Titles: Divine Nature of God and Self, Divinity is Within You, God Is in Your DNA, If We Only

Knew Our Potential

Kicker: If we could see our potential, how different would we be? Would we treat others
differently?
Sometimes, we just really feel like terrible people. We ask ourselves, Why did I mess that up
again? Why couldnt I have done this better? We plague ourselves with judgment without
realizing how far weve come or just how far we can stillyet go. In March 1974, Truman G.
Madsen, who held theformer Richard L. Evans Chair of Christian Understanding at BYU, gave a
fireside address titled The Highest in Us, referring to our divine potential.
Brother Madsen highlights the true nature of God, which differs greatly from the noncorporeal God often presented in other religions. He presents how he defended the nature of God
and Christ, along with our ability to become gods, in a discussion at a theological seminary in
which he was accused of blasphemy.
The truth is, and I bear it humbly, that even the person you think the worst offand in
some cases that may be yourselfeven that personality that it has been most difficult for you to
forgive will be, in a century or two, in such a condition that if you saw him or her your first
impulse would be to kneel in reverence, Madsen says. The truth is that the embryo within the
worst of us is divine. The truth is that there is nothing you can do to really destroy that fact. The
potential is there.
Brother Madsen says that if we were to realize who we are and what we did to get here,
that if we knew the latent infinite power that is within us, then we would never again yield to
any of the putdowns that are a dime a dozen in our culture today.
We all have the potential to become gods to become the best versions of ourselves
just as God did. And Aas we accept that truth for ourselves and for others, we can be a shining
light in the darkness and defend the cause of Jesus Christ.
Word Count: 320
Read Truman G. Madsens talk, The Highest In Us, here.
Pull quotes:
The truth is that the embryo within the worst of us is divine. The truth is that there is
nothing you can do to really destroy that fact. The potential is there. (Truman G.
Madsen)
As man now is God once was. As God now is man may become. (Lorenzo Snow)
the work of salvation is the glorious work of Jesus Christ. But it is also the glorious
work of the uncovering and recovering of your own latent divinity. (Truman G. Madsen)