Seek the Kingdom of God and Fear not Man

Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 30 which was originally 3 sections but were combined by Joseph Smith in 1835 according to the heading on this section. This section was given to the Whitmer brothers and to Peter and John Whitmer Jr the Lord commanded them to proclaim His gospel and seemed generally pleased with their efforts. Not so with David.

The first two verses of this section are a rebuke to David Whitmer for not attending to the things of the Lord like he ought to have. In the first verse the Lord tells David that he has been too concerned with the way the world views him and not enough concerned with the Lord and His errands. This is a very easy trap to fall into for most people. I've even found myself doing it before. For me I think the most often I do it is when I'm called upon to go find less active or inactive members, especially home teaching.

But I should not be concerned with the people I am asked to serve but rather I should be more concerned with fulfilling my Priesthood duties and making sure that I am doing the things the Lord would have me do. I think most everyone can think of times where they were faced with a choice of what was comfortable and what was right and at least once I guarantee that the natural man in each of us won. Even in the prophets you can read of instances where they did not always do what was right. Remember, they were not born prophets and had to learn line upon line and precept upon precept just like the rest of us.

We may not look at it in that way but it is the examples above are most definitely fearing man over God in a BIG way. Anytime we have God telling us to do one thing, including the commandments, and the world telling us another thing and we choose the world's way, that is fearing man instead of God and God is grieved.

Now, I don't remember a lot of my early church history in regards to David Whitmer so verse 2 is a little vague to me. It sounds to me like David was called to preach, or something similar and forsook it in favor of other things. It reminds me of the discussion we had in priesthood meeting this past Sunday. We talked about what it meant to sacrifice and it somehow spiraled out from there to be more about will living the gospel cause you to prosper.

Obviously the answer is if you live a good and righteous life that is no guarantee of an easy life, quite the opposite in most cases it would seem if you were to do the research. You MIGHT be blessed with material wealth if the Lord feels you will you will use that wealth to further His work, but it most certainly does NOT mean that you will not have any trials. One of the brethren in my elders quorum put it perfectly that what we think we need is often times very different from what God knows we need. God will always make sure we have what He knows we need to progress, and sometimes that is very, very uncomfortable experiences so that we can grow.

I've often wondered why some people are given such extremely difficult challenges while I seem to have a really easy life. I do have my challenges just like everyone, but they seem laughable when I am not going through them and I look at the world around me and almost weep at the horrible state of so many children and people who have no way to correct their situation and have to wonder what they need to learn that they would have to go through such horrible experiences in this life.

Knowing God's nature and that nothing is done but for our benefit save in the case of the consequences of sin, but even then it can work for our good if we will let it, I am comforted that they will be better people for it. But if I, a sinner, feel such spiritual pain at seeing these people suffer I can only imagine how God must feel when He looks down at the world and sees such suffering. It makes me realize I have so much farther to go.

I am getting off topic though. I brought this whole subject up because we shared the scripture from Jacob 2:18-19 where it says to seek first the kingdom of God and then if you seek riches to do God's work with, you will obtain riches. But it is important to seek with our whole hearts the things of God's kingdom. We need to make sure that our primary focus is to build up the kingdom in whatever way we can, even if all we can do is raise up righteous children who will not depart from the truth. Not only that, but as we seek for the kingdom of God first, it will be that much easier to fear God instead of man. Kind of funny how those work hand in hand so well isn't it? Almost like God planned it that way. :) Until tomorrow.