0:00:00 - 0:00:28 So right now I'm thinking of collection of topics that I've been writing about. And I'd like to extract from those topics, a collection of, of uh summary of information that I think you can begin to apply right now in your life. And hopefully this, this front loads value so that you don't have to wait 0:00:27 - 0:00:51 for these books to be published in order to get a head start on, at least the beginnings of these ideas. Whenever I do this, I hope that um what, what happens as a result of this is I'm giving you new paper spindles and dumping in some sugar into the cotton candy machine and plugging it into the wall 0:00:51 - 0:01:09 and saying, have fun. I'll see you later and um some of you will try to eat the stick which you know, whatever. But um, and some of you will look at the stick and say this isn't cotton candy and throw it away. But hopefully some of you will fire up the machine and spin it up a little bit if you like 0:01:09 - 0:01:31 cotton candy and if you don't pick something else, I was at Lowe's the other day with my daughter and, uh, she's so funny. She hasn't quite mastered the art of manipulating people, which is good. Um, it has pros and cons, but we're, we're standing in line and, um, they had this display of these, these 0:01:30 - 0:01:54 gourmet lollipops, I guess they just have special sugar. And, um, she's like saying all these things about the lollipops trying to be cute and whatnot. And she's like, dad, if I had to pick two of these lollipops, I would pick these two. I said, that's nice. And, uh, I knew where she was going. Right 0:01:54 - 0:02:09 . I just wanted to, to play around a little. I said, that's nice. And then I ignored her and then she just kept going on about it. And I said, I said, I'll tell you what. Uh, no, I, I said something like, well, I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to buy exactly two lollipops. I said that's kind of 0:02:09 - 0:02:31 a random thing. What, you know, and she just kept dancing around the fact and I said, I'll tell you what you can have one of those and she got all excited because, you know, the, the mouse had gotten the cheese. Um, anyway, I, she said, she said, dad, don't you want one? And I, I was thinking, I'd rather 0:02:31 - 0:02:52 have a steak and I think maybe this is one sign of old age. I don't know, maybe at least in men I don't have experience on the other side. Um, but when you, when you go from wanting treats to just wanting some meat anyway. Um So that's not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about gifts 0:02:52 - 0:03:18 . Um Maybe like that lollipop. So there's a lot to know about gifts and what I'd like to do here is just smash together a whole lot and we could look up scriptures, it, it just would take a lot more time. And so I don't want to share any of this by way of, uh I was gonna use the scriptural phrase by 0:03:18 - 0:03:39 way of commandment, but that probably would make a lot of people's heads explode. What I mean, that shorthand for, I'd like to make an appeal to the scriptures to show you that what I'm telling you is in line with what God has taught and what God expects and what God gives us the opportunities he provides 0:03:38 - 0:04:01 . Um But I'm going to try to keep this short, you'll find the long form later on. Um It, it will be very fully described. But what's going to happen is that these are going to be chopped into bits across different chapters and books. So I'm just going to squish it all together here in brief form, relative 0:04:00 - 0:04:27 to the content. I'm not making promises on the length of the video, it's always relative to the content. So, um but since I'm there, I'm, I'm going to go ahead and address something. I have two friends who I consider to be brilliant man. I, every time I talk with these people I think about things I've 0:04:27 - 0:04:53 never thought before and that's not an easy thing to do. To me it's an easy thing that the spirit does for me. But to generate that, to catalyze that I should say, I don't think it's an easy thing. Um I could go into that but whatever. Um, ok. But both of these men told me at different times, they both 0:04:53 - 0:05:13 said essentially the same thing which was that they felt like they were very long winded people. And I laughed at this because I don't know which one would be number one and number two. But they are number one and two on my list of people I know who are mortal who are able to say the greatest amount 0:05:12 - 0:05:36 in the least number of words to convey the greatest amount of information in the least number of words. And in both our cases, they've expressed to me that they feel like they're rambling when they're speaking and they try their best to try to uh compress the information that they're sharing and to limit 0:05:35 - 0:05:57 , I know exactly what's happening. I can see it. They're querying their network of understanding and grabbing just the parts that they need to say what they want to say. And then there's a compression operation. You can see that I think about this very much like a programmer, but that's not like a carpenter 0:05:56 - 0:06:19 using carpenter analogies to describe the way that the solar system works. It's information to information. It