And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.
And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?
Mosiah 2: 23-24
When I heard that scripture yesterday, I thought of the word immediately, meaning without delay, instantly, very closely following whatever happened before it, and I knew there were a few places in which the word "Immediately" was used in the scriptures. I was wrong. There are several places where "Immediately" is used in the scriptures, mostly in the New Testament, and as far as I could tell, most of those referred to people being healed immediately. I wanted to share the "Immediately" scriptures, but there proved to be too many, so I thought it'd suffice to share the one I posted above, and one more, but I'll get to that one later.
The scripture above is mostly talking about the debt we owe to God for creating us and for the many blessings He gives us, but I want to highlight the part of the verse where it says that some blessings come immediately. We normally don't think of it happening that way. Or at least, I don't. I feel that it sometimes takes a while for the blessings of commandment-keeping to come. Delay gratification is a good thing, right? It teaches us patience, and it teaches us not to keep the commandments just for the sake of receiving blessings. If we keep commandments just for the sake of receiving the blessings that will immediately come, then the purpose of hose commandments (making us better, more Christ-like people) would be ruined.
Or would it? Even if we keep the commandments selfishly, if we keep them consistently, the habit will still form, and we'll become better people for it. I'm starting to get off-topic, aren't I?
My current thinking is that God does bless us immediately when we keep commandments, but that the blessings that come immediately after a specific act of commandment-keeping are often very subtle. To be specific (though I may be wrong here, so don't quote me on this), I think that the immediate blessing of keeping commandments is that we'll have the Holy Spirit with us more abundantly, that it'll touch our hearts and give us the "warm fuzzies" that we usually associate with the act of doing good. Other blessings, such as miracles on our behalf, may come later, precisely in the moment they're needed, perhaps after we've shown that we're willing to keep God's commandments with some consistency. The less-obvious blessing of the presence of the Holy Spirit may also help people to keep the commandments for the right reasons. It's subtle enough that many people could miss it, and it's not usually enough incentive for people to keep the commandments just so they could feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.
This verse talks about the keeping of a specific commandment, repentance, for which one may immediately receive a specific blessing, that "the great plan of redemption [will] be brought about unto you." I think that means forgiveness, but again, don't quote me because I'm not completely sure.
If I'm right, this is another blessing that can be rather subtle and not always felt, so there's little chance of people repenting just for the instant gratification of the feeling of being forgiven (besides, such people probably aren't genuinely repenting anyway), but for those with sincerity and enough spiritual sensitivity, the feeling of being forgiven may be felt and appreciated.
Honestly, I think that God likes to bless us, that He's eager to bless us, but that there are usually a few things holding Him back. His Spirit can't be with us if we're not keeping the commandments because He "dwelleth not in unholy temples." He could grant us miracles on our behalf, but actually, that might do more harm than good. If we sin, but get blessed anyway, we may never learn our lesson and repent, so, for our own sakes, God can't bless us unless we obey His counsel and commandments.
But as soon as we do, He blesses us. I believe that God is eager and anxious to bless us, and as soon as we give Him an opportunity, by keeping a commandment or repenting of a sin, He welcomes us with open arms and makes sure that we feel welcome by blessing us with His Spirit. I think that God really, really loves us, so He wants to bless us, and He does so immediately when we give Him a good reason to. But even more than He wants to bless us, He wants what's best for us. He wants us to learn and grow to be good people. He wants us to repent of our sins and keep His commandments. So, as much as He wants to bless us, He often holds some blessings back until we show that we're willing to follow Him.
But here's the kicker: If we do follow Him, no good thing will be withheld from us. Even all the He has will be given to us if we follow Him. A blessing that big may not come to us immediately, but it's certainly worth keeping the commandments for, and we have a scriptural assurance that there will be many immediate blessings along the way.
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