Why rebel against God?

Jacob, the brother of Nephi and son of Lehi, in The Book of Mormon, wrote he and others wished that, "...we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world; wherefore, I, Jacob, take it upon me to fulfil the commandment of my brother Nephi."

My question is, why should we rebel against God?  We've already accepted His Plan of Salvation, received our precious bodies, and know of Him and His goodness--why would we ever rebel against that Loving Parent?  Why would we ever choose to disobey that Perfect Father who loves us Perfectly and provides for us?  Maybe we are pissed because of the inequity in the world?  Maybe we think of that homeless person we avoided on the street or just wished we wouldn't run into, and we are mad at God for them?  It's just not fair that bad things happen to good people?  Even good people trying their best to serve God have bad things happen to them...

The real question, however, is: why do YOU do things that you know you shouldn't?

A better question, and one a trifle less judgmental is: why am I not experiencing the joy that this life was designed to be?  President Russell M. Nelson answered just that question in his General Conference talk in October of 2016 called, Joy and Spiritual Survival.  This life, offerers experiences For our Spiritual Development and Learning.

All I have to do is not rebel against God and live my life helping others.  Love God and my neighbor, right?

JPS

The Lost Sheep and Agency

Presidemt Dieter Friederich Uchtdorf proclaimed, in his talk in April 2016 talk, "He Will Place You on His Shoulders and Carry You Home", that God will force no man to heaven, in his discussion about how Christ's mercy will seek-out and rescue those (specifically talking about the one who is lost out of 100 sheep) who are but who will but ask for His help.  No payment is needed or even accepted; nothing due; no pre-requisite waited for.  All of this in direct and painful contrast to Lucifer's bold claim that "he would save ALL of God's children" if only God would grant him His honor (that the universe's intelligences would bow to his commands).

One who paid the debt to be able to save, with blood dripping from every poor as He chose to feel the pain, anguish, fear, worry, stress, sickness, and horror that anyone oils ever feel in this life, versus one  who makes empty promises that could literally never come to pass but who asks for all of the glory in return.  Yet, somehow, one third of the host of heaven were fooled or beguiled into choosing an eternity of living with and as this sad serpent indtead of inheriting a kingdom of gory with a resurrected and immortal body.  How?  And that's not even the saddest part--his lies are fooling so many people today to not follow their conscience and act on the truth that they know to be the right thing to do!

The joyful irony at the end of the day (or the end of this mortal life as well...), is that Christ did what Satan only purported to be able to do (but would not have been able to do in the slightest way)--Save those rare sons of perdition, there is no life so shattered it cannot be restored--everyone will be raised to a kingdom of glory because of Jesus Christ's atonement!

Dare to do right!  Dare to be true!  You have a work that no other can do!

JPS

Ponderize Alma 3:27

Book of Mormon, Book of Alma, chapter 3, verse 27 says: "For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey, and this according to the words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth..."

If you are not familiar with the word, "ponderize" you should really see/hear to this talk.

Now that we know what ponderizing is and we have the verse of scripture, let's discuss and ponderize, shall we?

With what should we start-off?  "Receiveth wages"-- Who would pay you?  Your employer/he whom you obey.  Who do you obey: God or Satan?  Whoever it is, that's who is going to pay you: you are either going to receive Eternal Life or suffer with the devil and all those who follow him (ever thought of that before?  If you are sinning and following Satan you are laying your sleeping-bag next to Cain, Judas, and even Hitler--maybe that's enough to shake you out of your sleep; Hitler!  Sometimes we need to bring our thoughts back home--back to our own person/mind and deal with a subject that we can feel in our own chest or mind--most human beings have negative feelings towards Adolf Hitler and consequently consider him a bad guy and so to be compared to him might arouse a feeling that might make you shudder or squirm or vomit.  Then again, you might just disregard it altogether, just as you would with Satan or Cain or Judas, in which case, praying or reading scriptures or an angelic visit might be all that could wake you up!).

Are you following Christ or Hitler?  Whomever it is, is going to pay your wages: Christ will give you everything that The Father is giving Him, or Hitler/Satan/Judas/Cain will drag you down to be ruled-over by Cain in Outer Darkness.

The spirit of prophecy is telling you that whomever you choose to obey, by them you will be rewarded!  Every man, that is, chooses whom to obey with every choice he or she makes.  Every man will receive either a blessing or a damnation, depending on who was followed or chosen.

Next, "listeth"?  I thought it might give me more insight into the passage if I looked it up:

From Middle English liste, from Old English list ‎(“art, cleverness, cunning, experience, skill, craft”), from Proto-Germanic *listiz ‎(“craft, art”), from Proto-Indo-European *leys-, *leyǝs- ‎(“track, furrow, trace, trail”). Cognate with Scots list ‎(“art, skill, craft, cunning”), Saterland Frisian list ‎(“cunning, knowledge”), Dutch list ‎(“ruse, strategem, guile, artifice, sleight”), Low German list ‎(“wisdom, prudence, cunning, artifice”), German List ‎(“cunning, ruse, trick, guile, ploy”), Swedish list ‎(“cunning, art, trick, ruse, wile, guile, stealth”), Icelandic list ‎(“art”). Related to lore, lere, learn. (Wiktionary)

The wind blows where it goes in its experience of skill and cleverness (and cunningly gets to places it shouldn't otherwise go...).

