What Do Mormon's Believe? God Speaks to Man Today

Hello! Welcome to my blog. My name is Sue. In an effort to shed some light on what members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe, I am doing a post every week with the topic - What do Mormon's believe? Along with each post I am making quote art from talks given by leaders from my church.
 The quote today is from the talk titled, 
"An High Priest of Good Things to Come"  
by Jeffrey R. Holland.

To see my previous posts click on the links below:

1)What Do Mormon's Believe?Intro

2) Men and the Mormon Church

3) Women in the Mormon Church.

Todays post is an invitation to check out the Church’s teachings. Semi-annually my church holds a General Conference that can be viewed on the internet. Click the video below for a preview and then follow the link to the Conference that will be held live on October 6th and 7th but can also be viewed in the archives afterwards. 

We believe that Jesus Christ is the Head of our Church and that He directs this church through a living prophet. When I was not a member and this idea was told to me, I thought this was a crazy thing. Prophets were guys with long beards and they lived a long time ago, right? What I love about this church is that they teach their beliefs, and then they encourage the individual to seek answers for themselves. In other words - don’t take anyone’s word for it - rather, find out for yourself. I did not believe in the notion of a living prophet overnight. It was a process. Here are some questions/thoughts one might consider when pondering if there should or should not be a living prophet:

- Do you believe that God ever spoke to anyone?

- Do you believe that throughout the Bible history it was standard procedure for God to speak to man?

- Do you believe that standard procedure stopped, and if so, why?

- Has God lost His power? Does He not love us anymore? Has He left us to find our own way in the dark? Has man made such rapid strides and are so well educated that we don't need God to direct us anymore?

- We have all the instruction God has ever needed to give us recorded in the scriptures, and it is okay if all sorts of churches define those words differently for different times and circumstances.

(most of these questions are an excerpt from a talk titled “Profile of a Prophet” from Hugh B Brown.)  

The following quote from John Taylor is one that helped me seriously consider the idea of a living prophet.

We require a living tree—a living fountain—living intelligence, proceeding from the living priesthood in heaven, through the living priesthood on earth. And from the time that Adam first received a communication from God, to the time that John, on the isle of Patmos, received his communication, or Joseph Smith had the heavens opened to him, it always required new revelations, adapted to the peculiar circumstances in which the churches or individuals were placed. Adam's revelation did not instruct Noah to build his ark; nor did Noah's revelation tell Lot to forsake Sodom; nor did either of these speak of the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt. These all had revelations for themselves, and so did Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, and Joseph. And so must we, or we shall make a shipwreck. 

Another item to consider is that the Bible says there will be many false prophets, so how does one know a true prophet or if there is a prophet at all? One thing all who believe in God can agree on is that truth comes from one source - God, and if we lack wisdom, we can ask of God and
He will guide us. (James 1:5)
I have heard some say that Mormon's are secretive - but I strongly disagree. We have missionaries across the globe that strive to educate people on what we believe. We have websites that have information available for those who desire to look. Mormon.org has all sorts of answers to questions people may have, and one can even chat online with members if one has other questions or concerns. Lds.org has a huge library of teachings, talks, Sunday lessons that people can check out.

I encourage you to check out some of the talks that will be on the World Wide broadcast (available in many languages) October 6th and 7th and later in archives.
General Conference Link

Thanks for stopping by!