Obedience

Last week in Come, Follow Me, we learned about the importance of the Sabbath day--especially how important it is to the Lord.  The scriptures tell us that the consequence for not keeping the Sabbath day holy was the death penalty.  This seems really harsh.  But as I pondered that throughout the week some ideas came to me.

By imposing a very strict penalty on a law, it gave the Israelites very few choices.  1)They could choose not to obey the law and die. 2) They could obey the law out of fear. 3)  They could obey the law with resentment. 3) They could obey the law with love for the Lord. 

The outcome of the latter three seem the same.  They all live. But those who obey laws out of love open themselves up to grow in spiritual capacity.  Obedience would open their heart and allow them to learn from the Lord the importance of using the principle of obedience in obtaining blessings from Him.  Up to that point, the Israelites had seen and participated in many miracles, but without much change of heart.  I think, in part, that was because they hadn't learned how to obey.  The Lord had to start somewhere with them to teach them the wonderful blessings of obedience and to learn to trust in His commandments to bring blessings.  By imposing such a harsh consequence, most would choose to obey and hopefully many would eventually obey because of love, and become more spiritually stable instead of needing to rely on Moses or external objects (a golden calf) for spiritual stability.  

As I pondered this in connection to our move to China--a country with very different laws than we are used to, I thought about our Article of Faith stating that we believe in honoring and sustaining the laws of the land in which we live.  So I have a choice.  I can obey the laws in China out of fear or resentment.  But that would cut my spiritual growth way back.  Or I can obey because I respect the people among whom I will be living who surely are among those who just don't know where to find the truth.  I can obey because I love my Savior who loves all of His children wherever they live.  If my obedience is given in love, then I allow my spiritual capacity to expand instead of shrink.  

I find the power of obedience to commandments a fascinating thing.  As we learn to obey and obey out of love instead of obeying just to avoid negative consequences the result is not only more blessings, but more commandments.  D&C 59:4 tells us the blessings of obedience: "And they shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea and with commandments not a few, and with revelations in their time."  This is the way I want to pattern my life. We will lovingly comply with the laws of China.