even fewer ask how God would feel in their place, and why he would feel and act this way. To truly follow the Lord’s example, we must also adopt his thoughts and feelings.

Asking what Jesus would think, feel, do, and why, quickly identifies the gross ignorance supposed Christians have of the Lord they claim to worship. Even those who have spent a lifetime in Christianity, as they suppose, would likely struggle to know what God would do in their place in more than a few situations, and it is difficult to imagine any of them being able to say how God would think or feel, let alone make a satisfactory case for why. How could any such person believe they have eternal life, since the Lord defined this as knowing the Father and the Son?²⁷

Live up to how you presently see God to learn more about him

The Lord gifts each person with the light of life when they are born here. This internal ability to understand, choose, and learn provides all people—whether secular or religious—with the ability to improve, whether they recognize it as following God or not.²⁸ Since all people have the light of Christ, all people have the opportunity to advance and bear accountability for the degree to which they use it.²⁹ To the extent that we obtain more of the character of Christ in our hearts and minds³⁰ and instantiate it in the world through our actions,³¹ we grow in similitude to Christ.³²

The steps towards becoming more like God consist of iteratively perceiving more differences between how you are and how God is and reconciling yourself to how you now perceive him to be:

If we remove every difference between us and God revealed as he shows us more of his glory, he will show us more and more of his glory, and we will be gradually transformed into his image, just as the Lord was, from his spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18, Author’s Reflection)

As you heed God’s influence within you and fully emulate it in your thoughts, feelings, and actions, he will expand his influence within you. Those who live up to how they believe God to be will be shown more of how he is.³³ If you want to learn more about God, live up to what you already know by taking note of and submitting to how Jesus would think, feel, and act in your place.³⁴ While you do this, God will:

1. Forgive you of every difference with him you had in the past.
2. Forgive you of every difference you still don’t know about.
3. Teach you more about himself.

You can learn more about how God is through living up to your conscience, perceiving and accepting opportunities to improve, and learning and living God’s purpose. We grow proportional to the degree of heed and diligence³⁵ we exercise in obtaining more information about him and living up to everything we already know:³⁶

24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.
25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath. (Mark 4)

As you submit to God in how you think, feel, and act, he will increase your capacity to do good, recognize truth, and be a better person.³⁷ You will receive increased connection to God through his spirit.³⁸ You will find that God will “pour out his Spirit upon [you]...because of [your] easiness and willingness to believe in his words.” (Helaman 6:36) Then, “...by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, [you will] exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith...lay hold upon every good thing...” (Moroni 7:25)

Total submission is required

It is easy to make some change to our lives and in so doing fool ourselves into believing we have aligned ourselves with God, when we have actually left much more important changes undone, or limited those changes to only the most superficial of depths. In Jesus’ day, he railed against the Pharisees for overemphasizing the easy, superficial parts of the law of Moses while abundantly ignoring the deeper, more difficult matters:

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. (Matthew 23)

Submission to God cannot be feigned. He knows any limits you may have in your trust in him. God cannot be fooled. He sees all, and even the slightest rebellion from him will alienate you from him:

And he doth not dwell in unholy temples; neither can filthiness or anything which is unclean be received into the kingdom of God; therefore I say unto you the time shall come, yea, and it shall be at the last day, that he who is filthy shall remain in his filthiness. (Alma 7:21)

....No man can enter into the kingdom of God, except through forsaking everything in him that is not like God. (Matthew 19:26, Author’s Reflection)

Alignment with God is not a shallow act. It requires that you yield yourself to God’s will, which will almost always be different than yours:

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 Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

Superficial changes or changes in only some areas are insufficient to yield our hearts to God. You must crucify all things within and without that oppose Jesus Christ:

And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5:24)

21 And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead. (Matthew 8)

61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.
62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9)

Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence; for, in the language of Adam, Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge, who shall come in the meridian of time. (Moses 6:57)

