Love as a motivation

Dear friend

What motivates God to do all the things He does for us? It is not a hard question. The answer is confirmed in this verse from the Old Testament, Isaiah 63:7.

7 I will mention the lovingkindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed on us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which he hath bestowed on them according to his mercies, and according to the multitude of his lovingkindnesses.

What a great phrase, "the multitude of his lovingkindnesses". The Father and the Son love us and are kind to us in a multiplicity of ways. And how did we, the people of this world, show our thanks for this infinite magnanimity when He came among us in person? Again, the question is not a difficult one. The answer is starkly summarised in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 19:9.

9 And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.

Even after the rancorous regicidal event, it is hard to conceive how people could so readily conspire to kill their God. Of course, it was eternally necessary that Jesus Christ should be sacrificed, but our fellow earthlings did the deed most despicably. Yet His response to the prejudicial persecution was to submit with an act of "greater love".

The Lord's key message was to follow Him and to do the things He did. The key virtue He exemplified was love. So for the third easy question, what does that mean we need to develop? If there were any doubt, the Apostle Paul summed up the answer in the New Testament, Ephesians 4:32.

32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

"Lovingkindness", it sounds so sweet a word to say. I pray we can find it as something sweet to do, and even sweeter to be.

Samuel.

Spiritual understanding vs. worldly wisdom

Dear friend

It sounds blatantly braggadocious to boldly claim to know more, or know better, than others. Yet people of faith the world over make just such challenging claims of greater knowledge in their expository exchanges with non-believers. Of course, believers often receive more than their share of criticism for suggesting as real their support for the supernatural, such as; miracles, life after death, and answers to prayers from an unseeable deity. The ubiquitousness of the unbelievers' lack of understanding has been a problem for centuries. The Apostle Paul warned against manifestations of sceptical secularism as recorded in the New Testament, Ephesians 4:17-21.

17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

Those not-of-the-faith ancients are characterised in ways which have their equivalences in our times. These features include: mental vanity which can mean anything from intellectual emptiness to moral depravity; darkened understanding, as in, not illuminated by gospel light; alienation from God due to ignorance; hearts that are blind, cold or hard; being past feeling which is possibly somewhere between apathy and spiritual insensitivity; and, having a tendency towards immorality, impurity and excess.

Paul reminds the Church members in Ephesus how they have been taught about Christ. They have the greater light and knowledge that distinguishes them from non-believers.

I hope we can see through worldly wisdom and it's predictable predilection for wicked ways. But let us strive to be humble, non-confrontational testators of truth.

Samuel.