From Larry W. Tippetts and his book “Receiving Personal Revelation”:
Three Categories of Personal Revelation
Revelation from God serves many purposes in our lives, but for ease of thinking and teaching about this subject it is helpful to group personal revelation into three broad categories. They circumscribe the great questions of mortality: What is true or real? How shall I live my Life? And then, arriving at the answers of the previous questions, What is true or real ? How can I remain faithful to the end?
1. What is true or real? Revelations of truth, knowledge, and understanding. For example, we can come to know of the existence of God, that Jesus is our Savior, and that the Book of Mormon is true. We may initially learn of these truths from our families, the scriptures, or living prophets, but the Holy Ghost will bear witness to us personally as we sincerely seek truth. There are hundreds of behaviors, principles, and doctrines which can be validated by personal revelation. A major gulf between peoples of today divides those who see the present as the essence of reality and those who believe in an eternal world, between those who believe that they are accountable only to themselves and those who believe they are accountable to Deity.
2. How shall I live my life? Revelation of Guidance and Direction. For example, we can receive help in making a decision to be baptized or serve a mission, where to go to college, or whether to take a particular job offer. This type of revelation can include promptings to visit a friend, seek forgiveness from someone we may have offended, or prepare a Sunday school lesson in a particular manner. We also receive revelatory guidance not to do a specific thing, such as not to attend a questionable movie, making a particular purchase, or doing something you were intending to do. The guidance may come in the form of an encouragement or warning. However, knowing that we are on this earth to learn to make decisions based on true principles, common sense, and our best judgement we should not expect God to make all our decisions for us.
3. How can we endure faithfully to the end? Revelations of divine assistance: strength, love, joy, reassurance, warning, encouragement, peace of mind, and so forth. This very common type of revelation includes any communication from God that has the effect of keeping us steadfast on the path of eternal life. We may receive a strong impression that a problem will eventually be resolved or that God is pleased with our efforts. This type of revelation includes the repeated assurance that our Heavenly Father is aware of our circumstances even when He does not remove the seemingly negative conditions of our lives. Revelations in this category also help us form a healthy inner life—attitudes, dispositions, character traits, temperaments, and outlooks—and ought to come frequently, day to day, even hour by hour during times of greatest need. I believe that this is what is meant by having the daily companionship of the Holy Ghost, although the constancy of this blessing is an ideal that must be continually sought after.
Missionaries teach investigators to first gain a testimony that God lives and that the Church is His kingdom on earth (revelation of truth and knowledge). Once they have that testimony, each investigator is faced with the decision to obey gospel principles and be baptized (revelation of guidance and direction). Finally, every new convert will face opposition and discouragement, which hopefully will turn them to God again and again (revelation of divine assistance), enabling them to grow and endure in faith to the end of the mortal experience.
The ultimate purpose of all revelation—personal or prophetic—is to change us. It is to help us overcome the effects of the fall, put off the natural man and become men and women of Christ. This lifelong process includes stages of spiritual awakening, spiritual progression, and ultimate sanctification, all made possible by the grace and mercy of our Savior and through the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Revelator. “Larry W. Tippetts, Receiving Personal Revelation (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications,2017) p. 26-27 (continued ! )
