Embrace the Savior ۞ Interactive

The Hunger You Already Know

We are all so very human. Our wandering feet carry us along many curious and often frightening paths. Our untamed hearts pull or push us in unexpected directions. Our wide eyes marvel at the fleeting scenes of beauty and filth that unfold around us. Our restless minds wrestle with the meaning of it all, desperate to forget the bitter and remember the sweet.

You know the feeling. You have lived it. There is a hunger in you that nothing in this world has been able to fully satisfy. Not achievement. Not pleasure. Not knowledge. Not love, as good as love can be. Every pursuit fills you for a season, and then the emptiness returns—quiet, persistent, unimpressed by your accomplishments.

This is not a flaw in you. It is not depression. It is not ingratitude. It is something deeper and older than any diagnosis the world can offer. It is the signal of a soul that was made for more than what this world can provide on its own.

We do not ask you to take our word for that. We ask only that you be honest about the signal.

The Questions That Will Not Leave

Is there a God? Is there more to our existence than what we perceive? Who are we? What is the meaning of life? How can we find lasting happiness? Is death the end of our existence, or is there truly something more?

These are not idle questions. They are the most serious questions any human being can ask. They deserve serious answers—not slogans, not sentiment, not comfortable evasions. And when honest answers are found, a harder question follows: How can we have faith in them?

We believe—and we will spend the rest of this chapter explaining why—that the most important truths available to human beings are not complicated. They are not hidden behind degrees or reserved for the intellectual elite. They are meant to be recognized by the whole person, not just the reasoning mind. They are available to anyone willing to look.

But we also believe something that may surprise you: these truths do not belong to any one group. They are not owned by any church, any tradition, any culture. They are offered to every man, woman, and child regardless of background, education, or religious affiliation. They are yours to examine, yours to test, and yours to accept or reject in full honesty.

What We Are About to Explore Together

The pages ahead will make claims about God, about Jesus Christ, and about what happens to people who take those claims seriously. We will not disguise these claims or soften them. We will also not demand that you accept them before you have had a chance to weigh them honestly.

What we ask of you is only this: read with an open mind, and pay attention—not just to the words on the page, but to what stirs inside you as you read them. If something rings true, do not dismiss it. If something troubles you, do not run from it. Stay with it. The hunger you feel is not an accident. It may be the most important thing about you.

How We Know What We Know

Before we talk about faith, let us talk about knowledge. You are a thinking person. You have spent your life observing, reasoning, testing, and evaluating. These are not weaknesses—they are gifts. The capacity to question, to demand evidence, to withhold assent until you are persuaded—these faculties are part of what it means to be a conscious being in a world that demands navigation.

Philosophers call this epistemology—the study of how we come to know what we know. And the honest study of knowledge reveals something both humbling and liberating: there are multiple legitimate ways of knowing, and no single method captures all of reality.

Empiricism insists that knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation. It has given us medicine, engineering, and the sciences. But empiricism cannot tell you whether your life has meaning. Rationalism trusts in the power of logic and reason to arrive at truth. It has given us mathematics, philosophy, and law. But reason alone cannot make you love your neighbor or explain why a sunset moves you to tears. Pragmatism evaluates beliefs by their practical consequences—does this idea work when applied to life? And constructivism recognizes that we build understanding through lived experience, layer upon layer, adjusting as we encounter new evidence.

Each of these is a legitimate tool. None of them is sufficient by itself. And here is the point that matters: the most important questions of human existence—Does God live? Does my life have purpose? Is there justice beyond the grave?—cannot be answered by any one of these tools alone. They require something more. They require the whole person—mind, heart, and spirit acting together.

Compelling Reasons on Every Side

We respect your position wherever you currently stand. If you lean toward belief in God, there are serious reasons for that: the ordered complexity of the universe, the fine-tuning of physical constants that permit life, the persistent moral intuitions that transcend culture, the testimony of billions who report encounters with the divine across every age and civilization. These are not trivial observations.

If you lean toward doubt, there are serious reasons for that as well: the absence of empirical proof that meets scientific standards, the problem of suffering in a world supposedly governed by a loving God, the multiplicity of conflicting religious claims, the psychological and sociological explanations for religious belief. These are not trivial objections.

And if you stand somewhere in the uncertain middle—convinced that the evidence is genuinely inconclusive and that intellectual humility demands suspended judgment—that too is a serious position.

