Posted on 12/31/2013 11:35:14 PM PST by restornu
How can I know when I have the Spirit of the Lord with me? I’m a college student having a lot of new experiences, and sometimes I can’t tell if I’m just feeling “good” or if my feelings are genuinely righteous.
Don Norton, English Department, Brigham Young University I’ve heard this question from dozens of young adults who are making all sorts of discoveries about themselves. Indeed it is a very important question. Since in this life “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Ne. 2:11; italics added), it must needs be that we learn to discern good from evil.
As I’ve discussed this question at firesides, in Sunday School and priesthood classes, and in religion courses, I find that students themselves are able to tell me how they feel when the Spirit of the Lord is with them. I don’t have to answer the question. They answer it for themselves.
Here’s the list of the kinds of things young people say they feel when the Spirit is with them, and what they feel when Satan tries to take over—making them unhappy, or tricking them with counterfeits. Do these feelings match your experience?
When you have the Spirit:
1. You feel happy, calm, and clear-minded.
2. You feel generous.
3. Nobody can offend you.
4. You wouldn’t mind everybody seeing what you’re doing.
5. You are eager to be with people and want to make them happy.
6. You are glad when others succeed.
7. You are glad to attend your meetings and participate in church activities.
8. You feel like praying.
9. You wish you could keep all the Lord’s commandments.
10. You feel in control—you don’t overeat or sleep too much; you don’t feel uncontrollably drawn to sensational entertainment, lose your temper, or feel uncontrollable passions or desires.
11. You think about the Savior often and lovingly; you want to know him better.
12. You feel confident and are glad to be alive.
When you don’t have the Spirit:
1. You feel unhappy, depressed, confused, and frustrated.
2. You feel possessive, self-centered, or resentful of demands made on you.
3. You are easily offended.
4. You become secretive and evasive.
5. You avoid people, especially members of your family; and you are critical of family members and Church authorities.
6. You envy or resent the successes of others.
7. You don’t want to go to church, go home teaching, or take the sacrament. You wish you had another church job or no job at all.
8. You don’t want to pray.
9. You find the commandments bothersome, restricting, or senseless.
10. You feel emotions and appetites so strongly that you fear you cannot control them—hate, jealousy, anger, lust, hunger, fatigue.
11. You hardly ever think of the Savior; he seems irrelevant to your life, or worse, part of a confusing system that seems to work against you.
12. You get discouraged easily and wonder if life is really worth it.
The mere fact that young people easily put this list together is a powerful reassurance that they do have the key to discernment. As Moroni put it: “The Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge that it is of God.
“But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one.” (Moro. 7:16–17.)
Let me add one word of caution. Feeling the power of Satan does not make you evil. Basically, a temptation is a struggle against his influence—which is both real and powerful. But the fact that you’re struggling does not mean that you are in his power or that the Spirit of God is not also striving with you. Evil consists, not of recognizing temptation, but of yielding to it. We must recognize temptation in this life. But we don’t need to invite it, linger with it, or savor it.
Satan is particularly good at counterfeiting holy things; for instance, in place of sacred love between a man and a woman, he offers popularity, physical attraction, or the social thrill of playing romantic games. You might try these tests of discernment on your feelings about love. Many young adults who think they are in love isolate themselves from their families, friends, and Church leaders. But real love, the kind that leads to eternal happiness, makes you glad to be around other people you love, because they share what you feel. Such love is godly love, not Satan’s counterfeit.
If you find Satan’s influence too much with you, then get help. Counsel with your parents or a Church leader; ask for a priesthood blessing; go to the Lord in fervent prayer for the clearness of mind and conscience that are signs of the Lord’s Spirit.
Colornian, Christ taught that the influence of the spirit of the Lord works through feelings and inspired thoughts. The feelings of Christ burn in your soul.
From previous posts I understand that you prefer uninspired orthodox teachings instead of the influence of the Holy Ghost.
Please read the post and you’ll understand which group you are in. Do you have the Spirit of God, or is the Spirit of God absent in your life?
Thankyou Restornu,
This reminder of what Christianity and the Holy Ghost is within our own lives is a great way to start out the new Year.
svcw, You are hilariously hypocritical! The nature of your post (contained below) is clearly a psychological projection of your own character.
