The Lord Leads His Church

He gave Revelation to prophets past, present, and future (point 3 of 4)

Anyone who is unsure whether a calling (theirs or others) is correct should withhold judgement until they can see what God sees.

A person may receive counsel from a Bishop, Stake President, or other church leader – none of these men asked for their calling. (I don’t recall who he was quoting the.)

“It takes faith and humility to serve in the place where we are called.”

1. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church in all the earth.
2. He leads His Church today by speaking to men called as prophets, and He does it through revelation.
3. He gave revelation to His prophets long ago, still does, and will continue to do so.
4. He gives confirming revelation to those who serve under the leadership of His prophets.

From those fundamentals, we recognize that the Lord’s leadership of His Church requires great and steady faith from all who serve Him on earth.

For instance, it takes faith to believe that the resurrected Lord is watching over the daily details of His kingdom. It takes faith to believe that He calls imperfect people into positions of trust. It takes faith to believe that He knows the people He calls perfectly, both their capacities and their potential, and so makes no mistakes in His calls.

The judgment you need to make, instead, is that you have the capacity to receive revelation and to act on it fearlessly.

It is not only the capacity (which we need to believe we have) but also the willingness (which we decide for ourselves).

I was watching when the secretary walked up the street toward the less-active boy’s house. He walked slowly as if he were going into great danger. But within a half hour he came back down the road with the boy, smiling happily. I’m not sure he knew it then, but he had gone with faith that he was on the Lord’s errand. That faith has stayed with him and has grown over his years as a missionary, a father, a leader of young men, and a bishop

I wonder if he was talking about one of his boys – Stuart I would guess.

For a leader to succeed in the Lord’s work, the people’s trust that he is called of God must override their view of his infirmities and mortal weaknesses.

Your leader in the Lord’s Church may seem to you weak and human or may appear to you strong and inspired. The fact is that every leader is a mixture of those traits and more. What helps servants of the Lord who are called to lead us is when we can see them as the Lord did when He called them.

The Lord sees His servants perfectly. He sees their potential and their future. And He knows how their very nature can be changed. He also knows how they can be changed by their experiences with the people they will lead.

He carried with him the lesson we learned together: if you have faith that the Lord leads His Church through revelation to those imperfect servants He calls, the Lord will open the windows of heaven to them, as He will to you.

From that experience, I carried away the lesson that the faith of the people we serve, sometimes more than our own faith, brings us revelation in the Lord’s service.

I try not to judge servants of the Lord or to speak of their apparent weaknesses. And I try to teach that by example to my children. President James E. Faust shared a credo that I am trying to make my own. I commend it to you:

“We … need to support and sustain our local leaders, because they … have been ‘called and chosen.’ Every member of this Church may receive counsel from a bishop or a branch president, a stake or a mission president, and the President of the Church and his associates. None of these brethren asked for his calling. None is perfect. Yet they are the servants of the Lord, called by Him through those entitled to inspiration. Those called, sustained, and set apart are entitled to our sustaining support.

“… Disrespect for ecclesiastical leaders has caused many to suffer spiritual weakening and downfall. We should look past any perceived imperfections, warts, or spots of the men called to preside over us, and uphold the office which they hold.”

There is a thread that binds us to the Lord in our service. It runs from wherever we are called to serve in the kingdom, up through those called to preside over us in the priesthood, and to the prophet, who is bound to the Lord. It takes faith and humility to serve in the place to which we are called, to trust that the Lord called us and those who preside over us, and to sustain them with full faith.

I wonder if this talk is inspired by him hearing of people questioning the capacity of President Monson.