followHIM - Doctrine & Covenants 94-97 : followHIM Favorites with Dr. Susan Easton Black

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

Hello, my friends. My name is Hank Smith, and welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This is where we take our Come Follow Me lesson, and we break it down into just our favorite pieces. We have our guest this week is Dr. Susan Black. She's an incredible historian, incredible mind of the church. She's going to join us for Follow Him Favorites. So here we go. John, let's start with you. The sections are 94, 596, and 97 of the Doctrine and Covenants. What's your follow him favorite? Oh, I just love section 95, verse 1. It almost sounds kind of counterintuitive or, wait, that doesn't make sense.

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, whom I love, and whom I love, I also chasten. And chasten means, what would you say, Hank? What does chasten mean? Chasten, I'm going to teach. It's going to be a little difficult. You'll get trials. You're going to get trials and difficulties. It says, wait a minute, you just said you loved me. No, but whom I love, I also chasten, that their sins may be forgiven. For with the chastisement, I prepare a way for their deliverance

in all things out of temptation, comma, the last five words, and I have loved you. And this is a very interesting way of understanding how God loves us, that when he loves us, he will also chasten us. I remember somebody saying once, I know the Lord won't give me anything I can't handle, but I just wish he didn't trust me so much, because I get so close to, I don't know if I can handle this, but the Lord has a purpose and he's going to help us. He's going to prepare a way for our deliverance, it says. And so even when we have trials, we can know, I know the Lord loves me. So I guess I'm going to learn something wonderful from this. And that's a great verse to help us

through our chastening. It is. And I bet every teenager listening has rolled their eyes when their parents have said, listen, if I didn't love you, I wouldn't be doing this, right? If I didn't love you, I would just not even care. But because I love you, you're in trouble, right? I'm going to do some correcting. My follow him favorite, we're going to give Susan the last word. So, uh, my follow him favorite comes from section 97 verse eight. The Lord is talking about, uh, he says those, uh, who have, whose hearts are honest and are broken, their spirits are contrite. And then he makes, he mentions that are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice.

That's an interesting thing there. He doesn't just finish with willing to observe their covenants. Cause I'm definitely willing to do that. By sacrifice, meaning keeping your covenants should probably cause you a little bit of difficulty, a little bit of pain, right? You're willing to keep your covenants by sacrifice. So when the time comes that you have got to keep your covenants, and it's going to be hard, right? Maybe in front of a group of peers, you're going to have some friends who are going to say something, and now you've got to keep your covenants. And yes, it might cost you a little bit of social credit, right, to say something. But remember, the Lord just doesn't expect you to keep your covenants. He expects us to keep our covenants by sacrifice. And he says he'll remember those sacrifices over in verse 28, I will bless her

with blessings. But sometimes keeping your covenants causes a little bit of like, oh, I don't know if I'm willing to sacrifice my popularity. I don't know if I'm willing to sacrifice my fill in the blank, right? This thing that's important to me. The Lord has high expectations for us. Susan, any comments on those? And what's your follow him favorite? Well, my follow him favorite, I go to Doctrine and Covenants section 94 and the introduction. You get three men called to serve on a committee. And the three men are called to serve on a building committee. But guess what? They don't have talents to be on a building committee.

You don't find any of them saying, yes, I've hauled brick. I've done this. I know how to miter windows. But what I think is so interesting is that all three men, one's a shoemaker, two are farmers, and all three accept the calling. And if you follow them through as they fulfill that calling, the Lord blesses them and gives them talents that they didn't really know they had. And years later, you can find them building their own houses, helping to build even the Kirtland Temple.

So the takeaway I get from this is when the Lord calls you to do something, accept and watch how the Lord can bless you to fulfill that calling. Wow. Yeah, I've seen that before too. Mostly when John was called as a bishop, I said, well, he's not prepared. He does Yeah. I've seen that before too. But mostly when John was called as a bishop, I said, well, he's not prepared. He does not have the gifts for that. And that's what I said. And here you are, you became an incredible bishop, right? You became an incredible bishop. I became a bishop. And I remember once being called as the finance clerk and that's not my,

that is not where I am. You guys know I'm a teacher, but I figured it out and I got some blessings. And I can tell you a little bit more about the finance side of the church now because I accepted that calling. So I think you're right on there, Susan. Accept those callings, even though you're thinking I'm not the right person for this, right? Yep. Well, we hope you'll join us on our full podcast it's called follow him you can find it wherever uh you get your podcasts but if not come back and join us next week for follow him favorites Thank you.