We are not here to dismiss any of these positions. We are here to suggest that there is a way forward that none of them, taken alone, has offered you. It is not a way that abandons reason. It is a way that expands the inquiry.

What We Believe and Why It Matters

As Christians, we hold certain things to be true—not because we were told to believe them, but because we have tested them and found them real. We present them to you not as demands but as claims worth examining:

We believe that God lives, and that we are His children. We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the divine Son of God. We believe that His suffering, death, and resurrection can save mankind from the lasting consequences of sin and death. We believe we can pray to God and feel the power of His Spirit. We believe that obedience to Christ’s teachings transforms the soul from the inside out. We believe that enduring in faith brings peace—both in this life and beyond it.

These are the core claims. They are either true or they are not. We believe they are true, and we believe you can discover this for yourself. But not through argument alone.

A Different Kind of Knowing

There are things you cannot learn by thinking about them. You cannot learn to swim by reading a book about hydrodynamics. You cannot learn whether a person is trustworthy without eventually trusting them. You cannot learn the taste of honey from a chemical analysis of its composition.

Scripture describes faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Note the language: substance and evidence. Faith is not wishful thinking. It is not believing whatever you wish were real. It is trusting in what is real before you have full proof of it—and then discovering that the trust was warranted.

Every meaningful act in human life operates on this principle. The farmer plants before he harvests. The scientist hypothesizes before she experiments. The lover commits before certainty arrives. Faith is how all of us move from knowing to becoming. It is, as one great teacher of faith put it, “the moving cause of all action.”

We are asking you to consider the possibility that spiritual truth works the same way. Not that you abandon your intellect, but that you employ it alongside something deeper—a willingness to try, to plant, to act on a particle of hope and observe what grows.

What Growth Costs

Every honest person has had a moment when they realized they were wrong about something important. The world did not end. But something in them did. Some old certainty, some comfortable assumption, some story they had been telling themselves—it broke apart, and in the wreckage they found the raw materials for something better.

This is what growth costs. Not just intellectual growth, but the kind that reaches into the center of who you are and rearranges things. No one enjoys being told they are wrong. Pride and the avoidance of accountability get in the way of growth. But the most important transformations in life come only when we are willing to let go of what is not working and reach for something we do not yet fully understand.

Christians call this being “born again.” We know that phrase carries weight—and sometimes baggage. But what it describes is a universal human experience made sacred: the old self gives way to something new. It is putting to rest the old ways of selfishness and cynicism and becoming a new person with hope in your mind, love in your heart, and willingness to pursue what is genuinely good.

Grace, Faith, and the Honest Question

You may have heard Christians debate whether people are “saved” by grace or by works—by what God does for us, or by what we do for Him. The honest answer is both.

Grace is a word for a gift you did not earn. It means that the most important help you will ever receive is not something you can manufacture through effort alone. You have probably experienced this already in smaller forms: a forgiveness you did not deserve, an opportunity that came from nowhere, a love that was not contingent on your performance. These are echoes of something larger.

But grace that is truly received changes you. It does not leave you where it found you. When real help arrives in your life—when forgiveness enters a wounded heart—that heart beats differently. Hands once closed into fists begin to open. Feet that were still begin to move.

Paul wrote, “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). And James wrote, “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17). These are not contradictions. They are two sides of the same experience. You cannot earn your way to meaning through effort alone—that is what you have already tried, and it has left you hungry. But meaning cannot simply be handed to you without your participation. The transformation requires both: God reaching toward you, and you reaching back.

The Thief Who Had Nothing

Consider the story of the penitent thief. He was dying on a cross beside Jesus—hours from death, with nothing to offer. No baptism, no creed, no theological education, no record of service. He had only this: a recognition that Jesus was who He claimed to be, and the humility to ask for mercy. And Jesus said to him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

This does not give anyone license to postpone sincerity until the last breath. But it does tell us something essential about the nature of grace: it reaches even those who come with empty hands. The door is never closed to the honest heart.

An Invitation to Test

If faith is the engine that drives every meaningful action in life, then the question is not whether you are capable of faith—you exercise it every day. The question is whether you are willing to direct that capacity toward the deepest questions of your existence.

An ancient teacher named Alma proposed an experiment. He was not speaking to believers. He was speaking to people who had been cast out, who had nothing, who doubted. And he did not ask them to believe. He asked them to try:

“If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words” (Alma 32:27).

Note the honesty of that invitation. He did not demand certainty. He asked only for desire—a willingness to begin. He then compared the word of God to a seed. Plant it. Give it space. Observe what happens. “If it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief… behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding; yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me” (Alma 32:28).

