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The Doctrine of Christ - part 3

The last verse of 1 Nephi 1 and the first two verses of 1 Nephi 2 read:

"But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender cmercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of ddeliverance.

"For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to atake away thy blife.

"And it came to pass that the Lord acommanded my father, even in a bdream, that he should ctake his family and depart into the wilderness."

We again see that God often communicates in dreams. This is a very normal way for us to begin to see and understand the revelations God has for us. Most nights I find myself praying to have revelation as I rest, that the answers to my questions will come as I sleep. And often they do...unless I fight the sleep. When I stay up with distractions and don't go to bed when my body is ready for sleep, the revelation almost never comes. But if I take care of the physical needs of my body and retire when I begin to feel ready for sleep, I am often rewarded with revelation just before I wake up. Or sometimes it comes in the middle of the night when I have awakened and been unable to go back to sleep. 

My point is that the quiet time of rest, when your mind is not busy with the noise of your daily responsibilities and the lack of distractions opens the door to revelation if we invite it through prayer.

Moving on.

Later in this chapter Nephi writes:

"I...being exceedingly young...and also having great desires to know the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers."

What do we learn here? For me, the first lesson is that Nephi had desires to know the mysteries of God. He yearned. And he didn't stop there. Nor did he go back to his father and say, "Dad, teach me what you learned. Tell me your revelations and teach me the mysteries of God." He could have. But he didn't.

He went to God. He asked for his own revelation. He prayed to know if what his father had taught was true. This is such a powerful tool for us to learn. 

I remember often, in my youth, hearing others speak of the last days and wishing I could just sit down with them and have them tell me everything they knew. But that is me relying on others to bring me to God, to open my understanding. That is not how God reveals Himself. He reveals Himself to those who seek Him by coming to Him. To paraphrase Emerson in his essay "The American Scholar", when one can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's interpretations of God. 

We learn from Nephi that any time we have a doctrine taught, principle revealed, a prophecy that has come forth, we are to go to God and get the same directly from Him. We are not to go to the person who shared it with us and ask for more. We are to pray and ask to have the same revealed to us. Then we study, we ponder, we meditate and we give space and time for the Spirit to reveal those things to us. 

When reading the scriptures, we have this opportunity again and again. Ask God to show you what He showed Nephi that made him write what he wrote. Ask Him to show you what He showed Isaiah that made him write what he wrote. Ask and then submerge yourself in the words and the definitions of those words and give space for the Spirit to reach your heart and mind. 

We obtain doctrine when it becomes part of us, when it becomes, as Elder McConkie shared in his final conference testimony, our own words and as though the thing had been revealed to us as at the first. This is when the doctrines and truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are our own because they have been revealed directly to us from God and not us reading the interpretation of God from other men's words. And we have then obtained the word.

What I learned from Nephi in this chapter is that when I feel a desire to understand some doctrine or principle someone has taught, I go to God to inform and to enrich my understanding of that thing. I do not rebel, by having the desire and then responding to that desire with the attitude that God makes no such thing known unto me. But acting on the desire, I pray to ask for revelation to come. Then I give quiet, meditative space for the Spirit to speak and reveal within.

One last thing from this chapter to notice, Nephi is starting to use the word, "commandment" a lot. The commandments of the Lord, keeping His commandments, etc. He will shortly show us what is meant by this. But for now it is important to ask the question, what is Nephi referring to when he says the Lord gave him a commandment? How does that commandment come?

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