doesn't take a genius to connect those. It's the same thing, right? So they're querying their understanding, their network of understanding, hitting every relevant thing and taking that and 0:06:19 - 0:06:43 condensing it into the briefest possible chunk to convey to me. I see this happening and they're doing a masterful job. It's, it's a master class in how to do this. But they feel like their chumps at it and that they're, they're lacking in skill for this. And this is part of what Enoch Moses and others 0:06:42 - 0:07:09 who were excessively intelligent people and very close to the Lord described as being slow of speech, quote unquote. And this is a secret that maybe you didn't know they did not have a speech impediment, not in terms of uh when one of my sons was younger, he had a very cute speech impediment and he'd 0:07:09 - 0:07:32 say things like Bulger and turkey instead of burger and turkey. And it was really funny and it went on for a long time and, and we just, we just uh we thought it was cute. He, he got pretty frustrated at it and as tends to happen, uh reached a point where his frustration was great enough that he was 0:07:32 - 0:08:03 willing to make the sacrifice to make it go away because it's a choice uh in in cases such as that where it's not something physical, that's impeding it. It's merely a matter of how you're trained to speak. So that's a, that's a feature of holiness in general is seeing your own attributes as less than 0:08:02 - 0:08:21 what other people would. It's funny because that can be reversed and you see your, your attributes as more than other people would in other ways. But your, your closeness to the Lord, so so to speak, shines a brighter light on your shadows. And so you see them before other people do and you see them 0:08:20 - 0:09:04 as larger problems than other people do. And so when I hear these two gentlemen speak first off, because they're both uh beautifully sincere and humble people, the spirit has an auto correct that that's never wrong. It always makes things better and uh like a good wife. Um But second, because I can see 0:09:03 - 0:09:38 the challenge they labor under of trying to reduce into temporal limits. What does not have limits in the spirit they're taking from as Jesus said about the Holy Ghost, which everyone who has the Holy Ghost does this too, it takes from him and gives to us and that's the process it queries, it collects 0:09:37 - 0:10:05 , it reduces, it delivers and that's what these men are doing anyway. It's not what I meant to talk about, meant to talk about gifts. So gifts, I had an interesting conversation with someone that I've done quite a bit to help to whom I've given much to help. And he was a bit upset about something. And 0:10:05 - 0:10:35 he said, well, look, uh, I don't want, I don't want to get to a place where I owe you anything. And I laughed, literally out loud. I laughed and I said it's too late for that. So, uh, just like this jovial Lee. I, it's, it's funny to me, it's so funny to me, this idea of we could call it illusory independence 0:10:34 - 0:10:59 and we see this everywhere in the modern world. It's very unfortunate. I'll tell you where it comes from. It's a very unfortunate outcome of abundant unmerited prosperity, which we are swimming in still, even as everything falls apart and everyone's spending more and more money for the same things or 0:10:59 - 0:00:00 frankly, much worse things than they had before your, your new toaster is gonna last six months instead of 50 years. And it's going to cost twice as much as the old one or four times as much or whatever the case may be and on and on. So we live in a flood of unmerited prosperity and because of that, 0:00:00 - 0:11:56 we have plenty of reasons to entertain the delusion that anyone is independent. So let's delve into that a bit. So the average old person today who's approaching the end of life, they will do anything they can to preserve the illusion of independence. If you have some sort of cognitive dysfunction, it's 0:11:56 - 0:12:17 probably not a good idea to be driving a car. In fact, at kind of a surprisingly young age, you lose quite a bit of your ability to see at night. And this is why a lot of older people will say things like, hey, if you have a function and it's night time, I'm not coming or I'll come and then I have to 0:12:17 - 0:12:37 leave really early because I can't see at night. And those of us driving on the highway with these people, we know because they're going way slower than the speed limit. And we're looking around thinking what is going on because our eyes still function to a point that we can see in the dark and they 0:12:37 - 0:13:01 can't. So uh once you start forgetting where you are randomly, these sorts of things, even physical dysfunction. So people have joint problems, maybe it's really hard to drive a car. It used to be harder when people had manual transmissions more often. Uh That's more physical movement, obviously, whatever 0:13:01 - 0:13:21 the case might be. The point is that at some point, old people need to stop driving. Now in the military, I'll say we had to do this test where there's a box, I think there was a light that flashed and then you hit, it had to hit a pedal when the light flashed