Jacob 2

(February 13, 2014)
There is the pull to wrest the scriptures to our own destruction.  We seek to use the scriptures to permit whatever we want to permit and to prohibit whatever we want to prohibit.  We use the fact that people have long been imperfect and we emulate those imperfections when we wish to duplicate them (while we don’t appropriately emulate the righteousness of those who have gone before).

It is always possible to get our understanding of the doctrine wrong, and this is a serious matter.  But if we are humble, and we are genuinely seeking the Lord’s will, He will correct us.  There is enough in the scriptures and revealed word of our leaders to assist us in becoming who and what we are to become.  This is true in our day, and it was true in the days of Jacob.  Apparently Lehi himself spoke out against this practice, but the people of Nephi ignored modern revelation in favor of previous things that they found more palatable to their lusts.

If we seek for confirmation of our own desires in the scriptures, we will find them.  If we seek for confirmation of our own fears, or hatred, or cowardice in the scriptures, we will find that, too.  But if we seek for the Lord's will in the scriptures, we can count on the Lord revealing that will to us