Full Purpose of Heart, On Personality, Thoughts Worthy of Your Mind
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #38 // October 14, 2023.
Discipleship. Leadership. Mental Performance.
DISCIPLESHIP
"I beseech of you … come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you."
Jacob 6:5
The word “heart” is used over 1,000 times in the scriptures. Elder David A. Bednar has written, “Our hearts—the sum total of our desires, affections, intentions, motives, and attitudes—define who we are and determine what we will become.
So when Jesus says, “Come unto me with full purpose of heart”, He’s saying: Come unto me with all your desires, affections, intentions, motives, and attitudes. Let all of you be swallowed up in all of Me.
"Christ says, 'Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”
C.S. Lewis
If the desires, affections, intentions, motives, and attitudes, of your heart are on the Savior, then you will become like the Savior. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Whatever you treasure, there will your heart be. Wherever your heart is, that will teach you who you will become. Thus, if you treasure anything more than Christ, you won’t become like Him. Everything you do and become flows downstream from where you've placed your heart.
“Come unto me with full purpose of heart” (3 Nephi 18:32).
Write the doctrine of Christ, “with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in (the) fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3).
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).
Christ loves you with ALL of His heart. He comes unto you with full purpose of heart.
Do you?
LEADERSHIP
Two Quotes on Personality from Jeffrey and Pat Holland
There is no perfect personality. There is, however, a perfect Person. And that perfect Person (Jesus) has perfect standards (His gospel). But as we'll see from the quotes below, His example and gospel can be followed equally well by people with different personalities.
Jeffrey R. Holland
"On those days when we feel a little out of tune, a little less than what we think we see or hear in others, I would ask us, especially the youth of the Church, to remember it is by divine design that not all the voices in God’s choir are the same. It takes variety—sopranos and altos, baritones and basses—to make rich music ... When we disparage our uniqueness or try to conform to fictitious stereotypes—stereotypes driven by an insatiable consumer culture and idealized beyond any possible realization by social media—we lose the richness of tone and timbre that God intended when He created a world of diversity.
"Now, this is not to say that everyone in this divine chorus can simply start shouting his or her own personal oratorio! Diversity is not cacophony, and choirs do require discipline, but once we have accepted divinely revealed lyrics and harmonious orchestration composed before the world was, then our Heavenly Father delights to have us sing in our own voice, not someone else’s. Believe in yourself, and believe in Him. Don’t demean your worth or denigrate your contribution. Above all, don’t abandon your role in the chorus. Why? Because you are unique; you are irreplaceable. The loss of even one voice diminishes every other singer in this great mortal choir of ours, including the loss of those who feel they are on the margins of society or the margins of the Church."
Patricia Holland
“My greatest misery comes when I feel I have to fit what others are doing, or what I think others expect of me. I am most happy when I am comfortable being me and trying to do what my Father in Heaven and I expect me to be.
“For many years I tried to measure the ofttimes quiet, reflective, thoughtful Pat Holland against the robust, bubbly, talkative, and energetic Jeff Holland and others with like qualities. I have learned through several fatiguing failures that you can’t have joy in being bubbly if you are not a bubbly person. It is a contradiction in terms. I have given up seeing myself as a flawed person because my energy level is lower than Jeff’s, and I don’t talk as much as he does, nor as fast. Giving this up has freed me to embrace and rejoice in my own manner and personality in the measure of my creation.”
When you walk with Jesus Christ, He will transform you into the best version of yourself. Not the best version of your neighbor or your sibling or that influencer on Instagram. Your best self. He created you the way He did on purpose. So stop comparing yourself. Stop wishing you were different. Embrace God's vision for you, come unto Christ, and become who He has destined you to become.
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
"I have come to know that thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. Otherwise, our thoughts follow the course of least resistance, always seeking the lower levels. Probably the greatest challenge and the most difficult thing you will face in mortal life is to learn to control your thoughts. In the Bible it says, as a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Those who can control their thoughts have conquered themselves ... you cannot afford to fill your minds with the unworthy music of our day. It is not harmless. It can welcome onto the stage of your mind unworthy thoughts." - Boyd K. Packer
Boyd K. Packer specifies unworthy music here, but you can replace music with anything you might consume.