something like that. But it was, it was 0:13:20 - 0:13:46 testing your timing response. And because it's the military, they had standards on everything. And if you couldn't respond in the amount of time allotted, they pulled your driver's license, your military driver's license. And, um, funny side note that's super relevant in ways that I would label a thing 0:13:45 - 0:14:15 must be what it is. I'd love to talk a lot about that theme. It's, it's not the right time though. I think of that. I have signed hundreds of military driver's licenses as an officer. Um, and I'd never had one. I never had one. It's so funny that there were millions and millions of, of opportunities 0:14:14 - 0:14:34 to get one. But every single time we did that training, I was either in charge of it and therefore couldn't participate or, um, I was off doing something else because they couldn't find anyone to run a rifle range or something like this or run a PT test or something they needed an officer for and they 0:14:34 - 0:14:55 didn't have any. So I had to go do that instead. And I actually, so the terminus of my time in the military, I was a company commander and we had a lot of vehicles in that company for what we were doing. We needed a lot of vehicles. And it's funny because I didn't have a license for any of them. And 0:14:55 - 0:15:21 yet legally speaking, I owned all of them, so I owned all of them and yet I was not authorized to drive any of them. So I actually had a driver, uh, which isn't unusual for a commander, but I had a driver for my humvee. And, um, it's so funny. So, but there were times when that person was occupied doing 0:15:21 - 0:15:39 more important things and then I'd get a call from my boss, the, the battalion commander and then I'd have to drive off to go see the battalion commander and I didn't have a license. And so that was really funny because I, I had the authority to sign a license so I could, I could literally give myself 0:15:38 - 0:15:57 any license. I wanted to, but they didn't have any license. So that was really funny to me. And, uh, on that, I remember the first time I drove a humvee, I actually had to pull a sergeant aside and say, like, how do I start this thing? Where's the brake? Ok. Ok. And, and, uh, go off how you turn on the 0:15:57 - 0:16:24 four wheel drive. Um, I don't actually remember if on a humvee, it's just always on. I think that's the case. I don't remember. Uh, it's been a long time. So anyway, um, gift in ancient times, it was well understood that when you received a gift, it always came with strings attached. The sense of justice 0:16:24 - 0:16:53 in ancient times was much stronger than it is in modern times. And um, no one would have believed in ancient times that the gift made you independent, quite the opposite, quite the opposite. A gift obligated you to the person who gave you the gift. This is why, for example, uh Abraham and David refused 0:16:52 - 0:17:18 to accept gifts for the things, the sacrifices they were performing for God. I've talked about this in completely different terms by saying the phrase leaving the chips on the table. That's a connected idea. It's not one and the same, but it's connected. David and Abraham never took their chips off the 0:17:17 - 0:17:40 table. They were smart enough to leave them and whenever they, they, uh well, I said they never took them off the table. They always made sure that enough stayed on the table to perpetuate that compounding of blessings. Um They'd only take a few off at a time and they wouldn't do it very often. And this 0:17:40 - 0:18:04 refusing to accept gifts was a piece of that. Abraham insisted on paying for the cave. He buried his wife in that also became his own tomb and David insisted on paying for the threshing floor on which he made sacrifices. And uh they not only insisted on paying, they insisted on paying market price and 0:18:03 - 0:18:33 probably a little over it is because they understood the Lord's justice. They understood the Lord's justice. They understood the, the obligation that always comes with a gift. So I was ranting about old people and um as a, as a, as a ready example of our idolatry of independence, our idolatry of illusory 0:18:32 - 0:18:57 independence. And so old people consider gifts their right and they're not alone in this. It's just for whatever reasons, it's concentrated or obvious enough that they make a ready example for us to poke fun at, in this regard. And so they think that they have a right to drive even as they lose the ability 0:18:57 - 0:19:20 to do so without harming others or even really inconveniencing others. So if a person is just driving a little slower, ok. No big deal. But if they're going 40 in a 70 in a single lane on a single lane highway and there's a, there's a train of 300 people behind them who are now going to be an hour late 0:19:20 - 0:19:43 to where they're going. That's probably not worth the cost. It's probably time for them to get off the road. Right. Or if they can't react in time, that's why I went into the military memories. Uh, it's probably time to pull their license. But what we do in our society is we tend to bend over backwards 0:19:43 - 0:20:08 for, uh, in order for people to preserve the illusion of independence. COVID was a