Calling and Election

I suppose it would be helpful to define what is meant by calling and election. Are you referring to the second anointing or the second comforter (which I believe JS taught as a visit from Jesus himself) or some other form of Calling and Election?

I guess I mean the idea that you are guaranteed the highest degree of glory, not the ordinance. I guess I’ve been thinking about it because of my current situation with reevaluating my morals and values. I keep a lot of commandments simply because it is part of the faith. Having your calling and election made sure frees you from this obligation, but you would still have to live with the consequences in this mortal life. My thought is that, like Hawkgirl said, perhaps nothing will change. In my own journey, as I examine the commandments, I find that many of them will still be important to me, just not for the same reasons as before.

I think of it like marriage. I am faithful to my wife because I love her, not because she would be hurt if I wasn’t. We keep the commandments because we love God, not because of a heavenly reward.

The idea of calling and election only really makes sense if the person has somehow proven that they would not act contrary to God’s will, it’s sure.

I guess it’s the same question is “What would change about your lifestyle if you left the church?”

When I was young, I was taught in class that there is an “order” of keeping the commandments:

1. Doing it because you’re afraid of being punished by God if you don’t.

2. Doing it because you love God.

3. Doing it because you want to.

Then it was clarified that we work through these, with the goal of making it into the final level.

I no longer believe in following everything the Church says I should, but I would like to think that when it comes to the major commandments, the ones at the core of the Gospel, I’m on level 3. And in spite of how hard of a journey this faith crisis has been, I’m pretty proud of that :thumbup:

If my calling and election was made sure, nothing would change in my life.

Fear of God and worries about The Celestial Kingdom have never driven me. When I die, I will go where I need to be because I will be where God wants me to be. It isn’t a competition, unfortunately, church culture has turned it into some sort of earned valedictorian position.

In school, I found that if I really learned the information for each class, the grades and accolades followed. There were other students who stressed over their grades, scholarships, and acknowledgements. They lived and breathed over their grades. I didn’t. By just focusing on the experience of learning, everything else was taken care of without any extra effort or stress.

For me, life and final judgement are like that. I can focus on the competition and worry about who is getting into heaven, or I can focus on learning the lessons I am supposed to learn and assume God will put me where he wants me. I expect I’ll be happy with God’s choice. He knows me and knows my needs.

I don’t believe anyone’s calling and election is made sure. If it were true, I don’t believe it would have anything to do with an ordinance that is only available to certain members of an old boys club and officially denied it even exists. Other than that, what AP said.

I simply believe that there is no such thing as having your calling and election sure. We all must work out our salvation with fear and trembling as it says in Philippians. Even the president of the church. As long as there is breath in our bodies, we have the capacity to do evil in the world. Or to choose not to.

officially denied it even exists

I did not know that, especially after having learned about it from a CES director in his college class.

Maybe officially denied is a bit strong, but bring it up to someone who has or may have had the ordinance or someone else in higher authority (AA, GA) and you will not get a straight answer and you will mostly likely get some level of denial.