For sacrament meeting I was once asked to speak on the topic, “Receiving a Change of Heart.” Because it never hurts a discussion to begin with Shakespeare, I quoted from the opening lines of The Merchant of Venice, a rueful little speech given by the character identified in the play's title, a businessman named Antonio. He laments:

One of our great challenges in life is the task of coming to know ourselves, to know who we are, what we think of ourselves, and why we behave the way we do. We have this challenge because of the “Veil” and the “Fall.”

As Latter-day Saints, we believe we lived in a pre-mortal existence with perfect parents, a heavenly Father and Mother. While our parents there were perfect, the family was not. The family was subject to contention, dissension and rebellion, until a third of it, led by Lucifer, was cast out. Those who remained then accepted the next estate, to pass through a veil of forgetfulness concerning our pre-mortal existence and come to this earth to gain critical new experience.

Here we gained a physical body, in the image of our Heavenly parents, and accepted another kind of family life, a life where the parents are not perfect and where the conditions of life are characterized by the Fall, a descent into a mortal condition where we are subjected to spiritual death, which is a separation from God, and to physical death, which is the eventual separation of our spirit from our body.

These two conditions, the Veil and the Fall, have caused us to forget who we are and we have in this life “ much ado to know ” again what we knew before, that we are children of divine, perfect parents with an opportunity to grow and develop into their perfection. To return to our former knowledge, we begin by receiving a change of heart. And this change in heart, I believe, can only begin by knowing something about ourselves first and knowing what in us requires change.

Consider the conversion of Alma the Younger. His repentance centered in a change of thinking:

Alma 's mind “ caught hold upon [a] thought ” and this single thought made all the difference in the change that followed.

Viewpoint is a Choice

Though less dramatic, I can perhaps relate something of my own experience. I have had throughout my life a tendency toward melancholy. Like Antonio in the Merchant of Venice I have been rather clueless about this sadness in my life – how I caught it, found it, or came by it, what stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born, I do not know. I do know it has made a want-wit of me and I have had much to do to know myself.

As a part of my job, I receive a monthly career coaching session from a professional counselor who helps me address work and family related issues. My wife once suggested I explore with him my tendency toward melancholy, and so we talked for an hour once about overcoming depression.

As an outgrowth of that process, I identified a perspective in me that has consistently viewed life as tragic. I suppose it comes from reading Shakespeare. Yes, the Savior atoned for primal fault and made all things right. He atoned specifically for me, I know that, but life still is replete with unhappiness. A baby starves, a woman is murdered, or as occurred not long ago, a 19-year-old family friend is killed in the Iraqi conflict by a car bomb.

The Atonement itself could not be completed without extreme grief. And even in the eternal worlds, it would seem, this tragedy persists, as when a third of the host of heaven rebelled against God and the heavens wept at the fall of Lucifer, a son of the morning. We do not even escape tragedy in the eternal worlds. Is that not a great sadness?

These things occur and they are part of reality, but I decided after talking to my counselor that I was tired of centering my life in that view. It is equally valid to believe that life is glorious, that the tragedy is overcome on every occasion unequivocally.

In the beginning, upon completion of the Creation, this world was deemed glorious and beautiful. Even in the eternal worlds, each of the kingdoms – telestial, terrestrial, and celestial – is deemed a kingdom of glory. Only the realm of outer darkness where Lucifer and his host are cast is there no glory, a fate they deserve because they have utterly insisted upon it. But otherwise, all other creations move toward glory, the glory of God.

We can taste something of that glory daily. And I decided I can center my life in a view of that glory by choice, even when tragedy continues to occur. My challenge is to continually repent – that when I tend toward melancholy, to continually change my thinking to view life not as tragic, but as glorious.

This must be the viewpoint of Christ—that life is glorious—and t herefore, the change of heart and mind we strive to receive is that of Christ. The pattern for receiving Christ is found in Doctrine and Covenants:

Receiving Christ is implicit in the priesthood ordinance of receiving the Holy Ghost. When the resurrected Christ met with his disciples “ he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. ” [John 20:22].

The Greek word here for “receive” has the connotation “to grasp” or “to seize with the mind,” “to understand.” The English translation serves as the basis for the modern-day ordinance of conferring the Holy Ghost, the injunction stated at one's confirmation, “Receive the Holy Ghost.” Therefore, the idea that we receive a “change in heart” could well begin with the concept that we receive the Holy Ghost, that we grasp or seize it with our heart and mind, that we “understand” the Holy Ghost, which I take to mean, that we assume “the mind of Christ,” to think about the world as He thinks about it, to see it as he sees it. No doubt this is what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote, “ but we have the mind of Christ .” [1 Corinthians 2:16].

The Savior acted perfectly because He knew his Father and was one with Him. We have a similar invitation to know the Savior and be one with Him. As we do so, our thinking clarifies. When we think correctly, we see correctly. When we see correctly, we judge correctly. When we judge correctly, we act correctly. The invitation to be one with Christ directs each disciple to the very heart of repentance.