It is also found in John 3:8:

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

In John, "listeth" seems to mean: must go or decrees, as in the wind blow where it is commanded to blow as the Spirit follows where it decrees or has been decreed to go.

Synthesizing the two conclusions: For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth (or goes according to his experience and skill or is commanded to go) to obey

Let it be according to the truth!

JPS

Feeling God's Love

1) God wants us to have Joy!

It is, after all His Eternal Work & Glory to bring to pass the immortality and Eternal Life of man (the Book of Moses 1:39)

2) Nothing unclean can enter God's kingdom (D&C 109:20; 94:9; 1 Nephi 10:21; Alma 11:37; & 3 Nephi 27:19)

+

God's kingdom is a kingdom of order (D&C 132:8), which means that we can't just do whatever we want and whatever makes us feel good

3) Therefore, man must obey God's commandments and repent if he or she is going to be able to enter into God's kingdom and inherit Eternal Life!

... But ...

Let's face it...  This is not probable...that is...until men and women know and feel God's LOVE for them!

I mean, it already flies in the face of man's nature (Mosiah 3:19) to do good and repent--it's just not what we like to do!  But...  If a child (and we are all God's children--every single person to be born on this Earth!) feels that love from his/His father, he will do anything that he is told by his father/Father.

JPS

I would rather have nothing than have everyone be equal to me! - Satan/Lucifer

Satan, or rather, Lucifer, wanted to have God the Father's (my Heavenly Father and your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's Heavenly Father and Lucifer's) glory and wanted to take away our agency or force us to follow him, as well as hated Jesus Christ and His being chosen to carry-out our Heavenly Father's eternal plan.

There is a reason why the scriptures attest that in nothing is God offended but in our ingratitude.  Lucifer was a son of the morning and held some authority among God's children, but was so ungrateful that he wanted ALL of Our Father's glory--all of it!  Just so happened that he couldn't stand the thought of every one of His children having an equal opportunity to inherit all that the Father hath.  The irony of it is, that he tempts us to be ungrateful and inherit nothing--the same as he receives--so, all of Lucifer's or Satan's followers will receive the exact same thing: NOTHING!  In the end, his plan is carried out (by those who follow him).  Only, every damned soul that came to Earth will be resurrected and therefore have an Eternal body, which Satan will never have.  Ever.  I understand that Pride is the gateway sin to all other sins, but isn't ingratitude also?

JPS

God's Love & Commandments

Until we, as human beings and, more importantly, as children of God, understand and allow ourselves to feel Our Heavenly Father's love and Our Savior's love for us, we are NOT likely to follow Their commandments!

As was said in General Conference:

God never loses sight of our eternal potential, even when we do!
- Carol M. Stevens

JPS

You gotta have faith... Just gotta have faith...

Why is it that we, as human beings and more importantly, we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ (unless you are not a member of the LDS church, but you are still, at least, a human being [and so this applies to you just the same...]), hear the prophets say something or give us a promise--like Moses prophesying to Pharaoh, "free my people or all of the first born of Egypt will die"--and we still doubt it, still continue on doing what we were doing before, still are naysayers, or even admitting that we know we shouldn't but keep doing it anyway?  Why don't we always do what is right when we have been asked to do it?

Why can't we liken the scriptures to ourselves, as Isaiah and Nephi tell us to?  Why can't we put ourselves in someone's shoes and trust that our outcome will be the same or similar to other people's?

When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, why can't we hear what Our Lord and God is telling us, and believe Him?

Why do I feel like Alma when he wishes that he were an angel in Alma chapter 29?  Am I sinning in my wish?  I am content with the things given to me...really...I am!

JPS

Will you have lived in such a way that God can work His miracles through you (or will you be cut to pieces)?

President Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf gave a world-class talk (as usual) in the Priesthood Session in October of 2015 called, Be Not Afraid, Only Believe.  The talk begs the question: What would you do if an opportunity or challenge appears that you are not ready to take-on or accomplish?  Really, the talk speaks of Daniel, who becomes kidnapped and forced to walk 500 miles to his new home live in the land of Babylon where he would be taught to live with and around those who practiced a foreign religion.  Daniel was a follower of the Hebrew God, Jehovah, and he stayed true to his faith.

That foreign religion would have been, to Daniel, the worship of a false God.  Their rites and prayers would have all been vein.  The kicker, though, was that Daniel could and would been burned in a fiery furnace (think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego who miraculously survived a fiery death!).  In fact, Daniel and his colleague students taken to Babylon were under a threat from King Nebuchadnezzar to perform he seemingly impossible: Recount a dream that the king had had and reveal it's interprettation!  Who could do such a thing?  Impossible, right?

