I have a list of the scriptural greats that I admire. It started with five of my favourites and has grown over the years as they became my teachers and sources of inspiration. Here they are:
- ABRAHAM for his righteousness, his care of his fellowmen and unfathomable trust in God;
- - ENOCH
for his power of the word and his passionate soul;
- - ISAIAH
for his poetic rhetoric and revelatory insight of promised Messiah;
- - MOSES
for choosing slavery over the splendour of Egypt; for believing in his mission
and undertaking such a mammoth task;
- - JOSEPH
of EGYPT for his uprightness in a heathen land and his ultimate success against
all odds;
- - JEREMIAH
for his unrelenting ministry despite his sufferings;
- - ELIJAH
for his humanity by wishing he could die to end his aloneness and seemingly
fruitless labours and for his power born out of his love and obedience for the
one true and living God;
- - EZEKIEL
for the exactness of his missionary tasks in the heathen Babylon despite his
people’s mockery and disregard of him;
- - JOHN
THE BELOVED for being the Beloved…and his unfailing devotion to Christ and his
work that spans eons of time….I want to see him…..desperately….
- - PAUL
for having forsaken ALL for ‘the excellence of the knowledge of Christ’ and his
unrelenting missionary labours;
- - LEHI
for being a revelatory dreamer and choosing hardship by obedience over his
prosperity;
- - ALMA
THE YOUNGER for his personal journey, for progressing from being one of the
vilest of sinners to sorrowing over the sins of his people;
- - MORMON for his steadfastness in the most evil society by proclaiming himself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, and his impeccable care and compilation of ancient records for our benefit;
And last but certainly not the least, NEPHI, for
always giving credit to God and for his tenacious, inexhaustible faith, but
most of all for the exactness of his unfailing obedience. What a delight this man must have been to his parents. Imagine
having a son who never questions your wisdom and follows your counsel and
guidance with exactness, never wavering. Imagine having a son who does not
think your ideas are outdated and your dreams foolishness. A son who is willing
to follow you to the ends of the earth and who respects your patriarchal
leadership within the family. Imagine a son who never shirks from what you ask
of him no matter how hard the task; one who has complete trust in God and never
deviates from his commitment to Him. A son who knows his limitations and
strengths yet never allows pride to lift him higher than his fellow beings.
This was Nephi.
Nephi modelled
himself after another obedient son, whom he knew through close association (2 N
11:3) and whom He followed diligently. The more he followed, the more like the
Master he became. What a legacy of obedience Nephi left to all who would
see the man behind all he endured, even as did the Son of Man. Nephi, the greatest
start to a record that qualifies so valiantly as the second witness of Jesus
Christ. Nephi, who fittingly ended his record by summing up the integrity of his
character in three most profound words found in scripture: 'I must obey' (2
Nephi 33:15).
How much you must love those
Who bear witness of Thy holy name.
Thy prophets, Thine everlasting
friends,
Thine angels who herald
Thy gospel and Thy name;
To the ends of the earth they speak
And their words forever remain.
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