What are your riches?

21 Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

This advice was given specifically to a young man seeking to come closer to God. He had asked for this counsel, but was unwilling to obey it. Often this scripture is used to suggest that to be wealthy is unchristian. However I would suggest that this scripture is teaching something else.

It is probable that Christ perceived in his heart, that his wealth was of great importance to him. And not unlike Isaac being asked to sacrifice Jacob, this young man was asked to give up something he dearly loved and put God first in his life. Sadly the young man did not at this time do so. 

Are we any different? That is a question we must each answer personally. Is there anything,money, work, sports, talents, friends, family, etc. that we put before God in our lives. These things are for us are like the riches of the young man. It may be that we are one day asked to give them up to do God's will. The questions that we ask ourselves should be, Is God first in my life? and is there anything that I would not give up to follow God?

Are you wheat? or tare?

Something has always seemed a little off to me about the parable of the Wheat and the Tares. Until I had an insight this week. The parable goes...

• The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
• 25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
• 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
• 27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
• 28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
• 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
• 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
•  
• I mean, I understood the idea that if you pull of Tares that you will also pull up Wheat because of how the roots intertwine in the soil, but I never really understood the practical application of this. I mean life is hard enough without having a bunch of tares in it. 
• But then I thought, how and who would decide who is  tare, and who is wheat. The only reasonable answer would be that God must judge, but then why did God through Christ say to let them grow up together? I understand the farming complications, but I've never really thought it would be all that hard for God to do something about the bad people.
•  
• As I was thinking about this, I remembered that you can't tell the difference between Wheat and Tares until harvest time. So it follows logically that God will not judge the difference until the end of our lives. Certainly we can do both good and bad things now, but I suppose to God, we really aren't all that different from each other, and it won't be until the final judgement that we are judged whether we are wheat or whether we are tares. The good news is that we can choose.

Being Hypocritical?

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is within thy brother's eye, but considereth not the beam that is within thine own eye? . . . Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to east out the mote out of thy brother's eye" Matthew 7:3-5

I've often wonder, about this scripture. If I love someone, and I see them doing something that won't lead to happiness, I feel like I should help them. But I don't want to be that person with a beam in their eye... so how is it that we avoid that.

In the 1960 October General Conference, Henry D. Taylor said "Many years ago my mission president gave this sound advice: "If criticism is just and given kindly, accept it and give thanks for it. If it is just and given unkindly, accept it. But if it is unjust and given unkindly, pay no heed to it." 

Although this refers to accepting criticism, it can equally be applied to giving criticism. We need to make sure that the criticism, or help that we give is just. And we should ever endeavor to do it in a kind way. 

In order to be just, I think it is important that we do not set ourselves up as the example of proper living, but rather understand that in God's eyes, we are probably little better than the rest. But if through the spirit we feel prompted to reach out to someone, we should do it, remembering always who it is that really will pull the mote out of their eyes.