October 16-22

If you prefer to listen over reading an article, keep an eye on Autumn Dickson on YouTube or various podcast platforms. I post video and podcast versions of my blog posts on my Youtube channel and on the podcast platforms: Apple, Anchor, Breaker, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Looking for a different week in the Come Follow Me program? Check out this link to find posts by week: https://autumndickson.com/category/come-follow-me/ 

This week, Paul is writing to the Thessalonians. They were a group of Saints who were persecuted but had remained faithful; Paul was overjoyed at their faith. As Paul is introducing his letter to them, he mentions one little tidbit in passing. Despite its relatively short address, I feel like there is a great deal we can learn from it.

1 Thessalonians 1:5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.

Paul explains that the gospel came by word and power. The gospel, the good news, the miracle of Jesus Christ was given to the Thessalonians by word and power. Elder Bruce R. McConkie explains what that means.

“The true gospel consists of two things: The Word, and The Power. Anyone can have the word; the books in which it is written are universally available. But the power must come from God; it is and must be dispensed according to his mind and his will to those who abide the law entitling them to receive it. The word of the gospel is the spoken or written account of what men must do to be saved. …

“But actual salvation comes only when the power of God is received and used; and this power is the power of the priesthood and the power of the Holy Ghost. These must operate in the lives of men; otherwise their souls cannot be cleansed; they cannot be born again; they cannot become new creatures of the Holy Ghost; they cannot put off the natural man and become saints; they cannot be sanctified by the Spirit.”

In order to truly receive the gift that Christ wants to offer us (salvation), we need the word and the power. What role does each part play? I believe that exploring this concept can help us more fully understand what’s being offered to us and what our responsibility is.

Understanding the relationship between the word and the power reminds me a lot of the relationship between works and faith. We work so that we can become like Christ and enjoy life on the level He is living, but it doesn’t matter how much we become like Christ because our sins will still prevent us from being able to withstand the glorious Being that is our Heavenly Father. There is a power beyond our own that is necessary for salvation, and that power comes from Christ’s atonement.

The word

The relationship between word and power is similar to this. We work to take advantage of the word. We cannot experience life on the level that Christ wants us to experience without growing into that kind of life. Heaven is not bestowed; it is something we grow into. In many ways, heaven is being like Christ and naturally experiencing the joy that comes with living in that manner. This is the part where the word comes in. Joseph Smith taught that a “man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge.” When Joseph Smith refers to knowledge, I believe he is speaking about something beyond recitation of facts. Knowledge is being given facts and believing them to the extent that your behavior is altered.

For example, I’m fairly confident that I will be alive tomorrow morning. This means I have a load of laundry in the washer so I have clean clothes to wear, and I have some frozen chicken thawing in the fridge so I have something to cook for dinner. I feel certain enough about what’s to come that I have altered my choices to align with that knowledge. 

When we have a knowledge that charity and selflessness brings happiness, we make choices that align with those principles and find that happiness. When we have a knowledge that living a life of integrity brings peace, we live with honesty and find peace within ourselves. As we increase in charity, selflessness, integrity, etc., we increase in happiness and peace. We increase the amount of time we spend in “heaven” (or at least the heaven that is available in this fallen world), and we prepare ourselves for an even better heaven on the other side.

The word brings salvation because it brings knowledge, and it testifies of knowledge. It gives us instructions on how to live so that we might experience and feel salvation.

The power

The second part of salvation comes through power. Like Christ’s atonement, there is a need for power that is beyond our personal capacity. It does not matter if Christ performed His atonement if we are not bound to Him in a relationship that allows Him to take care of our sins, mistakes, and flaws. This is where the power comes in. 

Bruce R. McConkie taught that the “power” that Paul was talking about was priesthood power and the power of the Holy Ghost. Let’s talk about both.

Priesthood power does not come from men. We do not innately have the power to seal ourselves to Christ beyond the grave. We can make promises to God in this life, but that does not make them “legally” binding in the next life. I could have gone to Conner one evening and told him that I promised to be his wife, but until I got married by the proper authority, I was going to be missing out on some of the legal benefits that come with marriage. This is true in a bigger sense when it comes to our relationship with Christ. There is a power that governs heaven; there is a power that can bind and seal, but we don’t have that power on our own. It is given to us, and there are certain hoops we have to jump through in order for it to take effect. When our baptism is done by proper priesthood authority, it binds us to the Savior beyond the grave. It is recorded in heaven. Only God is powerful enough to make that happen, and He shares a portion of that power with us.

The power of the Holy Ghost is also something bestowed upon us, and it is through the power of the Holy Ghost that we are sanctified so we can live with God. Sanctification is just another word to describe “freed from sin,” or in other words, salvation. So how does the Holy Ghost free us from sin? I believe this occurs in two ways though I do not fully grasp the processes by which they occur. In one sense, I believe that the Holy Ghost is somehow able to apply the atonement to the individual. Christ performed the atonement to free us from sin, but the Holy Ghost utilizes that atonement to sanctify us so that our sins no longer keep us away from Heavenly Father. In the second sense, the Holy Ghost frees us from the power of sin by delivering strength beyond our own. Spiritual gifts, and their consequent ability to help us overcome the natural man, are likewise given by the Holy Ghost. In these two ways, the power of the Holy Ghost (a power granted to us by God), brings about salvation when combined with the word and priesthood power.

Appreciating the Savior’s blessings

I feel like I’ve used a lot of phrases here that could easily be taken, skimmed through, and not digested so let’s review just a bit.

Our big idea here is that the gospel (and subsequent salvation) is brought by word and power. Salvation is experiencing heaven and so therefore, we experience heaven through word and power. The “word” is when we know the information of the gospel to the extent that it changes how we live. As we change how we live, we feel more heaven. Anyone can experience this process as they grow in any knowledge of goodness or Christlike principles. But there is another part here that is essential; that is the “power.” The power was simply a gift. One aspect of this power was the priesthood that bound us to Christ beyond the grave so that He could take care of our sins. The second aspect was the Holy Ghost who somehow delivers that effect from the sacrifice of Christ. That’s why we often talk about being cleansed by the Spirit. There is some mechanism in which the Holy Ghost applies the atonement of Jesus Christ to the individual. 

I believe that when we say we are part of the restored church of Jesus Christ, we are saying that we have been offered the restored “word” and “power” that Paul spoke of. But I also have some other beliefs.

I believe in a Savior who blesses each and every individual to the extent that they come unto Him. He is blessing the atheist who is learning that service to others is the right way to spend your life, and they are experiencing heaven to some extent too. I believe He is blessing people of other faiths who live honestly, and they are experiencing the kind of peace you find in heaven. I believe He is overjoyed with those who sincerely choose to be baptized and make any kind of promise with Him even if it is not yet done by priesthood authority. I believe He even blesses those of us who have been given this restored church but are still ambling along, not yet fully taking advantage of the available priesthood power, power of the Holy Ghost, and word. He blesses each of us to the extent that we let Him in; there is no reason to discredit any step towards goodness. 

We can look around us and believe that the Lord truly is working with all of the individuals around us even if they are not actively partaking of the restored gospel yet. We can see them converting to the Lord as they choose to live Christlike principles even if they do not yet know Christ. I love my Savior for blessing me as well as the rest of the world because the world would be a very scary place to live in if He was only working with and through those who were members of our church.