"Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator?"
Jacob 3:7
This is a really interesting verse because I think that it shows that God judges by a very different measure than we typically do. At this point in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites were basically the good guys and the Lamanites were the bad guys. They didn't wear white and black hats, so it was harder to tell, but the background is fairly plain, and the Lamanites wanted to murder the Nephites... I mean, and at least in the modern world we typically think that people who feel that way are bad guys.
From God's perspective however, love is a central focus, and hatred that is taught to us seems to be less damaging than the more personal and chosen kind of hatred that we exhibit to people we know. Now, of course I don't think that God is saying we don't need to unlearn the residual hatreds passed down through generations. That is super important... but I think we also need to be generous with those who live in places or have been raised in traditions that taught them to hate us. As we see later in the Book of Mormon, even people raised in intolerance and taught to hate can learn new ways and change their hearts--including even ourselves.
Today, let's see if we can learn a little bit more love. Christ mentioned that "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matthew 24:12). Let's make sure that doesn't happen to us. Let's "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that [we] may be filled with this love" (Moroni 7:48), and let's examine our own biases, and forgive those of others, as we seek unity and oneness in love.
Jacob 3:7
This is a really interesting verse because I think that it shows that God judges by a very different measure than we typically do. At this point in the Book of Mormon, the Nephites were basically the good guys and the Lamanites were the bad guys. They didn't wear white and black hats, so it was harder to tell, but the background is fairly plain, and the Lamanites wanted to murder the Nephites... I mean, and at least in the modern world we typically think that people who feel that way are bad guys.
From God's perspective however, love is a central focus, and hatred that is taught to us seems to be less damaging than the more personal and chosen kind of hatred that we exhibit to people we know. Now, of course I don't think that God is saying we don't need to unlearn the residual hatreds passed down through generations. That is super important... but I think we also need to be generous with those who live in places or have been raised in traditions that taught them to hate us. As we see later in the Book of Mormon, even people raised in intolerance and taught to hate can learn new ways and change their hearts--including even ourselves.
Today, let's see if we can learn a little bit more love. Christ mentioned that "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold" (Matthew 24:12). Let's make sure that doesn't happen to us. Let's "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that [we] may be filled with this love" (Moroni 7:48), and let's examine our own biases, and forgive those of others, as we seek unity and oneness in love.
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