What's right is right, no matter what anyone says. What's wrong is wrong, no matter what anyone says. Now here's the hard part: What's right is right, regardless of who says it and what they do. What's wrong is wrong, regardless of who says it and what they do.
My mom once told me a story about how when she and my dad were starting to become active in the church after a leave of absence. She said that an obstacle came up when there was a woman giving a talk in Sacrament meeting about a topic that my mom knew the woman didn't live personally. My mom struggled with this hypocrisy for a short while before she and my dad talked about it. They decided that it was either going to be about the gospel, or it was going to be about the people. They made it about the gospel.
There are hypocrites everywhere; in every state, city, school, and church. People are not perfect. I am not perfect. I feel that I can safely say that everyone is a hypocrite sometimes. But we can't judge truth by whether or not the people preaching it are practicing it. If someone who lies says that lying is bad, are they a hypocrite? Probably (I don't want to judge). But, are they still right? Yes. Lying is wrong; that much is right. It is a true principle whether it comes from the mouth of a liar or a prophet.
I am tired of people saying that the LDS people are hypocrites. We are no more hypocrites than any other organized religion. The world is full of hypocrites, not just in the LDS church. No one on this earth is perfect; but we should still preach what is right. And yes, we should always strive to practice the truths that we preach, but our lack of perfection will never keep the truth from being right.
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Questions for today:
Do you search for truth or do you search for comfort?
When making a decision, do you care more about what others think, or about what God thinks?
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Disclaimer: I am not perfect (by any stretch of the imagination). Anything I say has my permission to be perceived as false and hypocritical by anyone who failed to recognize the point of this post.
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"Of course you're right, you're always right. And that can only mean that I am wrong." --Lauraine Henderson
"You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway." --Mother Teresa
"Failure isn't falling down. Failure is staying down." --Someone
"Judge not that ye be not judged." --Matthew, chapter 7
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Today's Featured Quote:
"Why am I so bad at being good?!" --Avatar: The Last Airbender
The only perfect person was Christ and He established this Church. It was the members that skewed it. It is important to remember that the Church isn't about the people, but it's about Christ and growing closer to Him; that is something I have a hard time remembering. Your mom's incident is so sadly common.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with Erin's comment. So many people get sidetracked by judging the church by the members, not by the gospel. But, a lot of members make it really easy for others to get sidetracked. I'm glad your parents recognized the truth for the truth. :)
ReplyDeleteWell said!! Truth is truth no matter where it's found or who says it. Of course we should all strive to live what we know, but we are imperfect, and fail daily. If you had to perfectly practice everything you preached in order to preach (or perfectly apply some kind of learning in order to teach), there would be no schools or churches in the world--no learning. You could never teach math if you every got a problem wrong, never teach English if you spelled something incorrectly, etc. What a terrible world that would be!
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