The gospel is a process by which you receive more and better blessings from God by becoming more like him. Too many Christians seek the blessings of righteousness without seeking to be righteous.1 The gospel is not a cheat code to get more than you deserve in or after this life. Rather, it is an instruction manual on how to become better so that you deserve better than you presently do.2
God’s blessings are often coveted without consideration of God’s character. Goodness and enduring happiness are completely intertwined. The more like God you become, the more of his blessings you will enjoy.3 The way to obtain God’s blessings is to join him where he is.4
You become one with God by becoming like he is, not by getting him to inject his blessings into a life nothing like what he would live. The angel of God’s presence accompanied Israel because they were walking towards where he wanted them to be, not because he was going towards where they wanted to be. He was with them because they were following him, not because they had succeeded in getting him to follow them.
By nature, humans are miserable. The nature of God is the nature of happiness,5 because God is happier than any person. Adopting his nature will lead to greater happiness than any other path.6 The path to happiness is to learn and live the character of Christ.7 You cannot have greater or longer-lasting joy without learning more than you presently know about God.
To obtain the most intense joy, we must discover and emulate how God is. Similitude to God and joy are inescapably coupled. Because similarity to God comes by degrees, joy does as well. The more like God you become, the more intense the joy you will experience.51
The path to experiencing more intense joy is the path of learning what God knows, doing what he does, and wanting what he wants. To the degree that you learn about and live like Jesus, you will find that the degree of happiness you find and keep in life will increase.52
Obtaining and living God’s character is not just a duty or debt, but the path to the greatest possible outcomes. The best outcomes available to you are found and obtained through living as Jesus would in your place. We obtain more of God’s outcomes by learning and living more of God’s character. To the extent we learn about and apply his character, we become like he is, both in quality and in outcome.53 As you become more like God, you will encounter greater joy as what is less like God is replaced by what is more like God. As you think, feel, and act as you sincerely believe Jesus would in your place, you are on the path to becoming the greatest person you can be and experiencing the greatest joy you can ever have.
The purpose of life is to have greater eternal joy by becoming more like God.54 The more you know about and live like Jesus, the more joy you will have, and the longer it will last.
Footnotes
- 1. “Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.” (James Allen, “As A Man Thinketh”) ↩
- 2. And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41) ↩
- 3. You will understand what this scripture says very differently after learning the lessons taught in this book: “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake....He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great. The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children.” (Psalm 115:1, 13-14) ↩
- 4. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. (Isaiah 43:2) ↩
- 5. And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness. (Alma 41:11) ↩
- 6. 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) ↩
- 7. And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness. (2 Nephi 5:27) ↩