The Lord teaches with Love and patience

Heavenly Father is such a wonderful parent and teaches us his children with love and patience. I love the example given in Ether where the brother of Jared came to the Lord and asked how they might have light in the barges. The Lord had given him explicit instructions how to build the barges but when the brother of Jared can to ask about this simple thing. The Lord answered, “What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?” (Ether 2:23)

The brother of Jared must have thought about it a great deal. The Lord had said they could not have windows for they would be dashed to pieces and fire would be too dangerous. Then he figured out what to do. He went up into the mountain and molten out of rock one stones (or hard round objects) for each vessel. The stones were transparent like glass. Perhaps the brother of Jared had seen the light of Christ as he prayed. In any case he understood that the Lord is light, and if he could touch each stone it would be filled with light. (Ether chapter 3:1-6)

The Lord did not give him a task too hard for him and he even told him what would not work like any loving teacher or parent. Can we apply this to our lives?

It is easy to love those who love you

“For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not the publicans the same?” (Matthew 3:46)  

Here is a scripture that I truly love, and yet I don’t think the Lord wants us to be stupid about it.  Yesterday I talked about some elements of Love in a particular scripture verse. Two elements I didn’t talk about were respect and acceptance. We can love a dysfunctional person without being co-dependent. The first step is to follow the first and great commandment “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

If we love other as God, who knows all things, loves them we accept and respect them as a child of God even as we ourselves are. We also accept that even as we ourselves have faults, we accept that others do as well. We probably don’t know what happened to make an individual angry, violent, or mean spirited, but we are not going to put ourselves in harms way. Neither am I (speaking only for myself here) going to allow an individual’s rough exterior keep me from loving them.

I just think it so sad when we allow a person’s low esteem to keep us from caring about them.

Elememts of Love

King Benjamin brought his people together in a great conference “that they might give thanks to the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Jerusalem, and who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies, and had appointed just men to be their king, who had established peace in the land of Zarahemia, and who had taught them to keep the commandments of God, that they might rejoice and be filled with love toward God and all men.” (Mosiah 2:4) 

I thought that today I would go through this verse and pick out elements of love. 

1.      Gratitude  (that they might give thanks)

2.      Safety (brought them out of Jerusalem and delivered them from their enemies.)

3.      Good people (just men)

4.      Peace (established peace)

5.      Truth (to keep the commandments)

6.      Happiness (that they might rejoice)

Can we apply this to relationships with our families and neighbors?

  

Despise not the chastening of the Lord.

“Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (Hebrews 12:5-6)

Apparently he loves me a lot. He really does. I know I learn so much from my experiences and I have so much more to learn. Besides I know I was one of those who shouted for joy (Job 38:7) So here I am, and I can’t complain.If I complain I open the door for Satan.

Does the Lord love us because we are good?

If we keep the Lords commandments, covenants and laws “he will love thee and bless thee.” (Deuteronomy 17:13)

That sounds like that he loves us and blesses us as a reward, but actually the truth is that no matter how much he loves us he cannot bless us unless we let him. I’m going to stop there before I go off on my tangent about self defeating behavior, and how we go about proving how bad we are.   

What is the greatest commandment?

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) 

This is my scripture for the day, but I have commented so many times on this that today I just going to let it sand as it is and you think about what it means in your life.