And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:16-19)
Only as we desire to be filled with the Holy Ghost and to surrender to His possession of us, can we be as one with our Father and with our Savior. It is through the fullness of the Holy Ghost that the Father and Son do as Joseph taught: take up Their abode with us.
In other words, a person can experience the abiding and continuous presence of the Father and the Son—two delightfully sovereign individuals. We can have a companionship, a conscious communion with them, through the ability of the Holy Spirit to “dwell in us.”
Joseph taught this plainly:
The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, p. 41.)
We cannot come to the Father except through the Son, and we cannot experience the abiding presence of the Son, except through the Holy Ghost. It is through the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost that we can have continuous companionship with Christ, just as the Sacrament Prayers promise:
…that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. (Moroni 4:3)
The Holy Ghost is just as essential to my entering the Kingdom of Heaven that is within me, right now, as He will yet be in the literal, eternal future. It is in and through Him that God changes my heart and does for me what I cannot do for myself. It is His influence in me, possessing Him and allowing Him to possess me, that gives me the power to receive the Grace of Christ unto the transforming of my life, literally, from the inside out.
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