Never Looking Back
Luke recorded this account of the Savior inviting people to follow Him: “And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:59-62). This reminds us of the story of Lot and his wife as they fled Sodom: “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26). She did look back, but in the gospel of Jesus Christ we must not look back once we are engaged in His work. Her story is similarly to that of Ananias and Sapphira who lied to the Lord and “kept back part of the price” when they had committed to give all to Him. They both died because of their unwillingness to give their all to Savior. Once we have made covenants to the Lord to follow Him, we must be willing to go wherever He calls and do whatever He asks without equivocation. In our dispensation the Lord put it this way: “Go ye out from among the nations, even from Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon. But verily, thus saith the Lord, let not your flight be in haste, but let all things be prepared before you; and he that goeth, let him not look back lest sudden destruction shall come upon him” (Doctrine and Covenants 133:14-15). We must commit to leave the world and keep the commandments of the Lord with all our heart, not trying to keep a “summer cottage in Babylon” as Elder Maxwell once put it.
Ultimately what the Lord asks of
us is that we give to Him our whole heart. He put it this way when He described
“the great commandment in the law” in these words: “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”
(Matt. 22:37). In the law of Moses we have the invitation in these terms: “And
now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord
thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy
God with all thy heart and with all thy soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12). And the Lord
put the same commandment for us today this way to Joseph Smith: “Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and
strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him” (Doctrine and
Covenants 59:5). Once we covenant with Him through the waters of baptism He
wants us to be all in, fully committed, entirely devoted to the cause of Christ.
We cannot look back to our former self or try to keep a way of retreat open to
us or hedge our bets; we must instead have “a determination to serve him to the
end” (Moroni 6:3). When Nephi arrived in the promised land with his family, this
is what they did: “And it came to pass that we did begin to till the earth, and
we began to plant seeds; yea, we did put all our seeds into the earth, which we
had brought from the land of Jerusalem” (1 Nephi 18:24). They held nothing back
but in faith, knowing that the Lord had led them there, put all the
seeds in the ground. They didn’t keep a part back in case they couldn’t grow in
this soil and they needed to move somewhere else; but instead they trusted that
the Lord had led them exactly where they needed to be and in faith planted them
all. That is how we should live in the gospel; once we know that the Lord has
led us here we must move forward and trust in Him without hesitation.
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