Government Agency

For those that expect to read a post about a politically extreme viewpoint I don't apologize, I rather suggest that you look elsewhere. Those of you familiar with my words know that you can expect some kind of interesting twist to the topic which may be perceived by the title I have placed at the top of this post. Even my best friend in the whole world doesn't even know what is coming with this post.

As I was recently studying a favorite Scripture Mastery scripture I was recently brought to the awareness of my own lack of understanding or comprehension of this entire verse. It is one that I know is oft repeated throughout much of the Church, but one that I feel that perhaps lacks the full recognizance necessary to properly promote the doctrines contained with in. If you open your sticks to 2 Nephi, Chapter 2, verse 27 you read:

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

Now, I bring your attention not to the heart of the verse that we most frequently focus on, but to the first two phrases of the verse which state that "men are free according to the flesh" and "all things are given them which are expedient unto men." How many of us have focused on the importance of these two phrases before, much less the footnotes attached to a couple of the words in these phrases? I'm guessing...probably very few of us.

When we cross-reference the footnote from the word "free" we are directed to Helaman 14:29-30:

29. And this to the intent that whosoever will believe might be saved and that whosoever will not believe, a righteous judgment might come upon them; and also if they are condemned they bring upon themselves their own condemnation.
30. And now remember, remember my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselfs; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.

Completely clear right? Okay...so maybe not exactly. When it suggests in this verse that we are free according to the flesh, maybe we can lengthen this and suggest that we are free according to the knowledge that we are given and according to the agency that we exercise amongst ourselves. This scripture also tells us that in essence - we have no one else to blame but ourselves for what we do. Yes, there are punishments affixed from God for what we do, but they are just that - affixed. This is to say that he doesn't mette out punishment subjectively or upon whom he wishes. Rather, he simply assigns that punishment to the crime and allows the great intercession of the Atonement to take place and apply mercy accordingly.

Now, what kind of a teacher would I be if I went through all of the footnotes provided and explained the interpretation for each and every one of them? I'll give you a hint - not a good one. Suffice it to say though, I will provide my summarization following:

When our Father tells us that something is expedient unto men - he is suggesting that it is good, sufficient, and for their well-being. Thus, for all things to be given to us - it suggests that he has given us the resources necessary for us to act for ourselves according to the sphere in which we reside. These resources include talents, leaders, scriptures, the Spirit, prophets, and a plethora of other beneficial aspects of life that are designed to allow us the most agency possible.

I believe that too often we become the figuratively lazy teenagers that make a half-hearted attempted at overcoming our problems and trials and then call for help in some way. While there is nothing wrong with asking for a little assistance here and there, we do have to recognize that we are literally agents unto ourselves and that we need to act accordingly, rather than react or be acted upon. When we place our burdens upon the Lord so often that we feel to be compelled in all things, we not only surrender that agency to ourselves, but we make light of and negate the talents and dominions which the Lord has bestowed upon us.

What exactly does it mean to be an agent? It means that we are held accountable to ourselves for all things that we do according to our knowledge. Thus you might say that the punishment fits the crime and the blessings are according to our faith and works. We can't expect to escape punishment for our shortfalls if we have had reason to act accordingly and chose not to. Thus, this fulfills the mandate that men are free according to the flesh.

Now, this is all well and good to be agents unto ourselves, but there is a twist. Should we use the agency given us in a self-destructive manner which allows the presence of Satan to become a dominant force in our lives, we lose our ability to be agents unto ourselves - either because the flesh has given itself slave to a more powerful and controlling force, or because we simply cannot obtain the guidance of the Spirit because it has been wronged. As such, our failure to do things the way that the Lord has provided leaves us on our own and as many scriptures suggest "left unto ourselves."

As we turn our lives more fully to the Savior we will find that our knowledge will continually increase and that we will have more dominion over ourselves and our choices. Let us all find ways that we can reapply ourselves to the Lord's plan and find the agency within ourselves that has been promised to us and guaranteed through the atoning blood of our Savior Jesus Christ.

