Approaching Zion: Enduring to the End

(Artwork in this post by German artist Franz Marc, 1880-1916)

Previously in the Approaching Zion series:

Childlike Consecration
Polygamy
Beauty and the Beast
The Doctrine of Christ
The Pure in Heart
One Heart and One Mind
A Refuge from the Storm
Go Ye Out of Babylon
The Seventh Seal
Watchmen and Waste Places
The Seven Heavens
The Kingdom of God on Earth
The Destiny of America
The Mystery of the Atonement
Walking with God

Enduring or Enjoying?

The Doctrine of Christ contains a provision that is often overlooked, getting little attention.  It is "enduring to the end."

How do you understand the doctrine of enduring to the end?  There are at least two aspects to it:

   (1) What does it mean to 'endure?'
   (2) What is the 'end' referring to?

Last night I was talking to my wife about the grin-and-bear-it mentality we often have when it comes to "enduring."  Must life be endured?  Why can't we "enjoy to the end?"

But in this post, I want to focus on the second aspect, "the end."

   If ye shall press forward,
   feasting upon the words of Christ,
   and endure to the end,
   behold, thus saith the Father:
   Ye shall have eternal life.

(2 Nephi 31:20)

Our mortal natures crave finality (which is ironic, seeing as we are endless beings).

Yes, Christ is the Omega and knows something about endings, but don't forget, He is also the Alpha (3 Ne. 9:18), the first.  And what's important to understand is that He is the Alpha and Omega simultaneously.

Whenever we think we have finally 'arrived' at the end of our journey, the mists on the horizon clear and we see the road goes on.  All endings begin anew.

No one has ever explained to me what the "end" really is.

Growing up, I just assumed it was death.  I thought if I remained 'true and faithful,' the Lord would call me up and say, "It is finished" (John 19:30).

But then what?  What will we be doing for the rest of eternity?

"Look unto me"

Jesus taught the Nephites:

   (1) I am the law and the light.
   (2) Look unto me,
   (3) and endure to the end,
   (4) and ye shall live;
   for unto him that endureth
   to the end will I give eternal life.

(3 Nephi 15:9)

In just one verse (just 33 words), Jesus taught us everything we need to know in order to be equipped to endure to the end.

By contrast, last year in 2024 I wrote 121,582 words on this blog ― and all of them could not compare to those 33 simple, wonderful words.

I confess it has taken many, many years for me to finally "look unto Christ."  For most of my life, I looked to the Brethren and to the Church Handbook for guidance.

My spiritual life was a bowling ball between the bumper lanes the Church carved out for me.

But that all changed on February 10, 2017, when, while driving to work on a Friday morning, heading to the courthouse for a day of prosecuting criminals, the eyes of my understanding grew a little wider.

By then I was well on my way in deconstructing my spiritual journey.  As I drove to work that morning, I pondered on the role of the Church and my place in it.

Now, there's something about my past I don't think I've shared before.  While in graduate school, in the Fall of 2003, I was hired to teach religion at BYU as an adjunct faculty member.  I was 24 years old.  I taught religion part-time at BYU for the next 13 years.

I never loved anything so much as I loved teaching.  But as I studied the scriptures and taught my classes, I came to know enough about the gospel to realize the Church was noncompliant with its scriptural mandates.

Surely it wasn't my place to set the Church in order.  Surely the Lord had other people, better-qualified, on His payroll for such things.  But I was troubled.

As I drove to work on February 10, 2017, I reflected on the fact that even though there is much error in the Church, there was also a lot of good.

Now I understand that this is a feature among all religions: God has seeded them with enough light that we can find Him, and with enough darkness that we can become Pharisees and Jihadists if we choose.

In other words, our religions are merely mirrors that allow us to grow into the kind of person we truly want to be, with enough ambiguity that we can feel as if we're following God either way (whether we are or not).

As I drove to work that morning, I pondered the words of Nephi about baptism being a gate.

   For the gate
   by which ye should enter
   is repentance
   and baptism by water.

(2 Nephi 31:17)

I guess I had never really thought of what a "gate" meant before, but as I drove the Spirit helped me to see the way gates are used, spiritually, and what their purpose is for.

They are meant to be passed through, not as obstacles to prevent passage but as openings to allow us to progress.  We do not squat down at the foot of the gate as if we've ended our journey.  They connect separate planes which cannot be crossed except through means of the gate.

Sure, I had entered the gate.  But where was I?  And where was I headed?  Where was the straight and narrow path taking me?  Or had I wandered into strange roads?

