THE GRANDEUR OF OUR GOD

 

 

I began to read The Mortal Messiah series again and could not get past the preface. I became so emotionally overcome that I could not read any further.

Many of us think that we are studying the life of Christ when we study the New Testament. This is far from the truth. The Gospels are not biographies of Jesus but a synopsis of faith promoting accounts from the Saviour’s ministry.

“No mortal can write the biography of a God. A biography is but the projection through the eyes of a penman of what the writer believes were the acts and what he feels were the thoughts and emotions of another man…. How, then, can any mortal plumb the depths of the feelings, or understand in full the doings, of an Eternal Being?

“The true Life of Jesus must be written by the spirit of revelation and of prophecy and cannot come forth until that millennial day when men have a perfect knowledge that God can show them all things [see D&C 101:32-34]. Only then will they be able to believe and rejoice in the heavenly account.”

-        (Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah Book 1, p xvi [1979].

Even the faith promoting accounts do not contain all the words and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Elder McConkie goes on to say that so sacred and holy were Christ’s teachings that only a selection of them were preserved for ‘presentation to the unbelieving and skeptical masses of men into whose hands the New Testament would come’ (ibid).

We do not fully know or understand the lonely road He travelled here. We do not fully understand the condescension of a God who stepped down from His gilded throne to traverse the dusty roads of Galilee.

 I am always touched when I see the humanity in Him through scripture….the hunger when He reached for the figs on the barren fig tree, the physical exhaustion that made Him sleep through a violent storm on the sea of Galilee. How did He cope with such overwhelming humility that kept at bay His godship and divinity?

And then the ultimate subjection to become a man whose ‘visage was so marred more than any man’ by being willingly lifted upon the cross of Calvary, allowing the nails to be driven into His hands and feet and His body to be broken to ensure our eternal destiny (Isaiah 52:14; John 19:17-18,32-34; see Old Institute Manual commentary for Isaiah 52:13-15). A God in a mangled body…..Could any of us possibly understand this?

This was the man from Nazareth, who sailed on the seas of Galilee and ascended to His exalted throne in glory and majesty. This was Christ the King, the eternal God of heaven and earth, the Son of God, the Saviour of my soul. I stand all amazed.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

 

 

A GOD OF INTEGRITY

 

I wanted to weep as I finished studying the book of Judges. The closing chapters moved away from accounts of Israel’s heroes to demonstrate the low state of religion and morality as Israel forsook her covenant with Jehovah and ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes’ (Judges 17:6; 21:25). As I studied this book, I lost count of how many times I came across this heartbreaking sentence: ‘and the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord’ indicating their return to idolatry at the end of the reign of each military leader and hero that they called ‘judge’. 

 

The saddest lesson that Israelites missed is repeated in this sentence: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel’ (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 21:25).  But there was…..the one and only true King who they kept rejecting through their broken covenant. I have often asked myself why Jehovah did not just annihilate the whole House of Israel because of their continual backsliding. I was overcome today as I was reminded of the answer I already knew: He  would NEVER break His covenant with US (Deuteronomy 4:31; Leviticus 26:44,46; Isaiah 49:15,16). We knew this truth as we stood in the councils of heaven and sustained Him as one who would never break His promise to save our pitiful souls.  Tears overcame me as I saw the integrity of His heart and understood the longsuffering, the mercy and the grace of our Saviour, Our God, our King, our all…..

 

We are noble men and women of the covenant. We are the strong ones whom He has sent in these the last days to preserve the House of Israel. We are:

 

·      His people (Exodus 6:7; Jeremiah 10:4)

·      His favoured people above all (Isaiah 43:1-7; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7-8; 21:2,9; Deuteronomy 7:6)

·      His servant (1 Nephi 21:3)

·      His light unto the world (D&C 103:9)

·      His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:9)

·      His jewels (Exodus 28:17-21; Malachi 3:17; D&C 60:4; 101:3)

·      The apple of His eye (Deuteronomy 32:9,10; Zechariah 2:8)

 

Hurrah, hurrah for Israel and her eternal King!

 

- CATHRYNE ALLEN

(Art: Faith Has Saved You by Randy Friemel)