The Chastisement of our Peace

First, thanks to all that read my blog. If some of you wouldn't mind commenting on it though - I'd appreciate it though. I know that there's a lot that follow it that I don't know - so if you are or read it frequently, please let me know! Thanks to all of you though for allowing me to share my testimony with all of you through this.

As I was in discussion with my favorite person in the whole world today, the words of a scriptural passage in Isaiah came to mind throughout. As such, I have decided to offer my insights on this passage.

Those of you scriptorians out there that read this know from the title the exact passage of scripture I plan to focus on here. This scripture is found in Isaiah 53:3-5 and reads:

3. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquained with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yes we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

This is a scripture that we've all heard before, and those of that have taken Seminary probably still have it memorized to some extent. The question that you have to ask yourself though is whether you truly realize the awesome extent of Isaiah's prophetic tribute. Yes, we most commonly recognize this scripture as referring to the atoning sacrifice paid by our Savior prior to his crucifixion at the meridian of time, but the problem is just that - its our common recognition and understanding of this scripture that causes us to fall well short of understanding the wealth of knowledge and spiritual reminder that this passage has to offer us.

I submit that many of us treat this scripture as we treat our understanding of the Atonement - which is to simply acknowledge its cleansing power insofar as it becomes necessary for our penitence towards salvation, but in reality acknowledging its power little further. The problem is that if this is our sole view of the Atonement, we have neither an adequate understanding of the life of our Elder Brother, nor do we comprehend the magnitude of His sacrifice during His final hours in mortality.

The interesting aspect of this scripture is not to just dissect its many parts, but in the way that Isaiah speaks Messianically we are somewhat permitted to allow our imaginations to place us almost in those final moments among the crowd that witnessed the illegal trial before the Sanhedrin which condemned our Savior to death. With that in mind though - let's move on to the dissection of the scripture a little bit that will hopefully open our minds to things.

We note in the 4th verse that He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows - which is nothing uncommon to us, but if we roll back to the 3rd verse it notes that he had his own griefs and sorrows to carry also. Too often I think we look at Christ as our Savior and put aside that he was a normal human being just like all of us - having feelings, which included sorrow, grief, pain, joy, sadness, etc. We know from scriptural accounts that he was sorrowful at the news of the passing of Lazarus, and we can easily assert that his foreknowledge of the betrayal by Judas had to have at least stricken him to some extent with sorrow for Judas' choice.

Now, the crux of this scriptural passage rests in the summation of its parts - meaning that we need not focus on just the sorrows and grief, but it also mentions, stricken, smitten of God, afflicted, iniquities, chastisement of peace (pain of peace), despising, and rejection. Why do I address all of these? I do it because I recognize that the true cleansing power of the Atonement covers all of those and rests not solely on the forgiveness of sin.

What does this mean to us individually though? It means that it covers those that have been victims of abuse, those that have had serious transgressions committed against them, those that struggle with finding their own identity, those that struggle to communicate, those that have weaknesses that they are unsure of how to address, those that simply are having a rough day, and the list goes on! What's worse is that our failure to acknowledge the Atonement as a keystone to our lives rather than a tool or a first-aid kit results in a great disservice to both our Heavenly Father who gave us His Beloved Son to work through those things.

It is our duty and privilege in this life to find ways that we can integrate the Savior's atonement into our lives more fully so that we can pattern our lives more fully towards receiving all that the Father has to give us. In order to do this though we have to have to be fully regcognizant of the fact that time is indeed of the essence. What I mean by this is that our delay in addressing those things which burden us and allow the Atonement to have full sway in our lives only causes additional pain and sorrow upon Him who cast his life before sinners and overcame all such that we might cast aside those very things.

We would never accept a gift from our best friend and then put it away in a closet and fail to use it or rather reject that gift and choose to not accept it - but yet when we choose not to invoke the Atonement into the most spiritually arid parts of our lives, we do that very thing. When we choose to delay ridding ourselves of those burdens which hinder our progression towards eternity, we concurrently choose to rid ourselves of any potential blessings we might receive through the cleansing and lightening power of that eternal Atonement.

May we find ways in our lives continually to invoke the power and blessing which the Father has to offer us in the name of His Son is my prayer.

