Power
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory
Jesus Christ received all his power from Heavenly Father: the power to create, the power to do many mighty miracles, the power of speech beyond human ability to persuade to do good, the godly power to suffer more than any man could suffer, the power give up his life, the power to take up his life again in the resurrection, the power to draw all men unto himself and the power to be the righteous merciful but just judge of the quick and the dead. His God gifted power to save the souls of men is beautifully expressed in Doctrine and Covenants section 76:
“40 And this is the gospel, the glad tidings, which the voice out of the heavens bore record unto us—
41 That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness;
42 That through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him;
43 Who glorifies the Father, and saves all the works of his hands, except those sons of perdition who deny the Son after the Father has revealed him.”[i]
When mortals think of power, we imagine a powerful king or dictator, or the power of speech of a lawyer trying to get a criminal off the hook for a crime he actually committed. We think of teams fighting on the gridiron or basketball court overpowering their opponents. We think of Arnold Nicholas and his power drives off the tee at Augusta International Golf Tournament. Powerful storms, tornados, hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, and earthquakes are rated on power scales. Everything is relative to something else on the planet. Outside this planet we have little concept of how powerful things are, like the light of the sun, or the powerful outbursts of supernovas or luminous galaxies.
However, when it comes to God, the Father, we say that He is all powerful. But we say it without understanding or even believing that He can help us in time of need. We tend to think of Him as an absentee Father, who could do things for us centuries ago, and create the earth eons ago, but no longer has power to save us from the miseries we incur from living on the planet He created.
We tend to be totally blind to His power because we want an earthly king type of power in our lives. We want luxury, no miseries, our enemies to be punished and put away in jail forever, our selfish prayers to be answered, and to bargain with God as if He were some earthly potentate that could be manipulated with empty promises, persuasion and decrepit human logic
Being so far from God, the Father emotionally, socially, intellectually, physically and spiritually, we have little concept of the source and uses of His infinite power. Well did Isaiah quote the Father as saying:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.[ii]
Our thoughts are purposefully corrupted to only think of one thing at a time at 30 bits per second. God has no limitations on how many prayers He can hear at once and hear all of our future prayers down each of our potential pathways of our choosing. When He doesn’t answer us, is it because our future self is praying for help down some potential erroneous path of choice. Since we can’t see the future like He does with all things past present and future continually before Him, we will never know here on earth. We cannot begin to think like He does without this knowledge and perspective. We can only think as He has asked us to think in the best human way possible. Scripturally, we are told not to think bad thoughts about the adversities of life or to think we can work hard for God to pay Him back for His goodness and mercy in our lives. We are told that we are sons and daughters of God and that the adversities are corrections He helped us design to improve ourselves, the least improvement being making us more empathetic towards fellow sufferers. King Benjamin instructs us to think of ourselves as less than the dust of the earth which obeys every command of God without fail. While we think we can repay God for what He has done for us, when in the end, the righteous effort brings only more indebtedness to God for the blessings the effort brings. So we truly are never going to pay God back for anything He has done, because He keeps doing it, more blessings, more comfort, more peace in the midst of sorrow, more angelic help from neighbors and heaven’s host.
Our hearts are so far from God at times. Although we cannot think like God, at least in some small measure we can feel in our hearts His divine feelings which are tender and powerful at the same time. The scriptures mention heart or hearts so many times, with 826 times in the Bible[iii] and 444 times in the Book of Mormon.[iv] In the Doctrine and Covenants it talks about the connection of the powers of heaven being connected to the heart:
“Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”[v]
Here we have a clear definition of the hearts of men in general: worship things of this world, aspire to the honors of wicked men, hiding our sins, gratifying our pride, vain ambition (seeking worldly goals), and dominate and force others to do things our wicked way. If our hearts are possessed of any of these “in any degree” then we no longer have the powers of heaven or priesthood authority. It seems King Benjamin’s humility is the only way to access the powers of heaven for the blessing of God’s children. He exhorted his people:
“Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend….”
And they answered:
“Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”[vi]
Jesus went about doing good continually.[vii] When we are born of the spirit and the heart of the natural man is rooted out and replaced with the heart of Christ, we become like him and go about doing his works in his name. When people use their moral agency to rebel and become like Satan, who can save them The power to change hearts of others into the true follower of Christ, whose heart is filled with the spirit of doing good continually and forgiving all, is perhaps the greatest of all God’s powers that He grants to men and women who are worthy.