This is a constructivist and pragmatic approach to spiritual truth—terms your own philosophical training may recognize. It does not ask you to accept a conclusion before testing it. It asks you to plant a seed and observe the fruit. Judge the tree by what it produces. If the seed swells, if light increases, if something delicious enters your experience that was not there before—you will have your evidence. Not proof that would satisfy a laboratory, but evidence that satisfies the whole person.

What the Experiment May Produce

Those who have tried this experiment across centuries and cultures report remarkably consistent results: a sense of clarity where confusion lived before, a deep peace that transcends circumstance, a warmth in the heart that is unlike anything else, a feeling of conviction and closeness to something real and good. Two of Christ’s disciples, walking the road to Emmaus after His death, encountered a stranger who explained the scriptures to them. They did not recognize Him until He broke bread with them—and then they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way?” (Luke 24:32).

That burning is what the experiment may produce. It is not hysteria. It is not emotion whipped up by a crowd. It is the quiet recognition of truth arriving in a heart that was ready for it.

How to Begin

If you are willing, here is how to begin. Find a place that is private and free from distraction. Calm your body and your mind. You cannot do this wrong—there is no single formula or technique. Prayer is an honest personal effort. Find the innermost part of who you are, and direct your thoughts and your desire toward the source of truth—whatever or whoever that may be.

Ask, honestly, whether God is real. Ask whether Jesus Christ was truly His Son. Ask whether you should believe in Him and follow Him. And then listen. Not for a thunderclap. Listen for something quieter: a peace in your mind, a warmth in your heart, a sense that what you are doing is right. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5).

If nothing comes immediately, do not despair. The Lord counseled patience: “Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart” (Psalm 27:14). And know this: not everyone receives a dramatic answer. To some it is given to know by the power of the Holy Ghost. To others it is given to believe on their words (D&C 46:13–14). Both are gifts. Both are real.

We promise you that if you undertake this experiment honestly—with real intent and an open heart—you will discover that the seed is good. The fruit of the tree of faith is real, and it is worth every risk required to plant it.

The Hunger Has a Name

You began this chapter with a hunger you could not name. We have walked together through the nature of knowledge, the anatomy of faith, the cost of transformation, and an invitation to experiment upon the word. Now we come to the simplest and most important thing we can say to you:

The hunger you feel has a name. It is the hunger of a soul that was made by God, for God, and that will not rest until it finds Him. And there is a cure. It is not a philosophy. It is not a program. It is not an institution. It is a person. His name is Jesus Christ.

That we exist is something we can agree upon. Why we exist is the subject of much debate and passion. What we do with our existence defines our character and our sense of identity. We witness with all the energy of our souls that truth, meaning, and lasting happiness can be found in this life—and that they are found in Him.

What You Can Do Now

You do not have to decide everything today. You can begin where you are. Reflect on what you have read and what you have felt. If you attempted the experiment of prayer, consider what happened—not what you expected to happen, but what actually stirred within you. Engage honestly with people of faith. Ask them not for arguments but for their experience. Read the scriptures for yourself—not as a critic looking for flaws, but as a seeker looking for light.

Stay open to your own evolution. The journey of faith is not a single decision but a direction—a persistent willingness to move toward truth wherever it leads. If something in these pages rang true, do not dismiss it. If something in your heart swelled when you read about the seed, about the burning on the road, about the thief who had nothing but honesty—that swelling is not random. Pay attention to it.

The invitation is simple: Come and see. Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Matthew 7:7). “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20).

The door is yours to open. We pray that you will.

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

You Have Been Searching

If you believe in God, then you already know something of the hunger we want to talk about. You have felt it in worship—that moment when the music fades and the sermon ends and you walk back into the world carrying something you cannot quite hold onto. You have felt it in prayer—the conviction that Someone is listening, even when the answers do not come as quickly or clearly as you need.

You are searching. Perhaps you have been searching for a long time. Perhaps you are satisfied in your own tradition and simply curious about what Latter-day Saints believe. Perhaps you sense that there is more to discover—more light, more truth, more of God—and you are open to wherever that search leads.

We honor your search. We honor whatever faith has brought you this far. We do not write to diminish the light you already possess. We write to share the light we have been given, in the hope that it may add to yours.

A Shared Starting Point

Christians of all varieties believe that the answers to life’s most important questions can be found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The word gospel is from Old English and means “good news.” It descends from the Greek word evangelion—“good message.” From the first century to the present day, the core of that message has not changed: we all need a Savior, and God has sent one.

