10/19/2018 - Section 117:7-16

October 19, 2018

Section 117:7-16

Keeping Commandments, Service to the Lord, Failure and Success, Do Our Best with Love,

The Lord is trying to tell the people just how to live the gospel. To Newel K Whitney the Lord challenges him to “be a bishop unto my people…not in name but in deed.” (v 11) This reminds me of the comment that I have heard many times at church: in the service of the Lord, it is not where you serve but how. (I think it was first said by J. Reben Clark Jr in April 1951 General Conference. In verses 12-16 the Lord is praising Oliver Granger (the man who carried this revelation from where Joseph was in Far West, to those who were lingering in Kirtland) and he is also asking him to do something more. And then comes the phrase in v 13: “and when he alls he shall rise again, for his sacrefice shall be more sacred unto me than his increase, saith the Lord.” We all fall at one time or another, but if we are trying always to do our best, the Lord will help us up, dust us off, and set us on the right path again with a kind heart and a basket full of blessings from all the things we tried to do and managed to do them well. The Lord does not excuse us because of our weaknesses. He gives us commandments and calling so we can grow.