D&C 21:4-6 -- On The Words of God and of Prophets

"Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me;
For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.
For by doing these things the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord God will disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good, and his name’s glory."
Doctrine and Covenants 21:4-6


These verses are referring to the prophet. One thing that strikes me here is the phrase "as if from mine own mouth." That's huge. I think that honoring and listening to the prophet (then and now) is something that a lot of us aspire to do, but are we treating those words as the actual words of God, as though he spoke them to us himself? I think that is much, much more rare. If this was God himself talking, I think there would be a lot less arguing and justification... and maybe that is something that we need to think about as we are considering the words of the prophet.

The other part I love here is that God will "cause the heavens to shake" for our good. :) My mental picture is shaking out blessings from heaven so that they overflow and spill out, raining down on us. And who wouldn't want that? :) The dispersing darkness part is also awesome. To get there though, we need to make sure that we are listening to God, and treating his prophet's words as seriously as we would God himself. Today, let's think about the difference between how we are listening and obeying now, and how that might change if God stood beside us and said the same thing. And if that inspires us to make some changes, so much the better, because as we work on that, with patience and faith, we know that it will be raining blessings thereafter. :)