How You Perceive God, Leading with Clarity + Conviction, Thinking No Evil
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #64
Discipleship
“We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters.”1
Joseph Smith
Here, Joseph Smith is attempting to describe Jesus Christ, who appeared to him and Oliver Cowdery at the Kirtland Temple. I use the word attempted because he uses simile and metaphor to describe each of Christ’s attributes. There are no mortal words that can actually describe what Joseph is seeing, so he does his best to describe Him in a way that would somewhat make sense to us.
Under Christ’s feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber.
His eyes were as a flame of fire.
The hair of His head was white like the pure snow.
His countenance shone above the brightness of the sun.
His voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters.
Of course, Christ’s eyes weren’t actually fire. His voice doesn’t literally sound like a waterfall. But He is a resurrected, glorified, celestial God and we live in a telestial world. Just like Joseph struggled to articulate a description of Christ2, we cannot even begin to comprehend His glory. We cannot begin to comprehend His love, His joy, His kindness, His loyalty, or any of His attributes.
In a recent article by Terryl Givens, he explained hearing a young woman comment, “I fully expect when I meet the Lord he will be different than I imagined.”3
He described his reaction to this statement, saying, “What moved me was the tone behind her comment. Not fear that she had God wrong. Not disregard for the stakes or blithe acceptance of our limited light. She seemed, rather, to be expressing with hopeful optimism what one of the greatest early Christian teachers wrote: ‘For whatever it is that we are able to sense or know of God, it is necessarily to be believed that he is by many degrees far better than what we perceive him to be.4”
Whatever you believe or however highly you esteem Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, He is better than you think, He is holier than you can conceive, He is more perfect than you could even believe.
That is something to be deeply grateful for.
Leadership
“I’m counting on you to be consumed with conviction.”5
Jeffrey R. Holland
A Christlike leader has deep and equal amounts of clarity and conviction.
Performance psychologist Michael Gervais wrote, “Clarity is about your first principles. That’s foundational. Then, to live with conviction about your first principles, that’s special.”6
Your first principle is your personal culture7. These include your sense of identity, mission, and purpose. These are your core beliefs. The first question you have to ask yourself is about your personal culture. Do you have one? Do you have core beliefs? We all like to believe we do. But do you really?
Most people have neither clarity nor conviction. Gervais writes, “Most people’s first principles are to be accepted. To not be rejected by other people.”8 Because of this, they live to make the smallest ripple imaginable. They want so badly to not be judged, that they settle for making no impact either. They take counsel from their fears.
There is nothing quite as futile as seeing someone live in a conviction-without-clarity sort of way. There is nothing quite as sad and potential-wasting as seeing someone live in a clarity-without-conviction sort of way. In contrast, there is nothing quite as inspiring as seeing someone live with clarity and conviction.
Speaking to young disciples, Elder Holland said, “I’m counting on you to be consumed with conviction.”
This is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ for you. Living with clarity and conviction isn’t a matter of luxury or motivation. It’s a matter of obedience. It’s a hallmark of consecration.
Mental Performance
"Charity … thinketh no evil."9
Paul the Apostle
If we are to have the mind of Christ10, we must eliminate evil thinking from our minds. This is not easy to do. We have a negativity bias.11 Most of our internal chatter is negative and tends to be repetitive. The mind of Christ doesn’t have those thoughts.
Thinking no evil includes thoughts about ourselves and others. It also includes apathetic or light-minded thinking.12
One way to counteract evil thinking of any kind is to think of Jesus.13 Your mind can not occupy a true thought of Jesus Christ while at the same time thinking apathetically, or occupying an evil thought towards yourself or somebody else, regardless of how justified you think those thoughts are. Remember, Jesus knows you and that individual you have hard feelings for way more than you do, and He doesn’t have a single evil thought towards you or them. So why should you?
In a nutshell, the key to having the mind of Christ is to think more about Christ. How often do you take time to just think about Him? Try it this week.
This wasn’t even Joseph’s first time seeing the Savior. Despite multiple experiences, he still struggled to find words.
Origen, First Principles, Book I, Chapter 1 “On God”, section 5.
Banishing All Shadows. Speech by Jeffrey R. Holland.
This is a direct quote from an episode of Finding Mastery. I can’t remember which one.
See footnote 5.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5, KJV.
1 Corinthians 2:16, KJV.
https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Moroni 7:9. And likewise also is it counted evil unto a man, if he shall pray and not with real intent of heart; yea, and it profiteth him nothing, for God receiveth none such.
“Sin is anything you cannot do wholeheartedly.” - Baal Shem