A few weeks ago at Church we sang one of my favorite songs, Cody Carne’s Christ Be Magnified.
When I made the decision to leave the LDS Church, this song became an anthem for me. My greatest desire was to magnify Christ in my life.
Hearing this song once again , a few lines really stood out to me.
“I won’t bow to idols.
I’ll stand strong and worship You.
If it puts me in the fire.
I’ll rejoice ‘cause You’re there too.
I won’t be formed by feelings
I hold fast to what is true
If the cross brings transformation
Then I’ll be crucified with You.”
In the year since I began the journey out of the LDS Church, I have indeed felt Christ with me in the fire. He has sustained me and comforted me and blessed me in such incredibly tender and moving ways. And it has been a year of growth and transformation, praise be god.
But the line that really hit me hardest was “I won’t be formed by feelings. I hold fast to what is true” This has meant so much to me. When I was LDS I felt that my testimony was very strong and that in following it I had found truth. But I have since realized how much of my “testimony” was based on my feelings.
I think this is true in two ways.
First of all, there is a strong emphasis on gaining a “testimony” based on spiritual experiences like a burning in the bosom. Don’t get me wrong. I do believe strongly that God speaks to us through his spirit and gives us powerful and sustaining spiritual experiences. But these experiences cannot be how we decide what is doctrinally true or not. We are far too fallible, far too susceptible to deception or simply to hearing what we want to hear. Our heart “is deceitful above all things” (Jer 17:9). Our world view and our foundation cannot be based on these feeling based experiences.
Second, a lot of what attracted me to Mormonism was that the doctrine felt “right” or fair to me. I liked how the idea of premortal existence or degrees of glory “felt” more equitable and just than the idea of an eternal hell. But ultimately, our feelings аrе а poor guide to determining the will and mind of God.
A lot of Joseph Smith’s innovations really appeal to our fallen humanity. Joseph Smith offered an elevated view of mankind, a diminished view of God, a fortunate fall, some kind of salvation to pretty much everyone, earthly family relationships being the pinnacle of eternity, and the potential to become Gods. All of it is so well crafted to appeal to our human faculties
But our feelings and intuition are extremely poor guides to knowing divine truths. If we follow them, then we are in serious danger of creating and God and a Gospel that is an idol of our own imagination and making.
One common objection that I hear when discussing the Gospel of Christ with Latter-day Saints is that the Christian message is unfair because there are some that will be in hell. This was one of my major objections to Christianity when I was first drawn to it as a teenager. Looking back at it now, what first attracted me to Mormonism was how I felt that its quasi-universalist vision was so much more just and equitable than what I had heard preached.
But the problem is that it is not true. It is a false doctrine developed by men to try to improve on what God himself revealed in his word. Rather than pretend that we know the mind and the will of, we need to humble ourselves and recognize the sovereignty and majesty of God. We need to submit to him and his will for us.
Paul put it best when discussing objections to the doctrine of predestination in Romans 9:20-21: “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? ‘Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘’Why did you make me like this?”” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?”
Paul like wise ends his argument in Romans 9-11 with a powerful summation of the greatness of God:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
When we begin to sit in judgment of God and think that we know better than him, we have made ourselves and our own reason and feelings our Gods. The idols that we worship may look beautiful and appealing, but they are nevertheless idols. The only reliable source of truth is what God himself has revealed in his word about himself, his plan, and his purposes.