Daniel, however, did not doubt that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that he had worshipped his entire life, could and would reveal it to him.  In fact, He did.  "Daniel believed.  He did not doubt."  The fact that he did, saved the life of not only Daniel, but all of all the soothsayers, astrologers, astronomers, priests, counselors, magicians, and wise-men whom Nebuchadnezzar had charged with the task or they would be cut into pieces!

My question, then, is similar to President Uchtdorf's and applied to each of us: Will you have lived in such a way that God can work his miracles through you?  What if Daniel had eaten the food offered to him by the King, what if Daniel hadn't kept his covenants and commandments he'd entered into. and culminating in question: what if Daniel hadn't lived in such a way that God can work His miracles through him?

What if we don't?  Are we fulfilling every promise made to us by our Stake Patriarch?  Are we living the way we should?

JPS

What barriers has God placed along your life's pathway for your protection?

God's laws and commandments create our freedom
or
We are free BECAUSE of the laws and commandments that God has given us.

It is only because we keep God's commandments and adhere to His laws--when we act within the framework of God's laws--that we are kept free and safe.  For without the protection and safety that we have from the fact that we keep His laws and commandments that we can remain free--otherwise we are left fighting against Satan or the natural repercussions of our own choices, which is to not be free but to be in bondage or slavery!

"As you and I walk the paths of life and pursue our dreams, God’s commands and standards—like the barrier—can sometimes be difficult to understand. They may appear rigid and unyielding, blocking a path that looks fun and exciting and that is being followed by so many others."

"But He who “comprehend[s] all things” knows exactly where those dangers lie. He gives us divine direction, through His commands and loving guidance, so that we may avoid the dangers—so that we may set a course in our lives that is protected from spiritual predators and the gaping jaws of sin."

"We show our love for God—and our faith in Him—by doing our very best every day to follow the course that He has laid out for us and by keeping the commandments that He has given to us. We especially manifest that faith and love in situations where we don’t fully understand the reason for God’s commands or the particular path He is telling us to take. It is relatively easy to follow a course inside the barrier once we know there are sharp-toothed predators swarming just outside of it. It is more difficult to keep our course within the barrier when all we can see are thrilling and tantalizing waves on the other side. And yet it is in those times—times when we choose to exercise our faith, put our trust in God, and show our love to Him—that we grow and gain the most."

"Put another way, the Lord’s commands do not constitute some grueling underwater maze of barriers that we must learn to grudgingly endure in this life so that we might be exalted in the next. Rather, the barriers established by the Lord create for us a safe harbor from the evil and destructive influences that would otherwise drag us down to the depths of despair. The Lord’s commandments are given out of love and caring; they are intended for our joy in this life just as much as they are intended for our joy and exaltation in the next. They mark the way that we should act—and more importantly, they illuminate who we should become."

"The barrier offered protection, safety, and peace."

"True obedience, therefore, is giving ourselves entirely to Him and allowing Him to chart our course both in calm waters and in troubled ones, understanding that He can make more of us than we could ever make of ourselves."

Elder Vaughn G Keech (Oct 15)

This is the only true freedom that we can experience--when we choose to obey God's commandments--or when we place our choices in God's hands and He can give it right back to us accompanied by the freedom that He grants unto His children and the consequences of that choice.

JPS

Chastening, again, really?

We find in the Book of Mormon--Another Testament of Jesus Christ, in the book of Mosiah (one of 15 sections in that book of scripture), 23rd chapter and 21st verse: "Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith."

Are you kidding me?  You're telling me that after all the malarky that I have to go through in this life from friends, family, work, school, etc. that The Lord Almighty can't see how and what I will do from that alone?  Now He's got to try my patience and my faith?

Hold on...  I thought that He was not only an all knowing and a benevolent God.  So, what's the angle with the "trying" and "testing"?

Wait, wait, young son...  God is not only Kind and Loving and Patient and Long-suffering, but He is also infinitely charitable and doing what He does out of Love!  For He has told Moses, "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (1:39)"

In His love, we, His children don't and can't become all that we are to become without His testing-and-trying out of endless Love.  Not only do we have to meet a certain level of righteousness and spiritual stature and obedience through Christ's grace, but we have to know (not just a matter of confidence, but pure and unadulterated knowledge) that we can do anything with God's help; become anything with God's help; become like God with God's help.

That's what the scripture says, right?  Let's hear that again: "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  In the Holy Bible it says something almost exactly like it: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."  Christ didn't give us any commandments that we couldn't do...  Did He?  Why even say it if He knew we couldn't do it?  Fact is: Jesus Christ never said or did one single thing that was inauthentic or misleading or deceitful, therefore, He knew that we could become perfect just like His and our Father--A God.

What?  Hold on!  You've gone too far...  Just wait a second...

But it says it right in the Bible!  Not only that, but in a verse of scripture read hundreds upon thousands of times by any bible-reading-person!

There it is...

JPS