Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Thankfully God cannot lie

I was reading Enos a couple of days ago.  In response to Enos' mighty prayer and supplication, when he had cried all the day long and into the night, a voice came to him and assured him that his sins were forgiven.  I am always struck by the next verse when he says "I knew that God could not lie; wherefore my guilt was swept away."

Knowing that God never lies and knowing that all that God speaks will come to pass and all of His promises are sure is the reason it is possible to have faith in Him.  We can confidently place our trust in all that He says and with certainty choose how to act because we know that He cannot and will not ever lie.

This is a  quality that we can and must develop as well.  It is part of our work in this life as we strive to develop Christlike qualities and strive to be like Him.  Can our words be trusted to be truthful?  Do we do what we say we will do? Can our friends and our children act in faith based on what we say?  This characteristic is one huge difference between God and Satan!

In the book of Omni we see evidence of this characteristic.  In verse 5 Amaron says that the more wicked part of the Nephites had been destroyed.  And in verse 6 he says "For the Lord would not suffer, . . . yea, he would not suffer that the words should not be verified, which he spake unto our fathers, saying that: 'Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall not prosper in the land.'"

Joseph Smith taught in Lectures on Faith 4:16 "And lastly, but not less important to the exercise of faith in God, is the idea of the existence of the attribute truth in him; for without the idea of the existence of this attribute the mind of man could have nothing upon which it could rest with certainty - all would be confusion and doubt.  But with the idea of the existence of this attribute in the Deity in the mind, all the teachings, instructions, promises, and blessings, become realities, and the mind is enabled to lay hold of them with certainty and confidence, believing that these things, and all that the Lord has said, shall be fulfilled in their time; and that all the cursings, denunciations, and judgments, pronounced upon the heads of the unrighteous, will also be executed in the due time of the Lord: and by reason of the truth and veracity of him, the mind beholds its deliverance and salvation as being certain."

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