Mormon 9

Yesterday at church someone told the story of Abraham. He was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac and then when he was about to do it an angel came and stopped him and told him it had only been a test. I remember discussing with someone that I thought it was pretty messed up that God would make Abraham believe that he was going to have to kill his only son, and then almost actually go through with it, just to teach him a lesson. The person I was talking to said something that I have heard before something like "Yeah, the God of the Old Testament did some crazy stuff". Then this morning I read this:

Mormon 9:9

For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and in him there is no variableness or shadow of changing?

Mrmon 9:19

...And behold I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God...

So this made me realize something that I already knew all along, the God of the Old Testament is our God. He hasn't changed, and he never will. This means the same God that commanded the children of Israel to wipe groups of people off the face of the planet, and commanded Abraham to kill his son just to teach him a lesson (Oh, and how about, who commanded polygamy) is the God that I pray to and that I make covenants with. This brought to mind a scripture that I had to look up.

Isaiah 55:8 and 9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I guess the point of this is that I realized that as members of the church we are still influenced by cultural and societal factors. For example our sense of morality is basically the same as the rest of Americans (for Mormon Americans that is) with a few distinct changes. It is my opinion that for the most part, our sense of morality is not the same as God's. For God it is OK to command people to kill their kids and to command genocide, those things are all part of his plan. I guess my question is in the process of trying to become more like our Heavenly Father does that mean that we should strive to think the way he thinks?

Then we run into the problem of figuring out what are God's thoughts and what are God's ways. Does god command us not to murder because it is inherently wrong or is murder wrong because God commanded us not to. I don't know. What I am convinced of is that God sees this whole program very differently than we do. I also believe that God empathizes with us and cares about our feelings and beliefs and that he will judge us based on our own understandings according to the desires of our hearts. I don't think that any man can know God's thoughts or his ways unless it is given him by the holy spirit, so if we are ever meant to see life the way God sees it we will get there through prayer, scripture study, worship, and service that are all guided by the spirit.

Also I think it is important that we realize that we are not separate from our society and that we take responsibility for the beliefs and ideas of the societies we live in and try to mold them in the direction that they should go. I know that we need to be separate from the world but that doesn't mean that we can't be active in striving to make our communities and our Nation separate from the world as well. One reason we have the Book of Mormon is so that we can help save our society from the destruction that the Nephites faced because of their wickedness.

Mormon 9:31

Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.