The world overflows with sorrow, hatred, and ugliness. These touch every life, from the least to the greatest. Yet love, joy, and beauty can be found—sometimes in brief, breathtaking moments. This is the case regardless of what one believes. But the truth is that we all need to be saved from the lasting consequences of hatred, sorrow, and despair—consequences that can live on well beyond death. We all need to learn how to turn hope, joy, and love into enduring realities, both in this life and the next.

This is the the salvation offered by the gospel of Christ. And the Bible declares plainly: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

We who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints truly believe that Jesus Christ was sent by God to save the world from sin and death. We embrace with full hearts the words of the Apostle John: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). We take a positive view of Christ’s mission: “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).

What Unites Us Is Greater Than What Divides Us

We pause here because we know that the name of our Church may have raised questions in your mind. You may have heard that Latter-day Saints are not “real” Christians. You may have heard strange claims about what we believe. We ask for your patience as we explain ourselves through our own words, not through the words of our critics.

Being a Christian has nothing to do with the doctrines or theologies of any particular denomination. A true Christian is one who believes in Jesus Christ enough to try to become more like Him. It really is that simple. In the end, it will matter very little which of us was right about every point of theology. What will matter is that Jesus Christ was right about everything.

We feel a close kinship with all who call themselves Christians. We are certainly of the same spirit, having faith in salvation through Christ, though perhaps we are of a different understanding on certain points. We do not ask you to abandon what you believe. We ask only that you consider what we have to share, measured against the scriptures and confirmed by the Spirit of God.

The Cornerstone We Share

Christ is the cornerstone around which everything else is built. The Apostle Paul used the language of temple construction to describe this truth: the foundation of apostles and prophets is constructed for the building up of the household of God, with Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:19–20). He is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), the Alpha and Omega (Revelation 22:13). He is both the first stone laid and the capstone that completes the structure.

You know this. You have built your life upon this foundation. And yet we all sense that there is more to discover about Him—more depth, more light, more of the fullness that His gospel promises. That is not a failure of faith. It is the nature of faith. It grows. It deepens. It reaches.

The Ground Rules of Honest Dialogue

Before we go further, let us establish how we approach this conversation. We believe that interfaith dialogue should be guided by mutual respect: learning from one another as equals, practicing honesty about what we believe without trying to convert by coercion, building trust by starting with what we share in common, and allowing each person to define their own beliefs rather than assuming we know them better than they do.

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may (Articles of Faith 1:11). This is not mere tolerance—it is theological conviction. We honor and respect sincere souls from all religions who have loved God. We embrace them as brothers and sisters, children of our Heavenly Father.

In this spirit, let us talk about what faith is.

Faith That Reaches Beyond Belief

Scripture describes faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Paul also taught that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). But faith that merely hears and acknowledges is incomplete. The Book of Mormon offers a complementary witness: faith is hope for things “which are not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21)—emphasis on true. Faith is not believing whatever we wish were real. It is trusting in what is real before we have full proof of it.

Joseph Smith, whom Latter-day Saints sustain as the founding prophet of the Restoration, taught three requirements for mature faith:
۞ 1st, the idea that God exists
۞ 2nd, a correct understanding of God’s character.
This is vital to get right! He said, "knowledge of God's character"... NOT theological knowledge of his true nature as a deity. Perfect understanding is NOT required. A personal relationship with God IS.
۞ 3rd, an actual knowledge that the course of one’s life is pleasing to God.

We share this not to impose our framework but because these principles may resonate with your own experience. The first two are matters of belief and doctrine. The third is a matter of lived relationship with God. That third element is what transforms belief into discipleship.

The Restoration: Not a Rejection but a Recovery

You may wonder why Latter-day Saints do not identify as Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. Our origin is restorationist. This means we believe that many plain and precious truths from the original followers of Jesus Christ were lost or mingled with the philosophies and traditions of men over many generations following His ascension. Restorationism is not unique to us—the ideal of “no creed but Christ” runs through many Christian movements.

What is distinctive about the Latter-day Saint position is our belief that the Lord restored His Church through a living prophet, with apostolic authority, additional scripture, and the gift of continued revelation. We understand that this is a significant claim. We do not ask you to accept it here. We ask only that you keep it in mind as we continue, and that you measure what we share against the Spirit you have already felt in your own walk with Christ.

