What Is a Prophet?

First, I sustain the First Presidency and member of the Twelve as Prophets, Seers, and Revelators. When I sustain them, I believe that they hold the keys of the administration of the church and have a heavy burden to carry. They have a great responsibility in managing the affairs of the church in a very secular world.

With that context regarding administration, I ask the question: What is a prophet? Is it exclusive to a calling?

According to John the Beloved, "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy". According to Elder McConkie, "Every person who receives revelation so that he knows, independent of any other source, of the divine Sonship of the Savior, has, by definition and in the very nature of things, the spirit of prophecy and is a prophet."

In Numbers 11:29 it states "Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!"

In this sense, becoming a prophet wouldn't authorize us to organize a Stake or set up a Mission. However, it is a requisite for exaltation for each of us to become a prophet. In other words, to know that Jesus is the Christ...to know that independent of any other source and thereby become a prophet in bearing witness of him and his mission.

How glorious it would be if we as a people were prophets in the sense that we could bear a witness of his reality, testify of his mission, and be filled with the spirit of prophecy!

Receive the Holy Ghost

I'll cite Nephi's words in the beginning of 2 Nephi 32.

"Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost" and at the same time we're told that once we receive the Holy Ghost "ye could speak with the tongue of angels." In other words, what allows an angel to speak with such power and conviction are when they speak the words of Christ and they are carried to the listener by the "power of the Holy Ghost."

If man has the potential to speak with the tongue of angels (in other words, by the same power) then we have to acquire that power by "feasting upon the words of Christ that will tell us all things what we should do." When we feast upon the words of Christ, we'll find individual instruction and direction to "bring us into the light." To summarize the words of Nephi, "this is the doctrine of Christ."

How easily is that spirit offended? How easily will he depart from us and we lose that power? If we pray, feast upon the words of Christ, and follow the individual instruction we receive, then we can have the Holy Ghost as a guide and companion and speak with the tongue of angels.