This was accompanied by a spiritual awakening in which the Lord revealed to me in a personal way that He was okay with the fact I was growing "beyond" the Church-gate I had been raised with (that is natural).  He filled me with peace (thank goodness I didn't crash into any cars while all this was happening).

I understood that in order to reach Him I would have to travel far beyond where the Church was, and what it taught ― that this journey had no bearing on whether I remained a member or not, for where He was leading me was not of this world.

And I received the earnest of the Spirit, that there lay before us things no Church can offer, that are received directly from God: ordinances and conversations and covenants we can find nowhere else.

After all, who exactly did Nephi hear saying:

   Yea, the words of my Beloved
   are true and faithful.
   He that endureth to the end,
   the same shall be saved.

​(2 Nephi 31:15)

When we pass beyond the Pearly Gates, it will not be because we display an ordinance record showing we were baptized at age eight: it will be because we have received the words of eternal life from the lips of the Father. 

And as I pondered and prodded this new understanding (obeying all traffic laws, I assure you), the following words came alive for me as they never had before, as if the secrets of the universe had been in my grasp all this time:

   I would that ye should
   come unto Christ,
   who is the Holy One of Israel,
   and partake of his salvation,
   and the power of his redemption.

   Yea, come unto him,
   and offer your whole souls
   as an offering unto him,
   and continue in fasting
   and praying,
   and endure to the end;
   and as the Lord liveth
   ye will be saved.

(Omni 1:26)

It was the rudest of awakenings, believe me, realizing I had "offered my whole soul" to the Church, thinking it had been to Christ ― when in fact, I had been trying to serve two masters all along.

Wanted: Wisdom

If God possesses all truth, what percentage do we have?
​
If Truth were an ocean stretching across multiple worlds, spanning all generations of time, how much of it do we know?  I think we hold, perhaps, a bare thimble-full of the oceans' water.

And yet with all of our limitations, we may somehow possess a "fulness of Christ?"  Herein is a mystery.

Lehi said:

   All things have been done
   in the wisdom of him
   who knoweth all things.

(2 Nephi 2:24)

You may have noticed I've been seeking wisdom lately, writing about it.  James did not say "if any of you lack knowledge, let him ask of God" (James 1:5) ― but he said, "If any of you lack wisdom."

And so I (who lack wisdom greatly) have been asking God to help me replace some of my foolishness with wisdom so I may better serve you, and Him.

The danger we face is ending up like those Paul warned us about:

   Ever learning, and never able
   to come to the knowledge
   of the truth.

(2 Tim. 3:7) 

Where is the end of knowledge?  Where is the beginning of wisdom?  What is the highest, greatest truth?

Because it is exhausting digging through all these layers of truth, trying to uncover the bedrock of Christ's sure foundation from the flimsy furniture IKEA-like churches peddle.

The sedimentary layers of truth I once sifted through and clung to, I have set aside to keep digging.

I am not content to know the social security number of God, His address and fax number: I want to know Him intimately, as a bride on her wedding night.

Is there any end to knowing?  Is there an end to truth, where all truth becomes circumscribed into one great whole?

Love Wisely

The thing I want most to learn is how to love wisely.

You know I am a loving person.  But I love like a fool, as most fools do.

I want to love like God.

I want to have the wisdom to serve others not in the way I think best, but in the manner that God may reach out and touch them.  For what use is making you a chicken enchilada casserole if you are lactose intolerant (see, The Parable of the Five Sons)?

Love means to serve, but service rendered without wisdom can be harmful.  Nothing is more harmful than forcing a foot into a glass slipper it is ill-suited for.

I do not wish to share my blanket with those who are cold if my blanket is diseased.  What good is a little warmth if it gives you smallpox?

How does this relate to "enduring to the end?"  Because how can we render Christlike service when we don't know how our actions will end up affecting others?

It is nice to be well-intended, but I want to prove a blessing to those I love, and not an inadvertent cursing.

But we are blind to the future; our knowledge of cause-and-effect is short-sighted.

God, however, possesses the wisdom we need.  He sees the end from the beginning.  So ask Him!

For me, the end does not exist but in the dream of what God envisions for me.  Each ending is unique; no two of us share quite the same one.

   [God] doeth not anything
   save it be for the benefit
   of the world;
   for He loveth the world.

(2 Nephi 26:24)

The Church, I think, is trying to help, but many of its policies and teachings prove detrimental to the faith.

When the Church tells us to "endure to the end," what they really mean is stay true to the Church.

But let's forget the sideshows and focus on the center stage, the middle ring, the main attraction: Christ.  There are many corseted-Christians who faint, and cannot withstand, the sight of Christ's bearded women and misshapen men, His menagerie of circus children who give glory to Him in all their weirdness.