Any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God is not a comment about our commitment to Christ. Rather it is a recognition that our doctrinal view breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine we believe was taught by Jesus Himself.

Born Again

Jesus taught that unless we are born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). This is not merely metaphor. It describes a real transformation of the soul—what Latter-day Saint scripture calls “a mighty change of heart” (Alma 5:14). You may know this experience by different names in your own tradition: conversion, salvation, sanctification, baptism of the Spirit. The vocabulary differs; the reality is the same. Something old dies. Something new is born.

Being born again is truly a mighty miracle. It is the most powerful display of godly might—not the parting of seas or the moving of mountains, but the transformation of a human heart. The world is still the same, but you are different, and so you see all of creation through new eyes.

The At-One-Ment

Jesus Christ’s Atonement—His willing suffering, death, and resurrection—is not merely a payment for sin. The word itself reveals its deepest meaning: at-one-ment. It is the means of reuniting humanity with God, of making us “at one” with the Father through the sacrifice of the Son. This is the heart of the gospel. This is the good news.

To understand the Atonement, we must understand three principles that work together: justice, mercy, and grace. Justice is the complete application of natural consequences to our choices. Mercy is a softening of justice—receiving less punishment than we deserve, out of compassion. Grace is the gift of blessings we have not earned and cannot earn. Sin separates us from God, and all have sinned (Romans 3:23). Since we cannot bridge that gap alone, He came to us as promised.

This is where the question of how we are saved finds its fullest answer.

Grace, Faith, and Works Together

Does salvation come by grace or by works? Both. Paul wrote, “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). James wrote, “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17). The Apostle Paul was not saying that obedience does not matter. He was dissuading early Christians from continuing to observe the ceremonies of the Law of Moses, whose purpose had been fulfilled by Christ. Paul’s writings and James’s writings are not contradictions—they are companions.

The Book of Mormon adds a clarifying witness: “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). This does not mean we must earn grace through perfect effort. It means grace completes what we cannot complete on our own. Our “all” includes our honest desire, our genuine repentance, our willingness to follow Christ. And His grace carries us the rest of the way—which is most of the way.

Among Christians, this question has produced multiple views: some believe salvation cannot be lost once received; others believe it is contingent upon ongoing faith and can be forfeited through willful rejection of God’s grace. Latter-day Saints hold the latter view, though we emphasize the boundless reach of Christ’s mercy and the reality that repentance is always available to the sincere heart.

The Cross of Christ

Latter-day Saints preach the cross of Christ, which is for us a symbol of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice. However, we do not worship the physical cross. Was it the wooden beams that bled for our sins, or was it the unparalleled suffering, death, and resurrection of God’s own Son that can save us? The early Apostles used the cross as a powerful symbol of bearing great burdens, but they worshiped the One who was crucified—not the instrument of His death. We invite you to consider this distinction not as a rejection of your tradition but as an expression of ours.

Planting the Seed

You may already have a testimony of Jesus Christ. You may already know, from personal experience, that God hears and answers prayer. If so, what follows will not be foreign to you—it will be familiar. Alma’s great teaching about the seed of faith parallels what Jesus Himself taught in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–9). Both describe the same truth: the word of God, planted in a receptive heart, produces miraculous fruit.

Alma invited those who doubted to try an experiment: “If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you” (Alma 32:27). He then compared the word to a seed. If it is a good seed and you do not cast it out by unbelief, it will begin to swell within you. It will enlarge your soul, enlighten your understanding, and become delicious to you (Alma 32:28).

This language is not strange to the Christian heart. You have felt this. You have known the enlarging of your soul when scripture opened to you in a new way. You have known the enlightening of understanding when prayer brought clarity. You have known the sweetness of the Spirit confirming truth. What Alma describes is what you already know—expressed in the voice of an ancient prophet from another continent who knew the same Christ you worship.

A Personal Witness

I share my own testimony not to prove a point but to offer a living example. I was raised in a Christian home. My mother was raised Lutheran but searched for more than ten years among different faith traditions before finding her home among the Latter-day Saints. My father prayed to God for the rest of his life but did not follow the same path. I grew up learning to value different ways of seeking Christ.

Through the scriptures and the teachings of my Church, I was introduced to the Savior. But the Church did not give me my testimony—God did. With or without perfect understanding of correct theology, I have accepted Jesus Christ as my divine and living Savior. With or without approval of others, I will follow Him. I feel His peace. I perceive God’s power and Spirit operating in my life. Whether I am accepted by particular branches of Christianity has no bearing on my view of others as fellow children of God, for I see them as brothers and sisters in Christ.

