7/11/2018 - Section 102:5-14

July 11, 2018

Section 103:5-14

Lord’s Parenting, Obedience, Straighten Up & Fly Right, Patience, Persistence,

The Lord continues to explain why he permitted the abuses to the saints by the mobs of Jackson County. And in v 5 he tells them how to correct things: “But verily I say unto you, that I have decreed a decree which my people shall realized, inasmuch as they hearken fro this very hour unto the counsel which I, the Lord their God, shall give unto them.” He doesn’t ask them to get better step by step. He asks them to keep the counsel that he gives them FROM THIS VERY HOUR. They have suffered greatly because they let so many little things keep them from following the Lord’s commands explicitly. There are many times we grow bit by bit, but they had been very remiss, and very selfish, and very proud, and the Lord tells them to stop that immediately and never repeat it. There are times I told my children in no uncertain terms to straighten up and fly right. The Lord’s way of saying that is that his saints are “set to be a light unto the world, and to be saviors of men. And inasmuch as they not saviors of men, they are as salt that has lost its savor…”(v9-10) After that warning, he gives us very practical encouragement—we have to work to get back where we should be: “For after much tribulation, as I have said unto you in a former commandment, cometh the blessing.    Behold, this is the blessing which I have promised after yhour tribulations and the tribulations of your brethren—your redemption, and the redemption of your brethren, een their restoration to the land of Zion, to be established, no more to be thrown down.” (v12-13) Our road back to him requires patience and persistence. The best thing about that is that when we ARE patient and when we ARE persistent, we feel the strength—and the comfort-- of his spirit. And there is nothing better than that.