It Should Come As No Surprise-Part III

In LDS circles, I have had many opportunities to talk about Zion—what people think it will take to build it and how close or how far we are to building it. In non-LDS circles, the current Christian devaluation of works over faith seems to lend itself to the belief that people just need to wait for God to usher in any kind of heavenly society—at least, that has been my experience. 

From my last post, one can plainly see that it takes a lot of growth to go from the place at which we start to the place we are meant to be. If you consider the growth that happens to a baby within the womb, you realize that birth isn’t the end of development. All of that growth is designed to prepare you for what lies ahead. Birth is just the point at which you become fully capable of continued growth in an environment that is not at all what you were in before. You leave the matrix (that’s a great word to look up) and its watery cushion and surroundings to enter the very different, and less protective, medium of air. That change in environment requires a permanent change to your heart. Before birth, there is a hole between the atrial chambers of the heart. This seals when, as a baby, you draw your first breath. You are no longer capable of returning to your watery surroundings. To do so would result in death because the body is no longer suited to that environment. But you are, in no way, done. All the while, you take in what nourishes you and sustains you, you use it for your growth, and then you eliminate any waste, replacing it with additional nourishment. It will be many years before you fully mature—if you fully mature at all.

The point is that there is a path to full maturity, albeit that path is fraught with detours and dangers and pitfalls along the way. It should come as no surprise that the path is long and arduous when we realize how different our fully-developed selves are from what we start out as. We start out as fallen creatures, but we have the opportunity to grow into the nature of the very Spirit that gave us life in the first place.

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4)

We are meant to use the sources of nourishment that God has given us to come to a “unity of the faith” and “the knowledge of the Son of God,” eventually attaining “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”—all things that are either disbelieved or nearly impossible to find in this world at the moment.

How can we be surprised when we are, indeed, “...tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive?”

What does it mean to “grow up into him in all things?” Is that even possible? The world would tell you that it is not.

It is possible, but it should come as no surprise that it will take sincere repentance—a sincere recognition of your woefully underdeveloped state and a complete trust in God’s ability to lift you out of it. It should come as no surprise that what he teaches you will be as completely foreign to you as air is to a newborn and that your continued ability to partake of the “breath of life” will require a permanent change to your heart. It should come as no surprise that your growth relies on the elimination of that which does not serve you well (even if it served you before) and the assimilation of anything that does. It should come as no surprise that the increase of joy that comes with that growth is dependent upon your putting off the natural man and becoming a saint.

And it should come as no surprise that any heavenly society will not be established until individuals start working towards and attaining their full Christ-like potential.