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9 - 15 Mar - Learn With Joy and Not With Sorrow - Jacob 1 - 4

Jacob 1 - That We Might Persuade Them to Come Unto Christ I'm taking an online economics class right now, which prompted me to think of the definition of economics in the context of the scriptures. Economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. In the case of Nephi and his successor Jacob, the plates upon which they engraved their record was a scarce resource. They were costly to make and difficult to engrave, and instilling a tradition of passing them through generations was surely cumbersome.  Recognizing the great importance of spiritual things and the challenge of maintaining records, Nephi instructed Jacob to prioritize religious instruction saying, " if there were preaching which was sacred, or revelation which was great, or prophesying, that I should engraven the heads of them upon these plates, and touch upon them as much as it were possible, for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of our people" (Jacob 1:4).   This priority was not only reflecte...
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Mosiah 2 - All That You Have and Are


King Benjamin opened his sermon by encouraging his people to be grateful, and to serve God and their fellow beings. 

 Gratitude
Only after I had children of my own did get an inkling of the immense love my parents have for me and the sacrifices they made to serve me. In a similar way, there is no way for us to truly know and appreciate all that the Lord has done for us. In our limited, mortal view we can only see a portion of the ways He has blessed us. As King Benjamin explains, "in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him. And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you" (Mosiah 2:23-24). God has given us our lives and everything we have, for which we owe and eternal debt of gratitude. Even if we were to try to pay Him back through obedience and good works, He extends additional blessings for righteous. 

 King Benjamin expounds on the impossibility of repaying the Lord to emphasize the need for gratitude: "I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants" (Mosiah 2:20-21).

 Service
The implicit instruction in Benjamin's discourse on gratitude is that our gratitude should motivate our love and service. Truly we "are eternally indebted to your heavenly Father, to render to him all that you have and are" (Mosiah 2:34). To love god is the first and great commandment. In the New Testament Christ taught "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment" (Mark 12:30). Serving God can feel like an ambiguous and amorphous task, but King Benjamin clarifies and reinforces this teaching. "I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17).

 We demonstrate our love of God in the way that we treat those around us. "Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:37-40). Christ instructs us to love and serve "the least of these." Overcoming self-interest to help even "the most of these," those that we know and love who serve us in return, can be difficult. How much harder is it to love and serve those who do not meet our threshold of worthiness to deserver our love. 

 If we aspire to be true followers of Christ, this commandment may require some excruciating soul-searching and some uncomfortable conclusions about our willingness to serve. We may open our checkbooks for hurricane and flooding victims in another state, but not for the homeless in our own community. We like the idea of feeding the poor, unless the location of the soup kitchen reduces our home property value. The elderly merit our time and compassion, but not the convicted felon. These are only examples that may not resonate for you, but we all have an internal threshold for worthiness, and Christ challenges us to recalibrate it. Just as God has commanded us to forgive everyone, he has also commanded us to serve everyone. While we must be prudent in what we give and how we serve to maintain boundaries and safety, there is no limitation on the love and concern we should feel for "the least of these."

 The promise for choosing to live this way is glorious, and we will always receive far more than we ever give in the service of God. "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it" (Mosiah 2:41)
Application Questions: 

 What criteria do you use to evaluate whether someone deserves your love and service? How can you shift this threshold to approach God's instruction to serve "the least of these."

 How has following God's instructions for your life blessed you? What do you stand to gain through greater obedience?

Image Credit: Chicago Tribune

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