On These Two Commandments

I know - its been the equivalent of eternity since I've written in my blog, but I've decided to try and repent and make this more of a frequent occurrence. I know, I've said similar before, but then again, I was in school before. Now that I've graduated with my B.S. and don't have a job yet, there's a lot more time to do other things...such as this! :-)

I have, admittedly, done a post on the topic which I am about to cover before - however, I plan to take this in a way different direction that I had previously done. In fact, you might say that this is the follow-up post to the previous blog that I had written on the subject.

It has been speculated in many an LDS religion class that I have attended that the response given by the Savior in Matthew 22 referencing to the greatest commandment and the Ten Commandments go hand-in-hand - though few seem to understand the connection, much less the magnitude of our Lord's response.

For those that are unfamiliar with this scripture that I refer to, you will find it in Matthew 22:34-40:

34. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

35. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question,, tempting him, and saying,

36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

[Emphasis added]

Now, lets keep these verses in our back pockets as we address the Ten Commandments. In short they are:

- No other Gods before God
- No graven images
- No bearing the name of God in vain
- Keep the Sabbath Day holy
- Honor parents
- Do not kill
- Do not commit adultery
- Do not steal
- No false witnesses
- No coveting neighbors house, family, possessions, etc.

Those that want to view my original post on the subject can go here:

Now, for those that want a tiny Hebrew lesson here it is: The first commandment does not truly say "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," but rather it states that "You shall not have any other Gods before my face" - which in the Hebrew culture was taken to mean that if anything stood before God - be it any practices, objects, etc. - then it was said to stand before God's face and get in the way of things.

In any case - how do we break down the Ten to become the two greatest commandments? This is simple because the Lord has essential done that for us already as such:

- No other Gods before God
- No graven images
- No bearing the name of God in vain
- Keep the Sabbath Day holy

-------------------------------------

- Honor parents
- Do not kill
- Do not commit adultery
- Do not steal
- No false witnesses
- No coveting neighbors house, family, possessions, etc.

What's interesting is that when we divide the commandments as such - we gain a greater understanding of our Father as a Heavenly being having been mortal before us, His vast plan, and the power of the Savior's response to the Pharisees.

As parents (which I am not yet, but hope to be someday with an amazing girl - she knows who she is) we have to understand that any children that we do have the opportunity to raise are on loan from our Heavenly Parents under whose charge we serve to love and rear in righteousness. With that plain fact in mind - we see that the two divisions of commandments are actually "headed" by two groups - Heavenly Parents and Earthly Parents.

The first section of these commandments we can refer to as "the Law" - which the Lord prescribed as "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind."

The second, being equal in likeness and weight is "the prophets" - which is to love [our] neighbors our ourselves. Note that in the second section of these commandments they are those commandments which involve injury or involvement of a second individual.

Now we must tie this all together to our modern-day and its applicability to us as individuals. The prophets of modern times have boldly declared and continually emphasize that the family is the most essential and fundamental unit to any society and it is only through the means of the family unit that the highest blessings of eternity are obtained. Notice who is at the heads of each and every one of these families? Fathers and mothers - whose honoring is required by commandment.

Conversely, the parents are not without spot or blame and bear a heavy responsibility in fulfillment and observance of this commandment. In the 68th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants we are reminded that "Inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents." (D&C 68:23)

Those that pay attention closely in the semi-Annual General Conferences held by the Church will note that many of the counsels given by the Prophet's are in reference to the governance of the family and towards those things that will allow for the observance of the "prophetic" section of the commandments to become almost natural and without much difficulty.

Why do I suggest this? I say this because I have found that it is almost near impossible to violate any of the "prophets" set of commandments if one is strictly adhering to those counsels contained in the Law. The problem is though - that many of us struggle with scripture study, prayer, Church attendance, idolatry, pride, etc. - which causes failure of many of the latter Ten Commandments.

I submit that as we recommit ourselves to a more careful adherence of the Law, we will find that our lives will naturally place themselves in the correct order and that we will encounter less problems with the latter portion of the Ten Commandments, and further we will be able to more fully honor our parents whose sacred responsibility it is to unite families for eternity.