We Ought To Obey God

To my daughter, 

In a Christian song called You Say, Lauren Daigle sings these words:

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough

Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up… 

The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me

In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity 

I love the message of these words and I hope that you will come to learn it for yourself: our worth and our identity comes from God! That can be so hard for us to come to believe in a world that is persistently trying to get us to compare ourselves to others. Satan is constantly “tempting [us] to seek for power, and authority, and riches, and the vain things of the world” and we can easily think that we don’t have worth if we don’t have a lot of those things (3 Nephi 6:15). But as President Nelson has taught us who we really are and what our identity should be: “Who are you? First and foremost, you are a child of God. Second, as a member of the Church, you are a child of the covenant. And third, you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Tonight, I plead with you not to replace these three paramount and unchanging identifiers with any others.” I hope that you will always remember that you are a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Jesus Christ. That is more important than any other label you might think you have, whether it is based on sports or school or a musician that you like. What matters most is your relationship with the Savior and your Father in Heaven.

                One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is that of Peter and John as they preached the gospel in Jerusalem after the Savior ascended into heaven. They were totally fearless as they fulfilled the mission that Jesus had given them to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19). As they preached and healed, the Jewish rulers had them arrested and “commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.” They responded boldly, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:18-20). They could not be intimidated by even those who had power to hurt them—they were faithful to the Savior. As they kept preaching the gospel, they were once more arrested. This time the angel of the Lord brought them out miraculously and said to them, “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” So this they did, still unashamedly preaching the word to the people. They were captured again and brought in a third time, and the high priest said to them, “Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” Peter’s response should inspire each of us who are striving to be a follower of Jesus: “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:20, 28-29). That is the key to life! We must be more concerned with obeying God than men. We must be more committed to following Jesus than following the world. We must love Him more than we love the acceptance of our peers. We must put Him first above all else. I know that true happiness and a feeling of self-worth comes from the knowledge that our life is in accordance with His will. I hope that you and I will both strive to be like Peter and John, seeking fearlessly to please God instead of men.  

Love,

Dad