Unit 9: Day 3 - Jacob 3-4

Though I grew up in a non-member family, my parents were very supportive of me being a member of the Church.  I was very lucky.  All of you are also very lucky to have such supportive and righteous parents to be that example for you.  But I'm also pretty sure that you know friends, both outside and inside of the Church that may not be so lucky; someone who tries so hard to be righteous but surrounded with bad influences or situations that is outside of their control.  Jacob calls them the "pure in hearts".  Have you ever tried to do good even though you are in a middle of a trial?  Jacob addressed to those situations specifically.  He suggested to us to do 4 things in Jacob 3:1-2:

1. Look unto God with firmness of mind
2. Pray unto him with exceeding faith
3. Receive the pleasing word of God
4. Feast upon his love

The Lord then promises he will console us in our afflictions, plead our cause and seek our justice now (as in this life time).  What an awesome promise that is!  For as many time we've been warn about stiffneckedness in the past, but if you must be firm about something it is to look unto God.  What that means to me is don't deviate from the course that will take you back to our Heavenly Father (the strait and narrow path, remember?).  

Along the same theme of looking with firmness, Jacob says something in 4:14 that really has been such a moral compass for me to follow (probably one of my favorite scripture).  He points out how the ancient Jews have "missed the mark" sort of sense and look pass the plainness of the gospel.  How did they miss it?  What the Savior ask of us was quite simple to understand.  He asked us to have faith in Him, repent and be baptized (just as he did with John the Baptist), received the Holy Ghost and endure to the end.  Now he never said it would be easy to be His disciples but certainly not complicated to understand what He is asking for.  The ancient Jews were instead looking for a "temporal" savior, someone to free them from their captivity.  Being a conquered nation, they were looking for someone maybe with a bit of military might; they missed the mark.  The ironic thing is the Savior did free all of us from captivity including the ancient Jews, not from any Roman rules or strong-armed nations but from physical death and Satan himself (spiritual death).  Have we missed the mark sometimes when we are so focused at our tribulations and get discouraged when those who loves us suggest to us to simply look towards Christ with firmness.  You then think to yourself this doesn't make any sense?  How can the Atonement help me with my AP bio test? Or how can me having faith in Jesus Christ whom I can't touch or see help someone I love who is going through a major health challenge?  I hope now you can see how the mark can be missed.  Instead of going to Church or read my scriptures, as Jacob puts it "receiving the pleasing word of God", I'm going to instead use that time to study more for my AP bio test.  Instead of praying to our Heavenly Father and "feasting upon his love", we choose to despair and continue to feed the doubt and fear.  

Jacob actually provided a pretty good solution to this in ch 4 verse 4-6; he suggested to us to "search the prophets".  In a matter of few weeks we will have the opportunity to hear from our prophet President Nelson and other inspired leaders of the Church.  I encourage you to document whatever trials you are facing and see if you can find the answers from the conference.  If you look hard enough and focus on "the mark" which is our Savior, I can promise you the answer will come plainly just as Jacob has promised.