Give me the crunch of spent peanut shells beneath my feet, and the smell of elephant dung, and dancing bears on tightropes and the wonder of flint-shoed horses parading in hats on their hind legs in the center ring of the Big Tent.

Oh, give me the crazy circus we call the Celestial world, in all its variety and diversity and lovingkindess, where dragons lay flame to kettle corn carried upon a summer's night breeze.

For, the Celestial kingdom is not what we have imagined it to be, which is more akin to hell than heaven: the straight-laced lapels and neckties against starched white shirts ― such things cannot compare to a collarbone left to breathe through an open robe (JS-H 1:31).

Breathe, children, and flee Babylon's rigged carnival games that lure us with the promise of priesthood-clad stuffed animals hanging in neat, tidy rows, as we fruitlessly spend our last coin trying to win a prize that was never meant to be.

Be free in Christ, in order to know the Father as only a "freak" (as the world sees us) can.  For the wisdom of God is foolishness in the world's eyes.

When the Church calls out from the pulpit and from their councils, "This far, and no further" ― press on!  Press on!  Don't stop!

Press forward with a steadfastness in Christ!  Have hope!  Let us love God more than we love their praise and acceptance.

Press forward and keep going, until we hear the Father say: "Little one, ye shall have eternal life."

The Fulness of the Gospel

The fulness of the gospel has no ending.  It is without beginning of days or end of years.

I often hear people say at Church that we have the "fulness of the gospel."

What does that mean?  I don't think it means what we think it does.

   Blessed are you for receiving
   mine everlasting covenant,
   even the fulness of my gospel.

(D&C 66:2)

This verse shows that the fulness of the gospel is not about knowing something, but about receiving something. 

While Joseph Smith liked using the term "fulness of the gospel" (see D&C 20:9; 76:14; 90:11; 45:12), interestingly, this phrase does not appear in the New Testament.

Instead, the New Testament focuses on the "fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13).

Is there a difference between the fulness of the gospel and the fulness of Christ?  Well, I suppose it depends on the connotation: what does each phrase conjure to your mind?

   For it pleased the Father
   that in him [Christ] should
   all fulness dwell.

(1 Col. 1:19)

When I hear "the fulness of the gospel," the thing that comes to mind is, "This is what the Church teaches it alone has."

Okay, that's revealing: it reflects, I think, some of my indoctrination.  It shows I have been conditioned to view the gospel and the Church as interchangeable, as synonyms.

The Father thought it no insult to His honor to allow "all fulness" to dwell in ― and be embodied within ― Christ.  But the Church, I'm afraid, is not the same as Christ.

It is quite jarring to wake up one day and realize that salvation is not found through the ordinances and covenants of the gospel (Church), but through receiving a fulness of the Father through Christ's in-dwelling of us.

Make Room for More

Christ does not "get in" us through the rituals of the Church (I mean, for heaven's sake, has anyone in the Correlation Department even read the Book of Hebrews?). 

There is no priest or prophet who mediates between us and our "great High Priest" (Heb. 4:14).

Why is this important?  Because the "good news" is that this fulness may dwell (abide) in us (because in the Melchizedek there are no meddling middle-managers, thankfully). 

   And of his fulness
   have all we received.

(John 1:16)

Here again we see that the gospel is not something we "live": it is something we "receive."  From whom?  The Church?  No, from God.

To be clear, priestly administrators and prophets are helpful insofar as they excite our minds and hearts toward God and His hidden ways, imparting the words of life.  And fellowship in a community of believers is an essential part of the Plan.  Communities need some way to organize cooperative action.

But the landscape of modern religion is riddled with wolves, who instead of helping us dig irrigation ditches by the sweat of their brow, will sell us water shares in the irrigation company for an inflated price.

I have never treated with sandbox bullies, and neither do I take kindly to spiritual leaders casting a shadow over my Lord and Savior.

Yet the priests and prophets of Babylon are adeptly trained in the cares of the world and in the deceitfulness of riches.  They devour the flock, concerned with building budgets and fiscal reports and tithing receipts (as opposed to the mysteries of God).

Mammon's priesthood delights in big business, for the Great Apostasy is nothing other than the industrialization and commodification of religion, mass-producing priestcraft.

The current desires of the Church are best seen in its universities, not its chapels.  The reason for this is because, if we want to see the Church's true colors, we simply need to look at where it exercises the greatest control.  And so we can look at the Church's employment policies and contracts to see what it truly lusts after.  And what do we find?  Control, secrecy, and unquestioning institutional loyalty.

