D&C 42:1-11

42:1-6 - The Lord begins by again introducing himself “even Jesus Christ the Son of the living God, the Savior of the world.” Like we discussed last week, the elders were given this revelation because they “have assembled yourselves together according to the commandment wherewith I commanded you, and are agreed as touching this one thing, and have asked the Father in my name, even so ye shall receive.” The Lord commanded that in order to receive this new law, they were supposed to gather together in prayer, unity, and when they did that, the Lord was true to his word and gave the law. As the Lord continues, DJR comments that “Perhaps you have noticed that the Lord had a great many people in place to accept the gospel. The first commandment the Savior here has to do with this need for rapid membership growth.” The Lord commands that “ye shall go forth in my name, every one of you, excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and Sidney Rigdon.” I’m assuming that “every one of you” means all the twelve elders that are assembled in prayer together at that time. DJR has a good point that missionary work is the first commandment given. Also interesting is that the Lord doesn’t give them exact time tables, only that “it shall be given by the power of the Spirit when they shall return.” I’ve been listening a lot lately to different talks and there seems to be a very strong theme of following the Spirit as your guide in all things, and the sad thing is, that concept is so foreign to me, like, I’ve been influenced by the Holy Ghost, and I try to listen for him specifically sometimes, but the idea of living my life by the Spirit, I really struggle with that most of the time. I think that it’s a complete lack of faith, or really, more of like a disbelief that anything good is in the cards for me. For instance, if I was a missionary back then, living by the Spirit pretty much exclusively, I would believe with all my heart that the Lord could provide for any and all of my wants, food, shelter, clothing, etc. But I think what I would struggle with, and what I do struggle with now, is believing that He will do it, I know he can, but I don’t believe that he will because I believe that I’m meant to suffer. That’s a really interesting insight into myself right there. I believe that God is fully capable of doing any and all things, but I don’t truly believe that he will yield his powers and influence on my behalf, because I don’t believe that I will have any of the good things that I want. Why do I believe that I won’t have anything that I want? Do I believe that I don’t deserve them? Do I believe that I am meant to suffer? Yeah, I think I do, I think I really do believe that I am meant to suffer, that I am to learn lessons through suffering and pain alone. That’s interesting, but is it true? Am I meant to receive good gifts from God? Is what I want really important to Him? I’ve always felt that what I want is not important to him because whatever plan he has for me is the only thing that he focuses on, and that that plan only includes pain and suffering. I know that that’s not fair because I have a really good life, and I am very blessed and I’m trying so hard to focus on that, but I still feel like I’m stuck, and stuck in a sense that I will live this “incredible” life until I die, and there are definitely things that I don’t love about it. I want to work less and spend more time with my kids, I want to live on my own, I want to get married again to an amazing man, I want to be healthier and make dinner for my kids, I want to be a foster mom, I want to travel, I want all these things, but I’ve never felt like they were important to the Lord. I think that I feel like anything that I wanted or was important to me, was looked at by God as “childish” things, “that’s nice that you want those things, but my plan for you is the best and none of that is included, so deal with it.” And I guess that all that goes against who I know God to be, but that’s always been what I have believed. Is my life so meticulously planned without regard to who I am as a person and what I want? Is God’s will for me completely devoid of anything that I deem important? Or is it possible that I’m wrong and my own self-defeating views of my life and situation are what have really prevented me from getting what I want? Is God’s purpose for my life to take who I am and what I want and transform it into something that is completely different just to show me that he has all power, to bend my will, to “show me whose boss?” Or is God’s will for me to take who I am and what I am and plant it in fertile soil, and then show me how to thrive and grow and shine? He doesn’t want to make me into something I’m not to show how powerful he is, he wants me to blossom and flourish to show his love for me. That’s what this is, this whole time I’ve been in a power struggle tug of war with him, when in fact, he’s not even playing that game with me, I’m pulling against him, and he’s holding me to help me calm down. So I guess that begs the question, how do I change that? How do I change how I’ve acted and felt towards God my whole life, into what it really is, a loving calm relationship? 42:7-11 - Verse 7 is the command of what to preach, and again it is not to testify of miracles or convince by logic, “ye shall go forth baptizing with water, saying: Repent ye, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” There was a talk yesterday in Sacrament meeting about the Book of Mormon and the guy said something to the effect of “Martin Harris wanted to convince his family that what he was doing was important, but he did not trust the Spirit to do the testifying, so he begged to take the manuscript pages as testimony.” As we know, this did not convince anyone, there is nothing that we can do to convince anyone of anything, especially when it comes to the truthfulness of the gospel, the Spirit must be the one to do the convincing, that and nothing else. As we and others repent, we exercise faith and invite the Spirit to purify our hearts, and that is what does the convincing. Verse 9 has kind of a heart breaking message, at least for me, because I don’t like being transient, but DJR sums it up saying, “It is made clear that Kirtland, Ohio, is a temporary gathering place. It will be a headquarters and gathering place for about five years, then the Saints will gather to Missouri, including Independence, Missouri, the location where the New Jerusalem will be built.” Verse 10 the Lord gives the example “that my servant Edward Partridge shall stand in the office whereunto I have appointed him. And it shall come to pass, that if he transgress another shall be appointed in his stead.” This is a universal truth for all Church leadership positions, men and women, but I think it’s interesting that the Lord used Edward Partridge as the example. I could imagine if I was to be the one who was used in the example, without the Lord saying specifically “for example” then I could have felt a little bit ruffled, like “hey, what did I do, why are you warning me against transgression when I haven’t done anything wrong?” Of course, this warning goes to all of us, it is applicable for all, but he used Edward Partridge as the example, without saying so explicitly, and I think that that must have been because the Lord just paid such a high compliment to him in his call just the section previously when the Lord said that Edward Partridge was called to be the first bishop “and this because his heart is pure before me, for he is like unto Nathanael of old, in whom there is no guile.” Because he had a pure heart and was without guile, surely Edward Partridge wouldn’t have taken offense in being the example used by the Lord, in fact, he might have even been honored to be used as such because the Lord acknowledged him specifically. Here’s another example that we chose to be offended, whether offense was intended or not. The Lord gives further instructions about governance of the Church stating that all appointments to preach “or to build up my church” must be done by those “ordained by some one who has authority, and it is known to the church that he has authority and has been regularly ordained by the heads of the Church.” DJR makes an interesting commentary, saying, “It may be that relatively few members realize how important he law of common consent is to the stability and security of the Church. Among other things, it protects against apostasy by assuring that there are no secret ordinations in the Church. For instance, anyone who presides over a group in the Church, must have been sustained by that group and ordained or set apart by one who has the proper authority and who has likewise been sustained by members. A number of break-off groups from the Church claim secret ordinations as the source of their authorization to create a new church.”