1 response
At My Right and My Left Hand How do we have the Spirit of God without love? How has this religion influenced our people; is it conformity to rules and deference to authority? The wheat and the tares are always present in any group of those who follow Jesus. The center of Christ’s religion, our religion, is helping other people by way of ministry to them, setting the example as though God were there and doing it for the love of God and out of loyalty to God – it’s not having more than one wife, that’s polygyny. Having more than one wife is supposed to be the capstone upon our salvation; it has to be supported by all the rest. It’s the kind of people we are, more than what we profess that we “know” that makes us the Saints of God. We are supposed to be able to extend our caring, our mindfulness, and our love and maintain the energy of focused attention to extend to more and more persons, which is the practice of Celestial Plural Marriage. We are supposed to make ourselves “a bridge over troubled waters,” as Paul Simon puts it, arcing between them and the Lord, whom we are supposed to know quite well. In our preparation in the days of childhood, we were supposed to be learning and incorporating into ourselves the way to reproduce the person of the Savior in ourselves, the better to minister to others. Part is becoming familiar with the scriptures so that we know their background and the landscape wherein key teachings are to be found. We should acquire a sense of the structure of the plan of salvation and its gospel details so scriptures are understood correctly and we know the spirit in which we are to live it. We need to be comfortable with truth so our minds don’t just bounce off it in incomprehension. Part is learning to discipline and control our own natures, master our natural man so as not to give offense to the innocent, or contend inappropriately with the guilty. Another part is becoming acquainted with the mind and Spirit of the Lord through directed prayer during which we also listen and take heed. We need to learn to work with others appropriate to their situation: the more experienced, peers at our level of attainment, and those less mature in their development. We impart of our knowledge strength, prayer strength and physical strength and affiliative strength according to the needs of three groups. We should strive to amalgamate our nature with that of God. We should strive to be fluent in friendship, the better to grow together. We should cultivate discernment by being aware of the significance of our choices and making the right ones, the better to become sensitive to the honor of God. We should be about making God’s ways our ways. We should be measuring all things by the rod of God’s standard we have acquired through living, studying, listening, and practicing. We’ve made one important part, polygyny, THE important part, diminishing the “good part,” the foundation upon which all this rests and without which we cannot be acceptable to the Lord. We must combine what we have come to understand as Mormonism and our way of living it with what men have come to know as Christianity, the light and love of Christ, and since we don’t have it in abundance, we have to fill our lamps or we will remain in the dark. Why did Jesus tell the learned and prominent and “observant” rulers in Israel that the tax collectors and prostitutes would enter into the kingdom of Heaven before them? He was revealing the great importance he places on those who have a spark of love for one another and glowing response to his ministry and person, upon which he can build, worlds without end. The others were cold-hearted, indifferent to suffering they could have relieved. Instead of being full of a spirit of compassion and charity, they were full of themselves. In the language of our time, generations of those who inherited the seat of Moses had changed the intent of the Lord through Moses and rigged the game in favor of the Casino, the Casino being themselves. They presided over a multitude of bound and blinded followers, who may have been resentful, but knew of no other way to relate to God than through the priests of the Temple and the one-armed banditry of the money-changers. This capacity to be moved by the inner fire of love lies at the heart of the invisible mystery of why some are chosen and others are left, despite appearances. This is why Jesus tells us to be careful with our judgment of others and judge using the criteria he has set for making righteous judgment, and not be quick to condemn without being aware of more than one side. He wants those who would be in greater measure his own to support the salvation of others, not drive them deeper into their own errors, or to stop trying. The gospel describes it this way: “and his bowels were moved by compassion.” It takes openness and seeking on their part, and also a trigger-incident to unleash strong emotion to get someone to make the kind of commitment to serving the Lord that the Apostles of old had. There is always a bigger picture to be fathomed. One of the qualities of a Saint who can go the distance, is the ability to hold back from latching on to one set of understandings of the gospel and not be able to be open to considering another level. We see this with the sectarians and with the LDS Mormons, who may be well-behaved and substantially contented with their spiritual landscape, but emotionally capsized by an encounter with a greater portion. We in our present situation are no different than they. We, also, must be prepared, likewise, to entertain a rearrangement of how we understand the gospel and live it. If we can do this, we will be ready to receive that portion of the greater light and knowledge the Lord prepared for the chosen of his people in the pre-millennial antechamber of time the world is now entering. The light upon which we guide as our understanding enters new countries is the Lord’s unchanging love for his people, and if we are to be a part with him as we move from gospel level to gospel level and quorum to quorum and world to world, we must feel in ourselves after the way he feels for all those on the path to a perfection of their natures. It is well for us to be patient and restrained, the better to learn. Many of the things we struggle with seem of less significance when viewed from the perspective that there is and will be always more to attain to and be spiritually and emotionally enriched by. God’s power will always include a growing circle and vista of others to raise, not devalue, limit, or exploit. God’s disciples grow together. Arrogance and contempt and indifference and callousness are the Devil’s counterfeit of Godly governance – wherever found. The Savior is about empowering, not enslaving. God hides His light so we can grow to Him on our own. “Many shall come in my name, crying, Lord, Lord.”
— A posthaven user