I knelt down as a young man and prayed vocally with all the energy of my soul to know if God is real. I immediately felt a great peace enter my being. That experience has anchored me through every storm. It did not come because I was worthy. It came because I was honest. The prophet Moroni promised that God “will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4)—and He did.

If you have not yet asked God about the things we have shared, we invite you to try. Ask sincerely. Listen patiently. And judge the results by their fruit.

Come and See

When true Latter-day Saints invite others to investigate our Church, we do not attempt to take away the light and faith they already possess. Rather, we invite all to come and see what the Lord has done in our lives, in the hope that we can add to the light others already possess.

Our individual relationship with God is the top priority. Focusing on faith in Jesus Christ is more important than being right about anything—scriptures, doctrines, creeds, worthiness, traditions. Discipleship is not about ego, pride, or competition. It is about the sincere desire to follow Christ. We cannot individually or collectively save anyone. It is the power and Spirit of God that heals and saves—not bold words, battles of will, or clever arguments.

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and we extend the same privilege to all. We honor sincere souls from every religion who have loved God. We embrace them as brothers and sisters.

What We Invite You to Do

Continue your search. Pray about what you have read. Measure these words against the scriptures you already trust. “Search the scriptures”—both the Bible and the Book of Mormon—“for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). The Bereans were commended because “they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). We ask nothing more of you than that same honest inquiry.

If you desire to learn more, you are welcome. Visit ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Attend a service. Ask to meet with missionaries—not to be pressured, but to ask your questions and hear their witnesses. Read the Book of Mormon and ask God whether it is true. The invitation of Moroni still stands: ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, and He will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost (Moroni 10:4–5).

We believe what the Lord Jesus Christ has promised us. We accept Him as our personal Savior and Redeemer. We invite you to walk with us—not because our path is the only one that matters, but because we believe the Lord has something to add to yours.

Come and see.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I Have Tasted the Light

You have come this far on the journey. You have searched in plainness. You have asked honest questions about the purpose of your existence. You have considered the limits of human knowledge and opened yourself to the reality of something more. You have learned to pray—to speak to God and listen for His voice. You have planted the seed.

And it has grown.

You have felt the word enlarge your soul. You have tasted the sweetness Alma promised (Alma 32:28). You have known moments—perhaps many—when the Holy Ghost witnessed to your spirit that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He lives, and that His gospel has been restored to the earth in these latter days. You have made covenants. You have entered the waters of baptism. You have received the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. You have taken upon yourself the name of Christ and promised to always remember Him.

And now? Has the journey become easy? Has the hunger disappeared?

No. It has deepened. It has become something richer and more demanding. The hunger of a soul that does not yet know God is one thing. The hunger of a soul that has tasted His light and wants more of it—that is another thing entirely. This is the hunger of consecration. It is the hunger David expressed when he wrote, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” (Psalm 42:1–2).

This chapter is not written to convince you to believe. You already believe. It is written to strengthen what you have received, to deepen what you have planted, and to call you forward into the fullness of what your covenants promise.

The Weight of What You Carry

You know something that the world does not value and many do not understand. You know that the most important truths we can discover in this life are simple. They are not discovered by the intellect alone but recognized by the spirit. You know that these truths are not owned by any one group—that every child of God has access to light and truth according to their willingness to receive it.

But you also carry a weight that others do not. You have been given more. You have covenanted more. And to whom much is given, much is required (D&C 82:3). The question before you is not whether to believe, but what you will do with the knowledge you have been given.

The Mirror of the Three Lists

As Christians we have come to believe that God lives and we are His children. That Jesus was the divine Son of God. That His suffering, death, and resurrection can save mankind. We have learned to pray, to have faith, to repent and obey, to endure. We have been promised inner peace in this life and eternal peace with God hereafter.

These are not new to you. But when did you last hold them up to the light and examine them? Do you still have faith in these things—living, burning faith—or has familiarity dulled them into theological furniture you walk past without noticing? Do you still do these things with intention and energy, or have you settled into the routine of a long-married spouse who has forgotten the courtship? Are you experiencing the promises, or have you stopped expecting them?

The Three Lists are not a checklist for investigators. They are a mirror for the established faithful. Hold them up. Look hard.

What Spirit Are You Of?