“When you don’t have the Spirit:
1. You feel unhappy, depressed, confused, and frustrated.
2. You feel possessive, self-centered, or resentful of demands made on you.
3. You are easily offended.
4. You become secretive and evasive.
5. You avoid people, especially members of your family; and you are critical of family members and Church authorities.
6. You envy or resent the successes of others.
7. You don’t want to go to church, go home teaching, or take the sacrament. You wish you had another church job or no job at all.
8. You don’t want to pray.
9. You find the commandments bothersome, restricting, or senseless.
10. You feel emotions and appetites so strongly that you fear you cannot control them—hate, jealousy, anger, lust, hunger, fatigue.
11. You hardly ever think of the Savior; he seems irrelevant to your life, or worse, part of a confusing system that seems to work against you.
12. You get discouraged easily and wonder if life is really worth it.
Sorry, the above describes mormonism, which makes sense.” Posted in misery by scvw
No Puny, quite acting so Puny.
The correct interpretation is that you criticize Christ, and lash out at those who are trying to be like him.
Sort of like your doing now.
It bothers you
That said, the list is a solid set of touchstones to help you figure out whether or not you are paying heed...
“The feelings of Christ burn in your soul.”
Very true.... It’s also the reason that the “weeds will be burned” at harvest time. And why “Saying a prayer for an evil person is like putting hot coals on their head!”
One of several bizarre events in my life happened over twenty years ago when I was severely burned with hot oil that caught on fire. The skin was burned away the length of my arm as I was wearing a sleeveless undershirt when it happened.
After putting out the fire, I raised my arm in the air to see how bad it was burned. My exact words were, “Oh Sh*t, I am going to need to go to the hospital!” At that instant this energy flowed into my finger tips and down my arm. It got goosebumps all over my arm that looked like zits with whiteheads they were so big. It felt as though I was holding a high voltage electric wire. After about thirty seconds, the goosebumps went away and much to my surprise, the skin that had been burn away had returned and was in perfect condition. No redness, no blisters, not even tenderness.
It still amazes me how you can truly walk through fire when you are filled with the Holy Spirit and not be burned.(Not that I am going to test that theory!)
I have also found that the Holy Spirit radiating from me creates a field around me that discarnate spirits that try to harm me are afraid to enter as they think it will kill them. It’s as though they fly into a brick wall they stop so suddenly.
Yes, of course.
Yet you also claimed apparently when the born again experience must happen or if you felt it was true.
ands Jeremiah cried and wailed a lot and was usually sad and whiny...
Sorry skippy, that was taken right of the original thread post.
I did not write those descriptions of mormonism, a mormon did.
Look at post one as in 1.
I can remember during the 1980s the Mormon kids at my Christian door denying there is a Holy Ghost..
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You are so right it is a gage to let you know how you are doing.
Acts 17
26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might FEEL after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
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When we feel affliction; a state of pain, distress, or grief; misery: is another way knowing with in the soul if we are weight down here the Lord tells us
Isaiah 48
9 ¶For my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off.
10 Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
so kid what was Azusa Street ???
what was that experience in the “upper room” if it wasn’t “unexpected”
Christ taught that the influence of the spirit of the Lord works through feelings and inspired thoughts
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maybe Joey Smith taught you that..
But the LORD Jesus Christ who is God said “God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth” John 4:24
As for trusting in your emotions to determine whether or not you “have the Spirit”:
Jer_17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it
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That is when we are in the natural man state but when we are with the Lord, deceit can not exist! The Lord does not leave his followers helpless with out knowing how to discern.
2 Cor.4
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The Lord does not leave his followers helpless with out knowing how to discern.
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well that is one way of knowing for sure that Mormonism is a false unGodly religion...
Sorry, the above describes mormonism, which makes sense.
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That is sort of a contradiction to say that TN isn't it?
It was by the Holy Spirit I was converted never met a missionary and when they the missionaries share the Book of Mormon they mark this passage in...
Moroni 10
3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.
6 And whatsoever thing is good is just and true; wherefore, nothing that is good denieth the Christ, but acknowledgeth that he is.
7 And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever.
BTW TN how would you know the presents of the Lord if you could not see Him, nor hear, or feel Him?
For us LDS we know the still small voice has many ways to manifest with our soul.
TN were we not council in Gal 5
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
Now the fruit of the spirit are all express in some form that brings pain or peace which is by feeling.
Gal 5. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
If you notice I did not say describes mormons but mormonISM.
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