Come, Follow Me with Taylor Halverson (Moroni 7 – 9) – powered by Happy Scribe
One of the greatest chapters anywhere in scripture on the power of charity of love is that in Moroni Chapter seven, where Moroni quotes his father, Mormon, who had spoken to the Saints in the church in his day. And there are many beautiful principles in this chapter. I like to focus on one about being peaceable followers of Christ. Let’s turn to Merlini, chapter seven, verse three, and let’s read what Mormon shares with the Saints of his day. Wherefore I would speak unto you that are of the church, that are the peaceable followers of Christ and that have obtained a sufficient hope by which you can enter into the rest of the Lord from this time henceforth, until you shall rest with him in heaven.
I want to focus on these two phrases. Begin the verse Mormon speaking to those who are of the church now, many of us would say, I’m of the church. You speaking to me, I’m playing this to myself. What I find interesting is the next phrase that says that are the peaceable followers of Christ. Now, one way of looking at that phrase is to say you have the body of the church. But then you have a group who happen to be members but also are peaceable.
Are we peaceable followers of Christ? Is it enough simply to declare that we are part of God’s kingdom? I look at this first and I see an invitation for me to check my heart and to say simply because I’ve come in at the gate and have joined a community doesn’t necessarily mean that I am a peaceable follower. I may yet have other things I need to do to live with peace, live in peace and to promote peace in my life. And so I’m hopeful that I can find myself as a peaceable follower and not only a member of the church.
I want to both be a member of God’s kingdom as well as a peaceful follower, so let’s consider for a moment if it’s not enough to be just in God’s church, that we also need to be peaceful followers. We might ask ourselves, do I glory in contention? Do I encourage contention? Do I get entertained by contention? Do I find myself spreading contention? We live in a world where there is a lot of contention and it is not hard to find in many outlets the news and social media.
But if we seek as Mormon speaks about to be the peaceable followers, maybe what we could ask ourselves is what are my habits? Am I spreading peace? Am I encouraging love, understanding and unity? Am I truly seeking to experience charity that Mormon shares with us in this chapter? Because those who are charitable are peaceable. If you find yourself and as humans, we often feel this way, seeing contention in the world and feeling the need to contribute to it in a negative way, we could stop and ask ourselves if I share this idea, will it lead to light and truth, joy, peace and understanding?
Will I help others become peaceable followers if I share this idea or make this statement? Or you might ask yourself, if I spend time reading all this contention or watching contention, am I helping my life to have peace? There are many ways to be peaceable followers of Christ, and I just offer this up as one approach that how we might spend our social time could indicate our opportunity to decrease contention and to be peaceable followers of Christ by being charitable towards ourselves, into our fellow man.
Guest Author
dyejo
