Consecration leads to Charity

Today I read Doctrine and Covenants section 48 a very short section that focus on building up the kingdom of Zion and the law of consecration. As I was reading this section, I was thinking about the law of consecration, which also got me to thinking about the law of tithing as consecration is the higher form of the law of tithing and it got me to think about their purpose.

As we have discussed before now, all laws are spiritual laws, no matter how physical they may appear. On the surface, the law of consecration could indeed be a physical law, but it has very spiritual benefits. The law of consecration is described as giving everything that the Lord has or will bless you with, back to Him for the building up of Zion here on the earth. However, if you think about it, is the Lord short of money? What laughable concept! So why does He need our help to build up the kingdom? He doesn't. We need the help.

Mosiah 3:19 states that the natural man is an enemy to God. And unfortunately, as the name implies, we are all natural men. As we have discussed many times before this, we can only overcome the natural man through prayer and His help. Well, one of the easiest ways to overcome the natural man is to do that which is contrary to the natural man's instincts. For example, the natural man wants to take care of him/herself and forget about the needs of others. But such an action will not help us to overcome our temptations or the carnal desires of this life. But by rejecting such instincts, we can slowly overcome them.

As I was reading this section, where the Lord is telling them to build up the city for those Saints not yet there, I kept thinking of one word over and over again: charity. It is my opinion and thought that the law of consecration, more than anything else is meant to give us charity. Cultivating charity is the best way that I know how to overcome the natural man. That is why we do everything by service in the church and that is why the Lord asks us to live the law of tithing and in olden days, a slightly different form of the law of consecration otherwise known as the United Order.

Let's be honest with ourselves, the Lord could take care of all the needs of all the Saints everywhere in a heartbeat if that was His plan. But it is not, His plan is to use imperfect tools, us, to do His work so that the tools may slowly become more perfect and in time, much much time, they may become like He is. It's just like a parent teaching a child to work around the house. The parent could do the chore in question 10 times faster and probably much better than the child could too. So why do the parents do it? Why bother with getting the child to do the work? Because the child needs the experience and needs to learn the value of the work. And so it is with us! The Lord could do all of this, literally with perfection. We on the other hand, struggle and strive to just not mess it up too much and usually fail pretty hard at it most of the time.

But just like with our children here on the earth, we've got to keep trying until we can get it right. And that is why the Lord allows us to help and what the laws of tithing and consecration are designed to do. As we live them we grow a little closer to God and our end goal, becoming like Him! It is a slow and steady process. But just like the story of the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady is what won the race. Until tomorrow!