Setting the Standard

Given that General Conference has officially already started, I think I had better hurry and finish up blogging about the last one. As I reviewed Elder Benjamin De Hoyos's talk, That Our Light May Be a Standard for the Nations, I kept thinking that his message was similar to one I shared a few weeks ago: The Moral Necessity of Political Involvement.

I don't think God ever intended us Mormons to fit in. Ever since the restoration, if not a few centuries or millennia before that, God meant for His church to stand out in the crowd. We're not supposed to act like the atheists or agnostics or non-Christians or even like the other Christians. We are supposed to teach others, by by word and by example, how Jesus Christ wants His children to live.

This is a tall order. Elder De Hoyos spoke of letting our light shine and setting the standard, but in order to do that, we have to follow that light and the Lord's standard. Many prophetic quotes contain messages along the lines of not being able to lift others higher than we ourselves stand. That may be why the command to "shine forth, that thy light may be a standard for the nations" is preceded by the command to "Arise" (D&C 115:5).

If we are to be the examples God wants us to be, we must try to be exemplary. We have to try to follow the commandments and teachings of God if we are to have any success in encouraging others to follow them. This doesn't mean that we have to be perfect, or even that we have to be good. We just have to try, and we have to let other people see us striving for the ideal standard of behavior that we would like them to also strive for. We have to practice what we preach, for their sakes as well as ours, and we have to preach repentance, for our sakes as well as theirs.

God wants all of His children to be righteous and set good examples for others, and that is especially true for members of His church. He has called us to be His "standard for the nations," but to magnify that calling, we need to be following that standard ourselves.