Too many try to hide limits in submission to God by overcompensating in the things they have no problem doing. Unsurprisingly, those who limit their submission to God do not enjoy communion with him. Those who walk in willing misalignment from God cannot come to know him better, because they live in open rebellion against him:

36 And now, I say unto you, my brethren, that after ye have known and have been taught all these things, if ye should transgress and go contrary to that which has been spoken, that ye do withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord, that it may have no place in you to guide you in wisdom’s paths that ye may be blessed, prospered, and preserved—
37 I say unto you, that the man that doeth this, the same cometh out in open rebellion against God; therefore he listeth to obey the evil spirit, and becometh an enemy to all righteousness; therefore, the Lord has no place in him, for he dwelleth not in unholy temples. (Mosiah 2)

Submission to God cannot be partial. The Lord didn’t partially come down from heaven, or partially give his life for us. Animals were not partially sacrificed in typifying his sacrifice. We do not follow him by partially submitting to him. In the scriptures, total submission is called having a “broken heart and contrite spirit.”³⁹ Though rarely understood and hardly ever lived, this is the plain message in the oftgiven admonition to:

...love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him. (D&C 59:5)[^455]

You must “...come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you.” (Jacob 6:5) To “cleave unto” him requires you to remove any deviation from how he would think, feel, or act in your life:

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism. (Alma 7:15)

Sanctification comes only as you obtain and retain total submission to God,⁴⁰ first by completely aligning your life to God, and then by maintaining this alignment as he teaches you more about himself over time.

Think as God thinks

God knows all things and possesses all wisdom. It is overwhelming to consider the daunting task of coming up to his knowledge and understanding. And yet, the scriptures contain clear declarations that this can and needs to be done while providing instructions on how to do it.

God wants us to know what he thinks and how he thinks so that we can know what he would feel and do in our place without relying upon new revelation at all times and in all places.⁴¹ He wants us to be his children—children who have apprenticed and become like their father, not slavish and stupid animals:

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. (Psalm 32:9)

He bothers to tell us so much about himself and the Father because he wants us to become more than just his passive servants.⁴² As we go about obeying his commandments and receiving revelation, we are meant to be building an incrementally more correct model of how he is. The domain of this model cannot be confined to situations we deem as spiritual, as all things are spiritual to God.⁴³ His character is defined in every situation throughout all creation.⁴⁴

As we exercise diligence in building our model of how God is and live according to that model, God will teach us more about himself, ourselves, others, and the world. This is an incremental process governed by the spirit of God.

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2)

The Lord told his apostles that they were not ready to bear everything that he had to teach them. He said the Holy Ghost would serve to control the pace of what he would teach them:

12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. (John 16)

Paul declared that it is possible to “have the mind of Christ,” (1 Corinthians 2:16), but what does this mean and how does one obtain it? Paul did not mean that those who have the mind of Christ know everything that the Father knows. John the Baptist described Jesus as having access to the spirit “without limit,”⁴⁵ and yet there were things that the Father knew that Jesus did not know during his mortal ministry.⁴⁶ Access to God does not bypass the successive nature of truth. The mind of Christ means having access to the next increment of information on a topic without impedance. It does not waive the need to integrate that information into your understanding and practice before receiving more.

Those who exercise greater diligence and obedience in obtaining greater understanding will obtain more understanding faster than others.⁴⁷

Feel as God feels

Your feelings reflect how closely you approach the ideal defined by your beliefs. In a sense, your beliefs are your instruction manual for enduringly obtaining what is most valuable. By intentionally thinking about what you believe, you generate a prioritization of possible actions to achieve what you expect to be the greatest possible meaning in life.

God holds the ideal set of beliefs that generate the ideal life and the greatest possible meaning. His commandments assist us in perceiving his example, and to the extent we emulate his example, we will come to enjoy the same meaning he does.

While God’s example is a composite of thoughts, feelings, and actions, our adherence to or rebellion from him begins and ends in our feelings.⁴⁸ What we desire will determine the actions we take, based on the beliefs we hold.

