SERVANTS OF LOVE

 

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 Imagine having a son who does not think your ideas are outdated and your dreams foolishness.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.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art by Liz Lemon Swindle)

A GOD YET A BOY

 

“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man……and continued from grace to grace until he received a fulness.”   (Luke 2:52; D&C 93:13)

We know little about the boyhood of Jesus but what little we know is befitting of the God who condescended to be a mortal to save humanity. From a dependent babe in arms Jesus grew into a boy who was in all things subject unto his earthly parents even though He was in every way superior to them (Luke 2:51). It shows incredible meekness. And even though He was endowed with talents and spiritual capacities exceeding those of any other person, He participated in the normal activities and experiences of His time and was subject to the restrictions and testings of mortality (Hebrews 2:10-18; 4:15; 5:8-9; Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:111)

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that as a boy, Jesus Christ possessed superior intelligence to all mortals: “When still a boy He had all the intelligence necessary to enable Him to rule and govern the kingdom of the Jews, and could reason with the wisest and most profound doctors of law and divinity, and make their theories and practice to appear like folly compared with the wisdom He possessed.” (in History of the Church, 6:608)

It is evident that by the age of 12 the Saviour knew who He was. When He was found in the temple teaching the doctors of the law who ‘were hearing Him and asking Him questions’ (JST Luke 2:46), He confirmed as much telling Joseph and Mary that He was about His ‘Father’s business’ (Luke 2:49). It is said Christ started His ministry at 30 years of age but to me He started at 12. A boy, yet a God, who at 12 proved, in the temple, the Father is with Him and that He will ‘do always those things that please him’ (John 8:29).

 

Did You see me Father

Giving glory to Thy name?

My words of Thee

Flowing from my tongue

Like a holy flame.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: When Did He Know by Liz Lemon Swindle)