I try to maintain humility. I am as distressed by my own sins as any honest disciple. My sins seem numerous to me. Yet I feel hope and comfort in the Spirit of God as I pursue my journey of discipleship and grow through repentance and service.

But humility before God must also shape how we relate to one another—especially to those outside our covenant community. God wishes for His children to worship in unity of faith (Ephesians 4:13) rather than split into divisions, denominations, and schisms. Christ strictly warned us to avoid straining at the gnats of doctrines as did the Pharisees, whom He named hypocrites because they focused on minor details of the law while neglecting its core principles (Matthew 23:23–38).

The disciples wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans for rejecting Jesus. He rebuked them: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of! For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luke 9:55–56). If the Son of God did not come to condemn, neither should we (John 3:17). Focusing on faith in Jesus Christ is more important than being right about anything—scriptures, cultures, doctrines, creeds, worthiness. Discipleship is not about ego, pride, or competition. It is about the sincere desire to follow Christ.

Deepening, Not Introducing

Joseph Smith taught that mature faith requires three things: the idea that God exists, a correct understanding of His character, and a knowledge that the course of one’s life is according to His will. You have the first. You have studied the second. But the third—that is where the covenant disciple must be most honest. Is the course of your life truly according to God’s will, or according to your own? Have you learned enough about Christ’s character to become like Him, or only enough to describe Him?

The first principles of the gospel do not stop being relevant after baptism. Faith, repentance, covenants, and the companionship of the Holy Ghost are not steps you have completed. They are the ongoing rhythm of discipleship, the daily pattern by which you retain a remission of your sins and draw nearer to God. The seed does not stop needing nourishment once it has sprouted. It must be nourished “with great diligence, and with patience” until it becomes “a tree springing up unto everlasting life” (Alma 32:41).

Faith is “the moving cause of all action.” If your discipleship has stalled, it is because your faith needs renewal—not because the gospel has become insufficient. Press forward. Ether taught: “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6). And the Lord Himself promised: “Every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am” (D&C 93:1).

The Daily Cross

Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). The key word is daily. The cross is not something you picked up once at baptism and set down. It is something you carry every morning when you wake and every evening when you kneel. It is the ongoing surrender of your will to His—not as a grim duty, but as the path to the only freedom that lasts.

The covenant disciple’s cross is the law of consecration lived in the heart before it is lived in the community. It is giving everything—time, talent, resources, pride, ambition, comfort—to the Lord’s purposes. And it is receiving back from Him something infinitely greater: the promise that “all that my Father hath shall be given” to those who are faithful (D&C 84:38).

The Commandments in the Mirror

Christ gave His commandments in His own words, without interpretation by theologians: Abide in Me. Repent. Follow Me. Let your light shine. Love your enemies. Deny yourself. Forgive offenders—not seven times, but seventy times seven. Be a servant. Feed My sheep. Be born again. Watch and pray. Spread the gospel. These are not suggestions. They are commandments. The covenant disciple must ask: Am I keeping these? Not perfectly—perfection is the direction, not the entrance requirement. But am I keeping them? Am I trying? Am I growing?

Hypocrisy is to profess standards and beliefs contrary to one’s real character or behavior. It is the great danger of the established faithful—those who have learned the vocabulary of Zion without living its meaning. Few were condemned more harshly by Christ than the self-righteous Pharisees (Matthew 23). The covenant disciple must hold the mirror of the commandments close and look without flinching.

Grace for the Covenant Keeper

Grace is not only for converts. It is especially for the faithful who have grown weary, who have stumbled on the path they know to be right, who carry the weight of covenants they have not always kept perfectly. Paul wrote, “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). The Book of Mormon adds, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). And what is our “all”? It is our honest effort, our sincere repentance, our willingness to get up every time we fall and face the Lord again.

The people of King Benjamin experienced this transformation and testified: “The Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2). But even that mighty change requires maintenance. Alma asked the searching questions that every covenant disciple must answer: “Have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?” (Alma 5:14). And then the harder question: “If ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?” (Alma 5:26).

Can you feel so now? If the answer is yes, press forward with gratitude. If the answer is no, or not as I once did, then repent—not with shame but with hope. The Atonement of Christ is not a one-time transaction. It is an ongoing covenant relationship. “The Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him” (D&C 18:11). His arms are still outstretched. Return to Him.

Even an elect disciple of Christ can fall from grace (D&C 20:32–34, Hebrews 6:4–6). This is not said to terrify but to awaken. The path requires vigilance. The daily cross requires daily carrying.

