Becoming a Zion People

[Guest]

On 7/1/2016 at 4:03 PM, tesuji said:

OK, here's the list of scriptures for "riches"
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/tg/riches?lang=eng

The Lord counsels the Saints not to seek for worldly riches except to do good. The Saints must not put seeking worldly riches before seeking the kingdom of God, which holds the riches of eternity (Jacob 2:18–19).
from https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/riches?lang=eng&letter=r

And a relevant talk:
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1972/12/what-the-scriptures-say-about-pursuit-of-wealth?lang=eng

The following scripture says it pretty strongly - this is Jesus speaking. Notice that his disciples are astonished at this, and that Jesus says it basically takes a special miracle from God for a rich person to get into heaven:

 

Ok.  I finally got time to read the links.  

Yes, I'm familiar with all these scriptures and the talk you linked to.  I see all of them supporting what I've already stated.  What particular points to you see that they seem to contradict?

Are you sure you understand what my position really is?

Edited July 6, 2016 by Guest

[Anddenex]

The aspect of becoming a Zion people has been a topic of interest, especially while I served in leadership positions in the Church. When the Church was first established within a couple years The United Order was introduced. Joseph Smith sought diligently to help the people to reach this pinnacle of discipleship. We know it failed, and it failed for the same reasons we are failing today. A notion I ponder, the Lord tried to institute his order within 2 years and it going on 200 years since then and the Lord has not yet again instructed, via his prophets, to move forward.

The Pure in Heart: We are failing (collectively), while individually there are many members who are succeeding. Clearly, there are traditions (false doctrines) which spread among the Saints that inhibit us from becoming "one heart, one mind." One of which, members who forget, although God wants us all to be prophets, there is only ONE seer who speaks for God. Far too many members think they are a seer, as they reject counsel from the Lord's servant (privately and publicly). Example, look at how many of our brothers and sisters responding negatively (publicly on social outlets), to recent decisions made by a united brethren of the Lord's anointed.

Church and Membership: We are growing, not as rapidly as we could. We also know, the Lord clears in the inner vessel before moving toward the outer vessel, which has me to believe there is still yet a cleansing and as the Church continues to progress (in light of this natural world, the natural man) we will see this cleansing. As a Church membership we enjoy visiting more than ministering and as we come to understand "ministering" the Church will continue to grow. In some aspects, we fear man more than God which is why we still "visit" rather than "minister."

The United Order: Why haven't we been instructed to establish this again, and yet the Church was instructed to build while still in its infancy during the restoration? My personal thoughts, our personal desire in paying a generous fast offering is evidence of our personal belief in the United Order. Your example is a great example of decisions that show some understand.

The Temple: We all know it is important, but how often do we go? We will make time for sports. We will make time, and sacrifice of money, for vacations. What sacrifices are we making for the temple? I think in some degrees we are failing and in others we are succeeding as temples are continually being built. I remember a few years ago now, an anti-Mormon said, "The Church is bleeding, and soon the Church will not be building anymore temples. He said in 10 years, no temple will be built, and we will see a decline in temples being built." I took him up on the challenge, and unfortunately, I am not able to reach out to him anymore. At that time there were only 126 temples. We now have 150 or more and more being built. The natural man doesn't know what he is talking about. His prophecy was in that many years we may see a couple more temples, but that is it. Yep, just a couple

Home: As priesthood brethren I believe we are failing. We have far too many homes where the husband, priesthood leader, does not lead out in prayer, scripture study, and other important aspects of what it means to preside in the home. Fathers are providing, but not presiding. The mother, wife, is leading out encouraging her husband to do what he has been called to do, and many are just to happy to let the wife lead. When the statement can no longer be said, "women are more righteous than man," I think we will be in a better spot because righteousness is a matter of choice, not fate. How many homes have FHE (consistently)? How many church members believe, "Well, I take my children to church," and that is it? We have far to much Sunday worship, and then we forget about the Lord during the week.

Tradition: We are far to steeped in tradition that inhibits our progression toward Zion, and yet the Church is moving forward and hopefully we all choose to keep up. This means we are living both the spirit and letter, not the well provided definition of the spirit that is prominent today through tradition but actually living by the spirit as understanding that living the spirit of the law is living the letter in the right spirit, not some form of disobedience, but a higher obedience.

