Good (Telestial); Better (Terrestrial); and Best (Celestial)?

 

NO ONE on Earth has ever been “Perfect” to God’s standards, except Jesus Christ.

We all strive to be perfect and are commanded to be so:

“Therefore I would that ye should be perfect, even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” (3 Nephi 12:48).

Brigham Young qualified that commandment to this:

‘“Be ye as perfect as ye can,’ for that is all we can do, though it is written, be ye perfect as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. To be as perfect as we possibly can, according to our knowledge, is to be just as perfect as our Father in heaven is. He cannot be any more perfect than He knows how, any more than we.” (From Journal of Discourses 2:130, December 18, 1853)

The judgment of God may be a lot simpler than many believe.

Some stake presidents have made the point that who we feel the most comfortable around will determine where we may go in the eternities. If you feel better with Celestial level people, you will probably end up in the Celestial Kingdom – and feeling that way will mean you live like that group of people and hence your comfort level.

But, if you like terrestrial level people the most, the Terrestrial Kingdom is where you will end up.

God may have to do less judgment on us and just get us to accept what Kingdom of Glory we will feel most comfortable in.

Elder (now President) Dallin H. Oaks delivered an intriguing discourse in General Conference on October 7, 2007, titled, “Good, Better, Best.”

“Most of us have more things expected of us than we can possibly do … We should begin by recognizing the reality that just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it … Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives. … Other choice are better and still others are best.”

This was certainly one of Elder Oak’s best-ever talks.

However, he stopped short of giving the Church some thick meat of the gospel to chew on.

It is what Elder Oaks didn’t say from the pulpit and outright deleted from a draft of his talk, that was the most profound part. Elder Oaks deleted the second-to-last paragraph in his talk. The Author of this blog retained a copy of President/Elder Oaks’ final draft before delivery and the Author is going to push it – and take the liberty – to list below two lines from those deleted nine lines of the talk:

“The three-fold degrees of good, better and best even have their counterparts in the kingdoms of glory for which men and women will qualify in the day of judgment.”

Thus, Elder Oaks was, as the title of his title hinted at, really specifically comparing good, better and best to the three degrees of glory.

We would be wise to not just make good, or better choices in our lives – but make a priority to identify and strive for the BEST choices, if we truly want to reach the Celestial Kingdom.

 NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.