Well, if Jeff took Todd's life on the letter, maybe he'd like to do the speaking now. We treat much too lightly since life is bound up in this great principle of getting and keeping the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. I think of it as far as the Scripture is concerned. I always hark back to Lecture 5 of the Lectures on Faith and read it and re-read it. Modus operandi, if you please, of the operation of this glorious gift can get it and keep it.

If we only had this, brethren and sisters, all of our family problems would be solved, or at least they would be minimized. Each member of our family has his free agency, and make no mistake about it, these children, young and old, have their agency as well as we do. So far as influence can be brought to bear through the Holy Spirit upon the members of our family, this could solve all of the problems.

It will solve all the relationships we should have with the priesthood over us and with our Heavenly Father. I can't help but feel that it's beneficial to read at least part of this lecture again, and I pray that you'll give very close attention to it, as I do. I've always been grateful for this little book I picked up in Liverpool, England.

among the volumes that the mission authorities were getting rid of. They were actually giving them away because they were the older editions, and they were anxious to get things like this modern revelation, which they offered as representing those things that have been doing value for the saints. It was right at that time this volume came out, and I had some little part in distributing it to the mission field.

Thank God it had a very short life. This is the Doctrine and Covenants with the lectures on faith in the front. Speaking of Christ, he being the only God begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and having overcome, received the fullness of the glory of the Father, possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit. Mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit.

The best record of the Father and the Son and these three are one. And all those who keep his commandments and grow up from grace to grace. How do we get and keep the Spirit of God? By keeping the commandments, by obedience to the exercise of our free agency which God has given. And become heirs of the heavenly kingdom and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Possessing the same mind.

Being transformed into the same likeness or image, even the expressed image of Him who fills all in all. Being filled with the fullness of His glory and become one in Him, even as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. And when I think of this, I think of the glorious prayer that the Savior offered in behalf of His brethren, the twelve, when He prayed for these.

whom God had given him, whom he had loved, is a love that transcends description, meaning the pure love of Christ. Those who are protectors of it can understand the meaning, brethren and sisters. And he promised them this second comfort, which they hadn't yet received, his Holy Spirit, because he, a member of the Godhead, was with them. And without him, Without his going, it could not be given to them, this precious gift. And now he prayed that these whom God had given him would be one as he and the Father were one. In the foregoing account of the Godhead which is given in his revelations, the saints have a sure foundation laid for the exercise of faith unto life and salvation through the atonement and mediation of Jesus Christ.

by whose blood they have a forgiveness of sins, and also a sure reward laid up for them in heaven, even that of partaking of the fullness of the Father and the Son through the Spirit. Now what is meant by this fullness, brethren and sisters? It means that we will receive all that they have, all that the Father has. If we so live that this can...

Be with us at all times, and we be filled to learning from grace to grace, line upon line, precept upon precept, to our faithfulness and our obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We will receive a fullness of this Holy Spirit as they are. As the Son partakes of the fullness of the Father through the Spirit, So the saints are, by the same Spirit, to be partakers of the same fullness, to enjoy the same glory. For as the Father and Son are one, so in like manner the saints are to be one in them. Brothers and sisters, do you realize what the prophet told us here? Be a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and an heir of God, and how lightly we treat these principles.

and give too little consideration to them and placing them in our own lives. And this is the preparation, brethren and sisters, whereby we should be prepared for the things to come. In this we will obtain all the things that Brother Johnson has told us of so many times, the preparation of a people of God to be used. And until we become one, In the hands of God, through his priesthood, we cannot be used. And we're not going to have a part in this great latter-day work. And this is the means by which it will be done, so that this people will move as one man when the Lord speaks to Brother Johnson or whoever may be in that position. I'm speaking now of these ultimate events. But today is the day to prepare to meet God. Not tomorrow.

or next week or next year. Today is all that he has given us. Yesterday is gone. Let's repent of the sins of yesterday. Live to get and keep the Holy Spirit today so that tomorrow we may see God. Now you notice in here that the prophet tells us that we are to be transformed into the image of the Father and the Son. Do you know how literal this is?

Have you seen a truly united married couple, husband and wife, where this is beginning to be true, where one has literally the same image as the other? I've seen it. And, brethren and sisters, it's the Holy Spirit that does it. There is a transformation, a conversion, a change that comes in the physical appearance of a man and a woman.

who gets and keeps the Spirit of God. And I know it. And you know it. That's the oneness that I want with these, my brethren, that I want with my folks, that I want with Jesus and Joseph and Father. God help us to attain it. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.