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by Anddenex

[Guest]

On 7/12/2016 at 9:29 AM, Anddenex said:

The aspect of becoming a Zion people has been a topic of interest, especially while I served in leadership positions in the Church. When the Church was first established within a couple years The United Order was introduced. Joseph Smith sought diligently to help the people to reach this pinnacle of discipleship. We know it failed, and it failed for the same reasons we are failing today. A notion I ponder, the Lord tried to institute his order within 2 years and it going on 200 years since then and the Lord has not yet again instructed, via his prophets, to move forward....

I don't disagree with any of the examples you give.  But I still don't see anything that convinces me that we 'collectively' are failing.  Of course no one believes that all of us are "just fine".  We all fall short and we all need to improve.  But I guess I'm just focusing on the positives I see than the negatives.

You mentioned the temples "prophecy" by your anti-Mormon friend.  I find that paragraph very telling.  What we see up close is a lot of people not going to the temple as often as they should.  But what we see in the big picture is that we just keep building more temples.  If insufficient people went, we wouldn't be building more temples.  This is a perfect microcosm of every principle of the Zion that we wish to establish.  We see the anecdotal evidence of people falling short all the time.  But when we see the "big picture" indicators, it is a pretty good big picture.

You mentioned the United Order.  We actually are living it on an individual basis.  If you run the numbers on tithing alone, we find that we're paying much more than the national average of income.  So, either we're earning more than the average income (in the US) or we're just overpaying our tithing.  Our fast offerings could always be more.  But we always have more than sufficient to stock the Bishop's Storehouses.  If they're always fully stocked, isn't that a good indication that we're doing a pretty good job of taking care of the poor?

We can't forget the home.  I know not everyone is on board with homeschooling here.  But Mormons are among the highest per capita homeschoolers in the country.  Many think this is only a Mom job.  But most homeschooling fathers are very much involved in their children's education and emotional/spiritual upbringing.  That should also be a great indicator.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Guest

[tesuji]

On 7/12/2016 at 8:29 AM, Anddenex said:

The aspect of becoming a Zion people has been a topic of interest, especially while I served in leadership positions in the Church. When the Church was first established within a couple years The United Order was introduced. Joseph Smith sought diligently to help the people to reach this pinnacle of discipleship. We know it failed, and it failed for the same reasons we are failing today. A notion I ponder, the Lord tried to institute his order within 2 years and it going on 200 years since then and the Lord has not yet again instructed, via his prophets, to move forward.

The Pure in Heart: We are failing (collectively), while individually there are many members who are succeeding. Clearly, there are traditions (false doctrines) which spread among the Saints that inhibit us from becoming "one heart, one mind." One of which, members who forget, although God wants us all to be prophets, there is only ONE seer who speaks for God. Far too many members think they are a seer, as they reject counsel from the Lord's servant (privately and publicly). Example, look at how many of our brothers and sisters responding negatively (publicly on social outlets), to recent decisions made by a united brethren of the Lord's anointed.

Church and Membership: We are growing, not as rapidly as we could. We also know, the Lord clears in the inner vessel before moving toward the outer vessel, which has me to believe there is still yet a cleansing and as the Church continues to progress (in light of this natural world, the natural man) we will see this cleansing. As a Church membership we enjoy visiting more than ministering and as we come to understand "ministering" the Church will continue to grow. In some aspects, we fear man more than God which is why we still "visit" rather than "minister."

The United Order: Why haven't we been instructed to establish this again, and yet the Church was instructed to build while still in its infancy during the restoration? My personal thoughts, our personal desire in paying a generous fast offering is evidence of our personal belief in the United Order. Your example is a great example of decisions that show some understand.