The Kingdom Within

When the gospel is preached, the first words delivered are typically, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This is what John the Baptist exclaimed at the outset of his ministry as related in Matthew 3:2. This is also what Christ declared, when, according to Matthew 4:17, he began his ministry. I particularly appreciate the Greek original of each passage, both from John and from Jesus. The Greek word for “repent” in these verses is from a compound of two words meaning “a change” and “to think,” literally “a change in thinking.” Therefore, when we are asked to repent, at the core of the statement is to have a change of thought, or a change of heart.

When we do repent, when we do begin to change our heart, one of the natural outcomes is that we begin to qualify for the kingdom of God. Another translation for the Greek in Matthew 4:17 might be:

This statement made by both John the Baptist and by Jesus would apparently refer to the advent of the gospel as taught by Jesus Christ. But further reflection suggests the statement may be rather more complex. It is the “kingdom” which is now near, not merely the teachings of Christ. Wherever Christ is, and the priesthood which he holds, the kingdom is also. His priesthood brings the kingdom of God near, puts it at hand, as it were.

It comes so near, in fact, that we read when Christ answered the Pharisees on one occasion, he said: The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or Lo, there! For behold, the kingdom of God is within you. [ Luke17:20-21 ].

In the Nag Hammadi text of the Gospel of Thomas , Jesus says in the third saying, “If those who lead you say to you, ‘See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty.” [James M. Robinson, general editor, The Nag Hammadi Library , Harper Collins, San Francisco, 1990, p. 126]

Jesus purportedly says the “ kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you ,” not a discrete, finite place, as in the sky or the sea, but rather everywhere that can be searched – all places spiritual and physical, inward and outward. In fact, the Doctrine and Covenants states clearly “there are many kingdoms, for there is no space in the which there is no kingdom”. [Doctrine and Covenants 88:37].

Further, the same section states that God is “is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things .” Passages of modern revelation therefore corroborate the statement made in the Gospel of Thomas – it has a ring of authenticity.

When we take the sacrament blessed by the hands of the priesthood, and ingest the emblems of the Savior's Atonement, there is a sense in which we take the kingdom of God inside of us. To the extent we enjoy the influence of His Spirit, and the companionship of the Holy Ghost, the kingdom is near, both inside and out.

In the Book of Mormon when the Father spoke to the Nephites from heaven, it was written that the voice was not harsh, “ neither was it a loud voice, nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn .” [3 Nephi 11:3].

If we allow the voice of God, or the voice of the Spirit to pierce us to the very soul, so that our hearts would burn, we are again receiving the kingdom of God within and this, undoubtedly, would cause a change of heart.

To Recognize the Unseen

What stirs within us, whatever kingdom we may harbor within, does not remain unseen and unknown indefinitely. The Savior once stated, “ for nothing is secret, that shall not be manifest; neither hid that shall not be known and come abroad .” He then warns, “Take heed therefore, how ye hear.” [Luke 8:17-18].

This is rather more paradoxical in the Greek and might be translated:

or,       See, then, how you hear.

This is the equivalent of another injunction in the Gospel of Thomas to “recognize what is in your sight .” In the fifth saying of that text, “Jesus said, ‘Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden will become plain to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest.” [Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, supra, at 126].

Apart from any dispute in the authenticity of its authorship, I can see the wisdom in this statement. The injunction is: Identify the external action correctly; read your own behavior, and the behavior of others, accurately. The outward behavior, the external action, has an internal motivation. The behavior springs from a belief, a bias, an emotional pattern, a pattern of thought. We can see the behavior and still not understand its source. However, if we do not even see the behavior for what it is, we will never see its source.

For example, a father may be impatient with his children, even to the point of anger. Why is that? The behavior springs from some hidden impulse—a fear, a worry, an anxiety, which in turn springs from a system of developed beliefs, from an evolved emotional and mental pattern. This pattern may be hidden, but can be discovered and made manifest with persistent soul-searching.

Yet if the father never acknowledges his anger in the first place, if he does not recognize what is in his sight, he will not acknowledge, let alone find, the hidden pattern. So first, accurately “recognize what is in your sight ,” then in time, “that which is hidden,” the internal motivation, the emotional pattern “will become plain.” For the hidden will become manifest.

This is what Christ taught during the Sermon on the Mount, when he distinguished the old law from the New Testament. The outward actions of killing and adultery were addressed by their origins in the heart, as in anger and lust. It is not enough to avoid killing, we must control anger as well. It is not enough to avoid adultery; we must control lust as well. Christ was directing the disciple inward, to examine the heart and its hidden motivations.

These are among the hidden mysteries that the Father is willing to reveal to us, the mysteries of our being and our behavior. Such revelation occurs through the Holy Ghost. We may receive the Holy Ghost without measure. Reception is not bound by a limit. It is not received only so much and then no more. True, it is received line upon line and precept upon precept, but Joseph Smith taught there is nothing that God reveals to the prophet or to the apostles that He is not willing to reveal to the least saint as soon as he or she is able to bear it. We are told, “ If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, k nowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things – that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal .”

[Doctrine and Covenants 42:61].

Humility is required to receive such revelation, to hear the voice of God, because God speaks in plain humility. [Ether 12:39]. But the process is sure – when we receive the gospel of Jesus Christ in humility, we then may receive the Holy Ghost, and with this reception, then receive a change of heart, one that transforms our view from the tragic to the glorious, from grief to joy, so that we receive the kingdom of God within.