January 18, 2010

Agency and Control

Life is full of choices. Many don't have much eternal significance such as what to eat and what to wear. Some have immense eternal significance, more than we often realize. The world offers many opinions and much advice on how to live your life and how to make your decisions. The adversary would have you believe that you should live the way you want with no regard to God and His teachings, or "eat, drink, and be merry." However, in order to be truly happy, we must live according to the teachings of God, for the commandments and teachings of God help us know how to live in order to have true, lasting happiness both in this life and for eternity.

Our obedience and our utilization of our agency to choose God's path is hard because sometimes, if not oftentimes, we do not understand the reason for certain commandments and teachings. Satan's counter to obedience to God's commandments is to label such obedience as "blind obedience" thus challenging our intelligence simply because we do not know the mind and will of God. Following the teachings of our loving Heavenly Father despite the level of our understanding is not foolish and does not show lack of intelligence on our part. On the contrary, following the teachings and commandments of an omniscient being, even God the Father, shows our intelligence that we don't know everything and our trust that He knows better than we do and that all will be well.

The article this week,"Agency and Control," is a talk given by President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1983 and addresses the principles of obedience, self-control, and freedom.

I know that doing as the Lord commands requires faith and trust, neither of which comes naturally to us. We must work at developing faith in Jesus Christ and God the Father. However, that faith will only come with obedience to their teachings. We will never know the truthfulness of the doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ until we live the doctrines of the Gospel. Living according to the teachings of God is the only way to achieve eternal life, which is life together forever with our families and with our Father in Heaven.

2 Nephi 2:26-29
John 14:15, 21

Jeremy

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