You are the servant of the master whose will you pursue. It is incorrect to interpret the choices we make as free autonomy. While every person has full autonomy in every choice they make,1 we neither create the options available to us nor the value of each. All choices are not equally good or acceptable in the eyes of God. God has a preference in every decision you make, and your choices determine your allegiance to or rebellion against him.2
In any decision, the best option is the will of God, the will of God is the best option, and all other options are the will of the devil.3 Though some bad choices are worse than others, everything less than what is best achieves the purposes of Satan and works against the purposes of God.
You don’t get to choose whether you are a servant or not, only whom you will serve. Those who do what is best at all times and in all places, as far as they understand, are servants of God. Those who do anything less are the servants of Satan. You cannot serve God and the devil.4 You can’t serve two masters, because serving the interests of one requires prioritizing it over the other.5 You will most desire what you most value.6
Submission to God is the sacrifice of making God’s purpose your singular desire and highest priority. You cannot follow Jesus without fully and exclusively adopting his purpose.7 If you adopt God’s purpose, you are in his kingdom; if you don’t, you can’t be.
You have either forsaken your sins and fully submitted to God, or you remain captivated by the spirit of the devil.8 Those who still allow themselves to think, feel, or do less than the best they know, even on occasion,9 remain servants to the devil.10 All negative feelings in response to greater light and truth reveal rebellion against God.
There is absolutely no good or valid reason to serve Satan.11 No good result can come from serving Satan,12 and everything that seems good will either evaporate in perceived value13 or otherwise erode into something far worse than imagined.14
Footnotes
- 1. And now, ye see by this that our first parents were cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord; and thus we see they became subjects to follow after their own will. (Alma 42:7) ↩
- 2. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other. (2 Nephi 2:16) ↩
- 3. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16) ↩
- 4. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. (Romans 6:20) ↩
- 5. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24) ↩
- 6. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:21) ↩
- 7. And now behold, I say unto you that the right way is to believe in Christ, and deny him not; and Christ is the Holy One of Israel; wherefore ye must bow down before him, and worship him with all your might, mind, and strength, and your whole soul; and if ye do this ye shall in nowise be cast out. (2 Nephi 25:29) ↩
- 8. Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. (John 8:34) ↩
- 9. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. (2 Peter 2:19) ↩
- 10. I say unto you, can ye think of being saved when you have yielded yourselves to become subjects to the devil? (Alma 5:20) ↩
- 11. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. (Moroni 7:17) ↩
- 12. Yea, and I also exhort you, my brethren, that ye be watchful unto prayer continually, that ye may not be led away by the temptations of the devil, that he may not overpower you, that ye may not become his subjects at the last day; for behold, he rewardeth you no good thing. (Alma 34:39) ↩
- 13. And thus we see the end of him who perverteth the ways of the Lord; and thus we see that the devil will not support his children at the last day, but doth speedily drag them down to hell. (Alma 30:60) ↩
- 14. For behold, there is a wo pronounced upon him who listeth to obey that spirit; for if he listeth to obey him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment, having transgressed the law of God contrary to his own knowledge. (Mosiah 2:33) ↩