Receive More Light

The Book of Mormon speaks of those who will reject any scripture beyond the Bible saying, “A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible” (2 Nephi 29:3).  The Lord condemns this attitude, explaining that He can “command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them” (2 Nephi 29:11).  I think the principle that the Lord is teaching here is that we should never stop seeking more light and truth.  The Lord wants us to continually seek knowledge and understanding, “precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28:13).  We have to be careful not to fall into the same mentality and think that we have our standard works and need nothing more. 

                Abraham of course was one who showed us the kind of attitude that we should have.  He wrote at the beginning of the record we have from him, “Having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge” (Abraham 1:2).  He had knowledge and he was a follower of righteousness, but he was not satisfied with that alone.  He continued seeking to become more righteous and to possess even more knowledge.  That is the attitude that we need to have throughout our whole lives, but it is easy to get comfortable with what we have and stop really seeking for more light and truth.  The Savior said this in our dispensation, “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (D&C 50:24).  That is I think a pattern that should exist in our lives—we must continually receive more and more light and seek to act upon that light.  As we do so the light—our knowledge and righteousness—will become brighter and brighter.  I think that Amulek alluded to this progression when he taught the people of Ammonihah this: “He that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full” (Alma 12:10).  We must not harden our hearts to more truth thinking like those who reject scripture beyond the Bible that “we need no more” (2 Nephi 29:6).  There is always more knowledge for the Lord to give us if we are willing.

                The Lord told us during his mortal ministry, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath” (Matt. 13:12).  The way I understand this is that if we have light and truth and we are following it, the Lord will continue to bless us with more direction, knowledge, and righteousness.  But if we reject what knowledge the Lord gives us, or do not do those things that the Spirit has invited us to do, then we will not gain more and may even start to lose what we have.  It seems then that our attitude should be to gain as much “knowledge and intelligence in this life” as possible through our “diligence and obedience” (D&C 130:19).  And we don’t have to worry about running out of divine knowledge to be learned or improvements to be made in our lives.  Elder Maxwell gave a famous talk entitled “The Inexhaustible Gospel,” suggesting that the gospel is inexhaustible and we are never going to run out of things to learn and to become (see here).  The hardest part in our progression then, perhaps, is to avoid the temptation common to us all to at some point say, whether consciously or not, “Light and truth, we have got light and truth, and we need no more light and truth.”  Like Moses, our mantra should be this: “I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of him” (Moses 1:18).