God has defined his desire, and the greatest joy is available to those who adopt it as their own: “For behold, this is my work and my glory— to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39) A person walks in eternal life as they live up to all they know about Jesus and do all they can to learn more about him.⁴⁹ A person who has adopted God’s purpose will do this themselves and do all they can to help others do the same.

The Lord spent his mortal life learning about and living up to the Father’s example, doing all in his power to help others do the same. The sacrifice of Christ shows the value God sees in his purpose,⁵⁰ which is to enable us all to achieve more of our potential.⁵¹ Christ is the most valuable person who has or will live here. You are purchased with the greatest price possible. That price is unknowable except as far as you have paid it yourself. You will only know and value the sacrifice that the Lord made and continues to make for you to the extent that you do the same for others.

God commands us to love all people as he loves us:

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15:12)

Like all commandments, this—the chief commandment—is designed to maximally expand the depth, breadth, and endurance of your joy.⁵² Loving others with all your heart, might, mind and strength⁵³ will maximally increase the value of what you receive from God and the value of what you give to others.⁵⁴

To fully understand what this entails, it is necessary to know God’s definition of love: to sacrifice for the benefit of others. To love others as Jesus loves us requires us to do all we do for the benefit of the world,⁵⁵ as he does.

As you fully adopt God’s purpose, you will come to feel more like he feels across all circumstances as he incrementally increases your understanding of himself, you, others, and the world around you. You cannot feel as God feels much more than you know what he knows, but by freely loving all people up to the limits of your present understanding of his love for you, you will open the way for him to help you perceive even greater love.

As you love others as Christ loves you, you will participate in a chain reaction of increasing receipt, giving, and appreciation of the love of God. The more of his love you give, the more you appreciate the love he has given you; the more you appreciate the love he has given you, the more you will give to others; the more love you give to others, the more love God will give to you.

Act as God acts

As discussed in an earlier chapter, Jesus specifically commanded us on multiple occasions to follow his example. But how do we apply his example to our own lives when we live some 2,000 years after he did, in very different circumstances?

The key to applying the example of Jesus to your own life lies in extracting principles from what he did and didn’t do. Knowing that his motive was to do the greatest good is essential. His example showed what was best under the circumstances.

To act as God acts, you must exercise and further develop your willingness and ability to discern what is best. Our natural tendency is to seek what makes us feel best right now. God’s influence leads us in determining what is best for all people over the longest time period. Each person has a beginning capability to determine what is best, and through exercising what you already have, you will grow in your accuracy in discerning what is best and your determination to do it.

All good comes from, leads to, and is fulfilled in God. God’s voice is the voice of improvement. The influence of God will always cause things to become better than they were. God shows you how to improve, why to improve, and proves that you can improve. To reveal more or better to a person is to reveal what they should do to be more like God.

In order to act as God acts, you will have to learn to recognize and give invitations to improve. Recognizing invitations to improvement will require that you actively think about how things could be better, which will cause you to notice far more opportunities to improve. Effectively managing the endless opportunities to improve yourself, others, and the world requires organization and intention. You will need to develop a means of capturing potential improvements, prioritizing which you address first, and planning effective ways to accomplish your goals.⁵⁶

How you react to improvement is how you feel about God. The word of God will show you what is really in your heart.⁵⁷ If you disobey God, you do not really love him.⁵⁸ If you obey him begrudgingly, you do not really love him.⁵⁹ If you prefer anything else to obeying him, you do not really love him.⁶⁰ If you fear the consequences of obeying him—if you count the cost—you do not really trust him:

25 And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned, and said unto them,
26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. 33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14)

How do you respond to invitations to improve? How do you respond to criticism? How do you respond to evidence that what you think is incorrect? How do you respond to evidence that there are better actions than those you are taking? How do you respond to new opportunities?

God’s voice is the voice of improvement, and as you heed and echo that voice, you and those around you will grow. As you choose to ignore or disobey that voice, you will become a worse person. The more capable you become of identifying potential improvement, and the more effectively you can accomplish the greatest improvement, the more you will learn about God, and the more quickly you will become like him.