This is semi-related to my previous post. A couple of days ago, I was able to meet with some friends to partake of the sacrament. We got there a few hours early and spent time conversing on spiritual things. They brought up something I think is important.
Those of us in this movement are mostly a friendly bunch. We greet each other with hugs. We help each other freely. We are glad to converse and share. We love to see each other. In fact, a big bonus of the ten-lecture sermon for most of us was that we got to meet each other in person. We spent hours talking to each other, ate at restaurants and in parks together, partook of the sacrament, and even performed baptisms on occasion.
The friends I conversed with a couple of days ago brought up something important. That is that our friendliness could be our undoing if we are not careful. They have made a rule about the husband not hugging other women and the wife not hugging other men. It could be very easy for wrong thoughts and wrong desires to enter one's mind and heart (if not immediately, then over the course of time).
They pointed out that some of the people who meet do not have companions who are "on board" with the ideas we are espousing. The friendliness can lead to sins or weird ideas, borne of the loneliness of being on the path without one's spouse. Ideas like being "spiritually" sealed to a man or a woman who is not one's husband or wife. A great deal of mischief can ensue, limited only by the imagination of men and women.
Truly Benjamin spoke rightly when he said, "And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them."
Book of Mormon | Mosiah 4:29
I sincerely hope and sincerely pray that we can do this, that we can connect with our Lord, that He will bring us to Zion, that darkness may leave and have no power over us anymore, at all. I pray that we will all be sensitive to the many ways in which we can err and sin so that we may be clean vessels of the Lord. I pray that we will all be sensitive to the many ways in which we can do good and serve our Lord, that we may be clean vessels of the Lord.
The first step is to connect with the Lord oneself - then one may help others to so do. Otherwise, is it not the blind leading the blind?
ReplyDeleteAnd the key to connecting with the Lord is this:
15 ¶If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
John 14:15-24
What are his commandments, his sayings, his words? Those things which he delivered by his own mouth. Luke 6, 3 Nephi 12-15, etc.
27 O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him.
28 Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.
Mormon 9:27-28
Fear, judgementality, covetousness, greed, jealousy, and the like, are temptations. Yield not unto them, but pray always, doing what the Lord said at all times.
True. If one does not know, one cannot really teach others. It is supposition and opinion if there is no actual knowledge, if there is no real, concrete connection to the Lord.
ReplyDelete