wonderful example of that and uh independent of how misguided all of that was what we saw were enormous irrational costs to preserve the illusion of independence for older people. Oh, we got to keep granny alive for another 0:20:07 - 0:20:33 week. So she doesn't get COVID. We're gonna shut down the entire world. Ok. Well, that's, that's probably not a good idea. Um, so, but we do it right. We do it, you see special suspensions of rational thought when it comes to the elderly. Um, and they're not alone in this people do it with the military 0:20:32 - 0:21:00 . People do it with a lot of things. You know, somebody think of the Children. This is a, this is a common thing. It's not uncommon, but there are specific groups of people that seem to trigger it. So there's a difference between a gift and something that is earned. And the obligation that comes with 0:21:00 - 0:21:32 a gift is that you're called to earn it, called to earn it. Which means if someone gives you a gift, you have the obligation to reciprocate to them, the value of the gift. And in ancient times, this was understood that the modern notion of a gift as something that's given freely is a new idea. That's 0:21:31 - 0:22:09 not what it means. When you read about gifts in the scriptures, it's a new idea and it's kind of a funny idea. So if a gift conveys an obligation, what happens when you can't pay that obligation? Well, you owe everything up to it, you owe everything up to it. That's the answer. And uh in, in movies and 0:22:09 - 0:22:39 stories there, there's this, there's this idea of, there's a trope of a person saving someone's life and then that person whose life is saved becomes their servant effectively until they save their lives and then they're free from the debt. Maybe you've seen that in a movie or story, it's very common 0:22:38 - 0:23:08 . Fair enough. That's an even exchange, right? But what happens when someone gives you a gift without not just without regard to what they'll get in return, but they give you a gift that you could never ever repay. So Jesus says, when you have a feast, invite the poor invite the people that could never 0:23:07 - 0:00:00 ever pay you back. And he says, if you do this, God will pay you back. And this, this brings up many uncomfortable ideas, things we don't like talking about in the Gospel because they contradict pieces of what we believe. And one this in particular, this is the idea of payment in the Gospel payment. 0:00:00 - 0:24:02 You should do a word search of reward in the scriptures. And you're going to find some very interesting verses that you've probably skipped over conveniently in the past, Paul says, for example, that in order to have faith, you have to believe that God is a rewarder, but he will pay out to people what 0:24:02 - 0:24:38 , what they deserve. This flies in the face of most modern Christian beliefs uh about justice, about mercy, certainly about gifts. There is an obligation and God will repay justice or just Lee, it's the same mechanism as divine punishment. Divine blessing is the same. There are important subtleties in 0:24:38 - 0:25:06 all of this but just sort of glossing over it to focus on gifts. We read that while we were yet sinners, Jesus loved us first. How do you repay an obligation like that? Well, there's two parts to it. One is the fact that He forgave us or did what he needed to do in order to be able to forgive us while 0:25:06 - 0:25:34 there wasn't any reason to do so. We were so lost that there was no reason for him to do that. And yet he did it anyway. How do you repay a gift that is given when there is very little to reason to believe, or no reason to believe that it's going to do any good? Is that gift worth more? Then what uh 0:25:34 - 0:26:00 than giving a gift to a person where it's really obvious that it's going to do some good. Of course, it is Jesus said, if you only forgive those who love you, you're no different than every bad person. He said, you have to forgive your enemies to be Godly because that's, that is on the order of what 0:26:00 - 0:26:30 the Lord would do. So if you only give gifts to those who will reciprocate them, is that really a gift? It's still a gift, it's just not worth as much and it doesn't impute an obligation of reciprocation beyond what they were going to do anyway. So the further your expectation is away from reciprocation 0:26:29 - 0:27:08 , the greater the gift. So there's another piece here that's slipping for me now. Um Thank you there. Well, there are some gifts that can't be paid back. Let's go back to that and the obligation is up to whatever you can give. Here's an interesting theme to search out in the Old Testament, especially 0:27:08 - 0:27:39 in the early books, you, you're going to find um in the story of Israel, you're going to find the Lord having discussions with Moses and Moses conveying to the people again and again, that the Lord rescued them from slavery. You see this again and again and again and again, you see this in the book of 0:27:39 - 0:28:16 Mormon too when they, they speak of remembering uh the bondage of their fathers or remembering Lehi being brought out from Jerusalem, which was going to be destroyed. So, in these scriptures, you'll find some very strong language about how