More Motivation to Hear Him

In his first conference talk as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Nelson emphasized the importance of personal revelation by saying:

... in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.

Recently, I began to wonder what scriptures teach a similar principle, of needing revelation in order to survive. I thought about the Savior's words:

24 For there shall arise ^afalse ^bChrists, and ^cfalse prophets, and shall shew great ^dsigns and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall ^edeceive the very ^felect.

Certainly, there is a lot of noise in the world today. There are many different ways to spend your time and attention; and there's a constant pressure to watch this video, read that article, and so on. It can be hard to make time to listen for the impressions of the Holy Ghost, but we must do so in order to stay close to the Lord.

Just as this verse warns, the world is filled with false Christs and false prophets. Many take forms that are not what one might expect: many false prophets and false Christs don't even address salvation. Many simply preach worldly success, fame, or popularity, while others preach fitness and personal fulfillment. While some of these ideas are important and worth some of our time, none of them will ultimately save us. This is why many of these false Christs forgo religion entirely: dedicating our lives to any of these other things can stop us from hearing God's word and sever or diminish our connection to Him. Some of these surrogate prophets attempt to create a false dichotomy between attempting to live the Gospel and sufficiently loving and serving your neighbor, adequately caring for yourself, or other values which do not truly compete with being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter the method, the effort is to undermine or remove completely our ability to commune with the Father.

One who seeks and follows personal revelation will not be deceived by false prophets, even the most persuasive and apparently virtuous of them; such a person will not be lead away by logical fallacies. There is no anchor so secure as faith to go to our Father in prayer and then follow the answers He gives. There are a million reasons that it can be hard to receive revelation, but I testify that the Lord will speak to us in a way we can understand, and that He will guide us as we attempt to follow Him. I am so grateful for the many people around me who have been examples of righteously seeking the Lord's will, and for a loving Father in Heaven that wants to speak to all of us, including me.