The Father’s power is explained in scriptures as deriving from the atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ. This seems strange, since we are used to God, the Father, having powers independent of the works of others. But as we shall see, His power to save needed a Redeemer in the flesh. It needed someone who like us was tempted on every point, tried in every way, and suffered in every human way. Satan wanted the power to be a despot, which God, the Father, didn’t even have to give him. Then he wanted the honor of being a despot where people feared him because of his despotic power. Then he accused God of having this worthless power and honor to give him and became angry when the Father did not deliver.
When Jesus appears to the twelve apostles the last time, he tells them something he gained through the atonement and suffering death on the cross and then raising himself as the first fruits of the resurrection:
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”[viii]
This power he now had was new, and with it, he resurrected 500 saints in and around Jerusalem. Before coming to earth, he had power to create the earth. As John said so eloquently:
“All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.”[ix]
This power of creation was nothing in comparison to the power to redeem and resurrect. He was the all-powerful God, Jehovah, of the Old Testament, yet he had to be born as a weakling babe, suffer, bleed and die for us in mortality in order to resurrect himself with the Father’s gifted power and gain all power over death and salvation.
Moses was told by the premortal Jesus Christ, Jehovah, that Satan wanted God’s honor which is His power.
“And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;”
He was also told that this power came through the blood of Jesus Christ atoning for our sins:
“hath all power according to wisdom, mercy, truth, justice, and judgment. And now, behold, I say unto you: This is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten, who shall come in the meridian of time.”[x]
In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord says that Satan and his angels can never come into his presence because:
“And now, behold, I say unto you, never at any time have I declared from mine own mouth that they should return, for where I am they cannot come, for they have no power.”[xi]
Since they have rejected Jesus Christ, rejected the Father’s Great plan of salvation and mercy, and since the “powers of heaven” can only “be controlled… “upon the principles of righteousness” and Satan and his followers sought for an earthly type of honor which is not found in heaven, they can never go where Jesus Christ dwells.
Some aspect of the honor given to God has to do with His justice, mercy and that He is no respecter of persons. After the miraculous vision of the feast of unclean things Peter was told to eat and the visit to Cornelius’ house, a non-Jew, and seeing the Holy Spirit there, Peter exclaimed:
“Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”[xii]
The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi writes a latter-day prophesy:
“And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall commence his work among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring about the restoration of his people upon the earth.”[xiii]
“For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”[xiv]
People honor God, the Father, because He does not play favorites. Jesus explained at the Sermon on the Mount the hardest commandment for anyone to live:
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”[xv]
Here we see the reason all will honor God one day and bend the knee at Christ who saved them from the grave, at the least, and from hell at the best. He really does not play favorites, saving all judgment till the final day when He who suffered for each and every sin we commit and suffered our temptations will be a righteous judge of all.
That final judgment scene will be so touching when we see clearly what is revealed in a modern revelation about that great and dreadful day at the pleasing bar of God:
“Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him—Saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified; Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.”[xvi]
So here at the great bar of justice and judgment, we meet the most merciful power and force in the Universe, Jesus Christ pleading our case before a just Father, asking for mercy based on his own atonement for our sins.
The Book of Mormon summarizes this balance between justice and mercy so eloquently:
“And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence.
And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.”[xvii]
Reading through these scriptures, one sees the tenderness of an all-loving Father, His desire to save all His children, His effort to love them all equally, and His eternal need to be just, to be honored for His justice, mercy, and equality in the treatment of all his children. There is power in creation, in honor, but most of all, there is infinite power in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who fulfills all the love of the Father and brings to pass His great plan of salvation.
[i] D&C 76:
[ii] Isaiah 55:8-9 King James Version (KJV)
[iii] http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/heart.html accessed 04/11/2020
[iv] https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_times_is_heart_mentioned_in_the_book_of_mormon accessed 04/11/2020
[v] Doctrine and Covenants Section 121:32-37
[vi] Mosiah 4:9-Mosiah 5:2
[vii] Acts 10:38 KJV
[viii] Matthew 28:18 KJV
[ix] John 1:3
[x] Moses 6:59-63
[xi] D&C 29:29
[xii] Acts 10:34
[xiii] 2 Nephi 30:8
[xiv] 2 Nephi 26:33
[xv] Matthew 5:44-45
[xvi] Doctrine and Covenants 45:3-5
[xvii] Alma 42:14-15