that act obligated the Israelites or the leighs to give everything 0:28:15 - 0:28:48 forever to the Lord because it wasn't a gift they could ever repay. When you're given something that fully exceeds your capability. You are fully obligated with all of your future capability to the individual that gives you the gift that really flies in the face of this idea of independence. We squish 0:28:48 - 0:29:08 down all of our human interactions and even our interactions with God. Unfortunately, into this lateral transmission, you know, you give me something, I reciprocate and now I'm independent. Again, I give you something you reciprocate and now you're independent. Again, that is not the way it actually 0:29:08 - 0:29:43 works. All gifts are given from above. If it doesn't come from above, it's not actually a gift. Um We read, I will look this one up, read and James every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, that's pretty crystal clear, isn't it? If it's a good gift and if it's a perfect gift, it's from above 0:29:43 - 0:30:11 and coming down from the Father of Lights with whom is no variable, neither shadow of turning. So if it's a good gift and if it's a perfect gift, it comes from above, not laterally, not at the same level that you could consider it a gift, but it's really just a loan and you're going to reciprocate and 0:30:11 - 0:30:39 then it goes away. That's a debt. That's not a gift, it's a debt and you repay it. You can never repay the gifts that God gives you. You can't what you can do and what you have to do. These are the terms and conditions is to turn to those who do not have that gift, whatever it is and freely share it 0:30:39 - 0:31:18 with them. That's exactly what he commands us to do. He says, love others as I have loved you that encompasses every gift. So how does that work then? In terms of obligation? Well, it, it works exactly how we've discussed. So what, what is the debt incurred then? And and now to distinguish between the 0:31:18 - 0:31:51 I was using debt as a lateral something you can settle. But what's the eternal debt? What are some things that cause eternal debt? What about your parents having you, especially your mom that incurs an eternal debt that can never be repaid. There's nothing you can ever do to repay your mother for birthing 0:31:51 - 0:32:20 you. Because when she did it, no, he loved us while we were yet sinners, he loved us before. There was a reason to your mother chose to have you before. She had any idea how you were. There was, there was no way of her anticipating what she would get in return for that and she did it anyway and it could 0:32:20 - 0:32:48 have cost her her life. That was part of the deal is that she could die. So there's nothing we can do to ever repay that. So that's why the commandment is honor your father and your mother because that is what's just because it's the only way to live not to repay them because you can't but to live in 0:32:47 - 0:33:22 accordance with the value of what you've received. Are there other examples? There are uh at some point I want to talk about uh giving and taking life. That's a juicy topic. But there are many scriptures where the Lord refers to the difference made by a righteous person and whether others live or die 0:33:22 - 0:33:55 . So if a servant of God intervenes and causes you to survive, what you would otherwise be, be killed in or killed for or whatever, but die if he intervenes and you don't die or she intervenes and you don't die. What is your obligation thereafter? So these are major themes and you might think well, yeah 0:33:55 - 0:34:19 , this is all well and good. But this is, this is some extreme stuff. I mean, how does this have anything to do with me? Well, in the end times it's not going to be so extreme. Well, it will be, but it won't be so uncommon. And another thing that will become much more common is your receipt of information 0:34:18 - 0:34:47 you had absolutely no ability to get for yourself, your receipt of opportunities that you had absolutely no ability to get for yourself. And if you don't correctly understand, I could go on with more examples. But if you don't correctly understand where this place is, you and what it's worth, you're 0:34:47 - 0:35:11 not going to get out of it. What you could. In fact, you're, you're going to decline gifts that are offered because in your mind, at least subconsciously you're going to try to avoid situations that take away your independence. But what you mean by independence is very different than what God means by 0:35:11 - 0:35:33 independence. He's made us free. You are free and no one can take away that freedom that God gives. What is that freedom? But it doesn't mean that you're physically free to do whatever the heck you want. Someone can put you in chains and then you can't do what you want. It means you're free to think 0:35:32 - 0:36:10 and feel and you're free to guide your actions based on moral decisions. And so it's about information and opportunity that freedom doesn't go away ever while you're alive. You have it uh modulo. So this is fine print maybe. But there's a path and it's a broad path it's taken by many people. But in that 0:36:10 - 0:36:34 path, your freedom to receive and evaluate information is