The Articles of Faith part 7of 13

Article of Faith #7, "We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth."

Gifts are an amazing thing that the Lord gives all of us. The Prophet Joseph Smith only mentioned a few of those gifts in this Article of Faith. The scriptures also mention a ton of gifts that we can get from the Spirit. The Bible and Book of Mormon both give us examples of gifts of the spirit. We can find reference to these in Moroni 10, "For behold, to one is given by the Spirit of God, that he may teach the word of wisdom; And to another, that he may teach the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; And to another, exceedingly great faith; and to another, the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; And again, to another, that he may work mighty miracles; And again, to another, that he may prophesy concerning all things; And again, to another, the beholding of angels and ministering spirits; And again, to another, all kinds of tongues; And again, to another, the interpretation of languages and of divers kinds of tongues. And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as he will. And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ. And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men." Moroni explains that different gifts of the spirit are given to different people; of course, we can all strive to have these different gifts, but not everyone is born with these gifts. As we try to acquire these gifts we need to ask God. He is the only one who can give them to us. Prayer is the first step in gaining anything from God. I know that we can all attain the gifts that we would like in this life if we just put our hearts and souls into it. 

The Articles of Faith part 5 of 13

Article of Faith #5, "We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer the ordinances thereof."

So this goes directly in line with the way the God works. He has always done this from the beginning. We can take Aaron for example. He was called by God, set apart, and he went out and did his work. We have another example in the New Testament with the Apostles. Christ called them all together, and set apart each one and sent them off to go do their work as well, and now days we have the same thing, not only with General Authorities, but with the missionaries that you see walking around as well.

So let's break down this sentence. The first part says, "We believe that a man must be called of God." This is a basic belief, I believe, amongst all Christian parties. That in order to preach, a man must be called of God. The second part, "by prophecy," this I think is where we start to differ. Modern revelation is a key thing in the Church. It helps not only those being called, but those of us who are the "average member" to know that the person is called as well. The third part, "and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority," this is another part of where we differ from a lot of other Christian religions. The laying on of hands is an important part of being called, and set apart to do His work. In Luke 9, we read, "Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick." This is the same call that we are given as missionaries. And the last part is, "to preach the Gospel and administer the ordinances thereof." We must go out and preach. We've been called of God and had all the power and authority given to us and it's now our job to go preach and teach and do the things the Lord would have us do, namely, baptize and give the gift of the holy ghost. This is one of those truths that must be fulfilled. Power and Authority don't come from the Bible or any other from of paper. It comes from the man upstairs, our Heavenly Father. He's in control and knows what and how it needs to happen. This is my testimony.