The Temple: We all know it is important, but how often do we go? We will make time for sports. We will make time, and sacrifice of money, for vacations. What sacrifices are we making for the temple? I think in some degrees we are failing and in others we are succeeding as temples are continually being built. I remember a few years ago now, an anti-Mormon said, "The Church is bleeding, and soon the Church will not be building anymore temples. He said in 10 years, no temple will be built, and we will see a decline in temples being built." I took him up on the challenge, and unfortunately, I am not able to reach out to him anymore. At that time there were only 126 temples. We now have 150 or more and more being built. The natural man doesn't know what he is talking about. His prophecy was in that many years we may see a couple more temples, but that is it. Yep, just a couple

Home: As priesthood brethren I believe we are failing. We have far too many homes where the husband, priesthood leader, does not lead out in prayer, scripture study, and other important aspects of what it means to preside in the home. Fathers are providing, but not presiding. The mother, wife, is leading out encouraging her husband to do what he has been called to do, and many are just to happy to let the wife lead. When the statement can no longer be said, "women are more righteous than man," I think we will be in a better spot because righteousness is a matter of choice, not fate. How many homes have FHE (consistently)? How many church members believe, "Well, I take my children to church," and that is it? We have far to much Sunday worship, and then we forget about the Lord during the week.

Tradition: We are far to steeped in tradition that inhibits our progression toward Zion, and yet the Church is moving forward and hopefully we all choose to keep up. This means we are living both the spirit and letter, not the well provided definition of the spirit that is prominent today through tradition but actually living by the spirit as understanding that living the spirit of the law is living the letter in the right spirit, not some form of disobedience, but a higher obedience.

 

I absolutely agree.

Another area is money in general. The US in general is a super rich country, compared to most of the world. We are happy to buy new cars, big houses, etc. for ourselves. But how much of that do we really need? Especially when we are surrounded by perishing and destitute people who we could really bless if we shared our prosperity more. (Maybe not literally surrounded - that's part of the problem, that we more and move live in homogeneous communities isolated from people who are not of the same prosperity level that we are at.)

 

[Anddenex]

On 7/13/2016 at 11:51 AM, Carborendum said:

I don't disagree with any of the examples you give.  But I still don't see anything that convinces me that we 'collectively' are failing.  Of course no one believes that all of us are "just fine".  We all fall short and we all need to improve.  But I guess I'm just focusing on the positives I see than the negatives.

You mentioned the temples "prophecy" by your anti-Mormon friend.  I find that paragraph very telling.  What we see up close is a lot of people not going to the temple as often as they should.  But what we see in the big picture is that we just keep building more temples.  If insufficient people went, we wouldn't be building more temples.  This is a perfect microcosm of every principle of the Zion that we wish to establish.  We see the anecdotal evidence of people falling short all the time.  But when we see the "big picture" indicators, it is a pretty good big picture.

You mentioned the United Order.  We actually are living it on an individual basis.  If you run the numbers on tithing alone, we find that we're paying much more than the national average of income.  So, either we're earning more than the average income (in the US) or we're just overpaying our tithing.  Our fast offerings could always be more.  But we always have more than sufficient to stock the Bishop's Storehouses.  If they're always fully stocked, isn't that a good indication that we're doing a pretty good job of taking care of the poor?

We can't forget the home.  I know not everyone is on board with homeschooling here.  But Mormons are among the highest per capita homeschoolers in the country.  Many think this is only a Mom job.  But most homeschooling fathers are very much involved in their children's education and emotional/spiritual upbringing.  That should also be a great indicator.

We then see things differently regarding "pure in heart," or becoming of one heart and one mind. There has been 180 years or so, we have more temples, we have more stakes, but are we more unified that we can say we are one heart and one mind? Individually, there are many seeking such, collectively, we can greatly improve. I focus on both, positives and negatives, accepting (as to what I can see) what is.

United Order, we are to be living it on a collective basis, and if not, then we aren't succeeding. If the Lord through President Monson said, "We are to live the United Order" I think it will have the same result as it did with Joseph Smith, which is why we haven't received instruction. According to one of my neighbors, who visits with his mission president (now GA), he shared something I would consider telling, and give evidence, yep, we still are not ready (collectively), some are ready (individually) just as during the time of Joseph Smith. Although we have enough Priesthood, we are still loosing too many youth to the natural world. The statistic I heard 1:4 (or 2:4), I believe it was 50%. If we are succeeding, how then are we loosing so many youth to the world, the great and spacious building?

I agree, the movement of temples is a good sign thought that we are progressing, which shouldn't be any surprise, but we could do better.

I have tried to convince my wife of home schooling, but we aren't unified in that matter. I think she would be a great teacher in all aspects of our children's lives, she doesn't think she would be very helpful during high school years.