Unworthy words are harmful. Unworthy media is harmful. Unworthy ideas are harmful. Physical health requires that you consume the good and reject the bad. Mental health is the exact same way. You need to be very intentional about your mental diet.
Remember: "You are right now the sum total of what you have thought, said, seen, heard and done. What you think, say, do, hear, and see, cause you to change; to change for good or evil; to become either stronger or weaker; to either internalize the qualities of light or the qualities of darkness. You are responsible for who you are and you are responsible for who you will become." - Lawrence E. Corbridge.
A core principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to eliminate all unworthy thoughts. We often only think of worthy vs. unworthy thoughts as pertaining to sexual purity. Certainly, that is part of it. But limiting worthy vs. unworthy thoughts to chastity is myopic.
What qualifies, then, as a worthy or unworthy thought?
To answer that question, you need to be grounded in two eternal truths.
Who You Are
Who God Is
After understanding those two truths, you are then prepared to ask yourself, "What thoughts are worth putting in my mind? What thoughts are not worth putting in my mind?" Those questions, grounded in a correct understanding of who you are and who God is, will make your choices about what to think crystal clear. They will make the difference between a worthy and unworthy thought crystal clear.
First, you need to know who you are. “You are a child of God. He is the father of your spirit. Spiritually you are of noble birth, the offspring of the King of Heaven. Fix that truth in your mind and hold to it. However many generations in your mortal ancestry, no matter what race or people you represent, the pedigree of your spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God!” - Boyd K. Packer
Second, you need to know who God is. Joseph Smith taught, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves”. BYU professor Andrew Skinner wrote, "God and men are of the same divine, eternal species, and if we do not comprehend the nature of God, we cannot appreciate our divine parentage nor the very real potential we possess to become like our heavenly parents."
Any thought that isn't aligned with God's way of thinking is ultimately unworthy. We are His offspring. He wants us to become like Him. Richard G. Scott taught, "We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day." That starts with our thoughts.
We seek to have "the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16). Would Christ think that? If so, it's worthy to be in your mind. If not, it is unworthy. That's the ultimate litmus test.
How might you discern which thoughts Christ would think vs. which thoughts Christ would reject? The Book of Mormon teaches, "For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do" (2 Nephi 32:5). To those who've entered into covenant with God, and have the Holy Ghost as their companion, you can be led to know which thoughts Christ would think.
Still, it might be hard to discern. Here are three of my personal favorite teachings on how to know what thoughts are worthy vs. unworthy.
"Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind; that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.” - Susanna Wesley
I recognize when God’s Spirit is upon me when I find myself being led by faith, hope, and charity instead of fear, doubt, and pride. Sometimes it is difficult to know what to do, what is right, what to believe, and which way to go. The adversary attacks in such times and confusion reigns, anger erupts, jealousy destroys, rationalization appears, distress paralyzes, cynicism sullies ... But when I try to center myself and seek God in humility, His Spirit fights off those demeaning influences and calms, clarifies, edifies, enlightens, and always fills with love—love of God and love of his children. Those are the fruits of truth. I often ask myself, am I being led by faith or fear, hope or doubt, charity or pride? It is amazing how much spiritual clarity that simple line of questioning has brought me in a variety of circumstances. - BYU Professor Anthony Sweat
The standard is clear. If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing ... Because the Spirit cannot abide that which is vulgar, crude, or immodest, then clearly such things are not for us." - Elder David A. Bednar
Below is an incredibly brief and nowhere near exhaustive list of just 5 kinds of worthy vs. unworthy thoughts. Feel free to add to this list.
There is joy unalloyed in "the mind of Christ". Seek His mind. Seek His thoughts. Discover joy.
Worthy Thoughts
Any thoughts of self-belief, self-love, and self-respect
Any thoughts of belief in others, love for others, and respect for others
Gratitude
Faith, Hope, Charity
"Look unto me in every thought." - Jesus Christ (D&C 6:36)
Unworthy Thoughts
Any thoughts of self-doubt, self-hate, and self-disrespect
Any thoughts of negativity towards others
Entitlement
Fear, Doubt, Pride
Not looking unto Christ in any thought
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.