If you want to take the pulse of the Church, do not bother with the exalted ideals we preach on Sundays.  No, it is during the workweek we see the pounding heartbeat of the Church laid bare upon the altar of Babylon in the stock markets and in the Ecclesiastical Clearance Office of BYU (Arthur Miller, who wrote about the Salem Witch Trials in The Crucible, must be turning over in his grave).

We find in the avatar of Elder Clark Gilbert (a figurehead for the Brethren who serves as the Commissioner of Church Education) something quite disturbing.

I apologize for being critical, for I loathe any negativity, but my heart is sick as I watch the Church make a mockery of God, saying its Universities must be true to its religious mission and the gospel of Jesus Christ, when in fact its Stalinesque policies show the opposite.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, but I am ashamed of a Church that claims to possess the fulness of the gospel while trampling over its just and holy principles.

I decry the rampant hypocrisy demonstrated by the Church seeking to cure the disease of secularism with a lethal dose of sectarianism.

Watching the fear-inspired practices coming from Headquarters, we may appropriately wonder, does the Church possess a fulness of the gospel?

   The show of their countenance
   doth witness against them;
   and they declare their sin
   as Sodom, they hide it not.
   Woe unto their soul!
   for they have rewarded evil
   unto themselves.

   For Jerusalem is ruined,
   and Judah is fallen:
   because their tongue
   and their doings
   are against the Lord.

(Isaiah 3:9, 8)

But it's okay.  Because regardless of whatever monkey business is going on with the Church, the fulness of the Father in-dwells Christ ― and us (D&C 76:29).

   Share the good news!

The End (or is it?)

Returning to that Friday in February 2017, after the morning session of Court was over and we had recessed for lunch, I drove nearby to Taco Bell.  My mind was still swimming, making associations and connections I had not thought of before.

With a bean burrito in one hand, I opened up the scriptures on my phone in the other.  I read the following words, which took on a whole new meaning for me (as if their hidden meaning had been veiled my whole life, until then):

   This is the way;
   and there is none other way
   nor name given under heaven
   whereby man can be saved
   in the kingdom of God.
   
   And now, behold,
   this is the doctrine of Christ,
   [that one and] only and true   
   doctrine of the Father,
   and of the Son,
   and of the Holy Ghost,
   which is[: there is] one God,
   WITHOUT END.

   Amen.

(2 Nephi 31:21)

How odd, I thought, that Nephi, having just been told to "endure to the end," learned that God has no ending.

And that is when something fell into place.  I realized the end was now, and never, and always.  God is one, as we are all one; and that all is one in God, and ever was and will be, that great I AM.

I must have looked dumbstruck, a chalupa dangling from my mouth.  I felt beyond words that there was nowhere I could go where God would not be with me, and there was nowhere I could hide where He would not find me.  He is the Shepherd, and therefore, we are all shepherds; He is the Lamb, and therefore, so are we all.

All that God is, He gives; all that we are, He takes ― even as much as we are willing to share in His fulness, and in the fulness of what we were meant to become, without end.

This free exchange of our natures is what allows us to indwell and become One.

   And I John saw that he received
   not of the fulness at the first,
   but received grace for grace.

   And thus was he called
   the Son of God, 
   because he received not
   of the fulness at the first.

   And he received all power,
   both in heaven and on earth,
   and the glory of the Father
   was with him,
   for he dwelt in him.

(D&C 93:12, 14, 17)

This is the Doctrine, and the fulness, of Christ. 

Noah's Wife
a poem

​― For my daughter-doves, Lilian and Elisabeth

   God spake unto Noah, saying,
   Go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife,
   and thy sons, and thy sons' wives.

     ― Genesis 8:15-16

Wife of Noah, Mother of Ham: what is your name?
 
   << I am known as There are floods known only to the heart of woman
   << I am known as The Ark of mankind is found in the wisdom of the womb
 
Woman, Noah gathered animals two of every kind: what do you gather?
 
   >> I gather seeds of every plant and flower and Tree: even the clover and dandelion know my name
   >> I preserve Eden's fruit from the flame
  
Woman, Noah obtained a covenant with God: what does the rainbow show you?
 
   << It shows me the weaving of the Apron of Seven Pockets
   << It shows me all arises from the rainbow-red blood of Bethlehem
 
Woman, Noah cursed your son for uncovering his nakedness: what cause have you to rejoice?

   ―And behold, the Woman shed forth tears as the rain upon the mountains, her weeping covering all the earth, and light shone through her tears, and in the cloud God set a bow, and she said:
 
   >> Because I am Ishta
   >> Because I AM The Bearer of the Iridescent Garment given to mother Eve made from the skin of Snakes