Is the Tree Still Growing?

You planted the seed long ago. The question is not whether it was good—you know it was. The question is whether you have continued to nourish it.

Alma gave the most beautiful and most dangerous teaching in all of scripture about faith. Beautiful because of the promise: the seed, nourished with diligence, becomes a tree springing up unto everlasting life, whose fruit is most precious and sweet above all that is sweet, white above all that is white, and pure above all that is pure (Alma 32:42). Dangerous because of the warning that follows: “But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away” (Alma 32:38).

And then the words that should shake every covenant disciple: “Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof” (Alma 32:39).

The seed was good. If it withered, that is on you... Not on God. Not on the Church. Not on your bishop or your ward or your circumstances. On you. This is uncomfortable truth, and we will not soften it. But it is also liberating truth, because it means the remedy is within your reach. You can nourish the tree again. As the prophet Zenos taught in his allegory of the olive tree (Jacob 5), "Dig it... dung it... prune it." This is insider language. Read the source to understand... You can return to the practices that once made the tree grow.

The Fruits of the Spirit as Diagnostic

How do you know whether the tree is healthy? Look for the fruit. Paul described them: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Galatians 5:22–23). Are these present in your life—not as occasional visitors but as residents? Do you carry peace into anxious rooms? Do you respond to provocation with gentleness? Do you feel genuine love for people who make it difficult?

If the fruit is present, give thanks and press forward. If it is not, do not despair—diagnose. Where did the nourishment stop? When did you stop feasting on the word of Christ and begin merely snacking? When did prayer become routine rather than communion? When did service become obligation rather than worship? Identify the break, and mend it.

A Mature Witness

In moments of weakness, I reflect upon the experience of being answered so powerfully by God when I was a young man, and it serves as an anchor. I have served the Lord and His children in many capacities. I have experienced the joy of bringing others to a knowledge of Christ. I have also experienced the frustration of watching seeds wither in soil I thought was prepared.

I do not know why the Lord chose to bless me in these ways. I know only that He has, and that I could still fall from grace through sin. The oath and covenant of the priesthood is binding (D&C 84:33–41). The promises are real, and so are the consequences of breaking them. This is not fear—it is sobriety. And it is the sobriety that keeps the tree nourished.

Let Alma’s searching questions serve as your examination: Have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received His image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts? And if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love—can ye feel so now? (Alma 5:14, 26).

Now Go and Feed Others

You have been fed. The question now is whether you will feed others.

When the resurrected Christ appeared to Peter on the shore of Galilee, He did not ask him to recite doctrine or prove his worthiness. Three times He asked: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” And three times, when Peter affirmed his love, the Lord gave the same command: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). That is the call. Not to personal perfection in isolation, but to service in the midst of imperfection. Not to retreat into the safety of your own testimony, but to carry it into the world where it is most needed.

One of the easiest ways to identify a true follower of Christ is how compassionately that person treats other people. This does not mean that we compromise our principles and priorities. But it does mean that we cease harshly attacking others for theirs. We must be both firm and gracious. We must hold the standard and extend the hand at the same time.

Nourish Your Faith, Keep Your Promises, Return to Your Practices

It is not enough to convert to faith in Christ and repent once. We must nourish faith continually through daily scripture study, daily prayer, weekly worship, and regular service. We must keep the promises we have made to God—our covenants of baptism, the sacrament, the temple. We must return to the practices that once made our testimony burn: fasting, bearing witness, teaching in our homes, serving the poor, mourning with those that mourn (Mosiah 18:9).

Where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs 29:18). The vision of a covenant disciple is not personal salvation alone. It is the building of Zion—the gathering of Israel—the establishment of a people who are of one heart and one mind, who dwell in righteousness, and who have no poor among them. That is the work. It is unfinished. And you are needed in it.

The Testimony That Turns Outward

Nephi saw this moment in your life—this exact spiritual condition: “Press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men” (2 Nephi 31:20). Press forward. Not because the journey is finished, but because it is not. Not because your faith is weak, but because it must grow stronger still. Not because God is disappointed in you, but because He has more to give you than you have yet received.

The hunger you feel—that longing for more of God, more of His presence, more of His power in your life—is not a sign of failure. It is the sign of a living tree reaching toward the light. Let that hunger drive you deeper into covenant living and wider into compassionate service.

You have tasted the Light. Now share it. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven (3 Nephi 18:24). The Lord has a great work for you to do (D&C 4:1–7). Now go forth to serve.

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.