successively impeded through your choice to turn away from what you see as what is best. That's how the flax and chords become chains. And your understanding darkens and all these scriptural phrases. But basically your ability to see good declines 0:36:33 - 0:37:02 , You can't discern good and evil as well as you could before and therefore you make worse and worse choices. But other than than that, which requires your choice anyway, no one can do anything to, no one else can do anything to take away the freedom that God gives you has already given you. So coming 0:37:01 - 0:37:28 away from what you think of as independence is not coming away from the independence that God gives you, which is moral independence. And this is very important because God's kingdom is a kingdom and a kingdom is not a kingdom of people who do whatever the heck they want. It's not a set of people who 0:37:28 - 0:37:55 do whatever the heck they want. It's not a set of people who are independent. If you're in a kingdom, you are subject to a king. You are a subject of the case. If that's a righteous king like the Lord, then that is better than anything else could be, especially being independent because the natural man 0:37:55 - 0:38:26 is an enemy to God and will be forever and ever unless he submits to the Lord. So being a subject of the Lord is better than any other thing you could do. So, I suppose with that, we've, we've probably covered enough ground. Um I did want to mention specifically this, this idea of opportunities in the 0:38:26 - 0:38:58 end times. What you're going to find is a clash between several ideas that exist right now that are somewhat mutually exclusive. One idea that is gaining in popularity is to see things of value and dismiss them as unearned. For example, if you know a person who is worth $100 million you might look at 0:38:57 - 0:39:25 that person and be tempted to minimize what they did to get there. Now, this is easy to do because there are abundant examples of people who have lots of money who maybe didn't do what that amount of money would require in order to be fair. But there are an awful lot of, of situations where what some 0:39:25 - 0:39:51 someone has came through doing what others who don't have. It were not willing to do and still aren't. There are a lot of those. So keeping that clear in your mind is actually super important. Why uh in the end times as, as we go through the end times, what you're going to find, I'll just say this plainly 0:39:50 - 0:40:13 , there are going, there's going to be a movement where people, I'm not saying all people per se but people in wealthy nations. Uh you, you will see this in the United States and Canada for sure, group together on land and start farming it and living as independently from the rest of the nation as they 0:40:13 - 0:40:48 can. These groups don't need to be huge. It's, it could just be two families or a group of five people. And this is, this is one of the challenges of that is going to be overcoming this idea that the only things worth doing are things that can be done where people are equals, things that can be done 0:40:48 - 0:41:14 in ways that maintain the illusion of independence. Let's suppose, I know a guy who owns 1000 acres of land, it's raw land in the middle of nowhere and it happens to somehow be in a county where they're not all up in your business about every little thing you do suppose. This guy says, hey, um I'd like 0:41:14 - 0:41:37 to invite up to three families to come live on this land and let's start a collective where we farm it and we try to produce as much of what we use as we can so far. So good. The issue is that the families that come are very much going to think of themselves as closer to the equal of the person who gives 0:41:36 - 0:42:07 the land when they are not in any way his equal, unless they're bringing something else of equally great value as 1000 acres of raw land. In the middle of nowhere in a county where people leave you alone, which is an extraordinarily rare feat. It takes an immense amount of prior sacrifice to get to that 0:42:07 - 0:42:35 point. II I hope this is clear what I'm saying in all this. So if you were to show up at a place like that, thinking that you're all equals, you're going to be sorely disappointed because the same things that caused that guy to be in a position where he has 1000 acres. Uh Wisdom is not ever limited to 0:42:35 - 0:43:05 one thing. Light truth intelligence, it doesn't matter what you wanna call it, it's an all or nothing affair. The spirit doesn't just operate in narrow channels. It quickens you. It's a complete thing. So maybe your success in something is the effect of chains of a stroke of luck and that's totally possible 0:43:04 - 0:43:33 . But odds are that there is some wisdom there too and where there's exceptional capability or resources of whatever sort, there's also exceptional wisdom. It's not always the case, but it is more often than not the case. And so if you were coming to a place like that, the question is, what are you bringing 0:43:33 - 0:43:58 to the table? And what did it cost you if what you're bringing to the table is your body and what it cost you was nothing except showing up. You're not an equal there. This is an extraordinarily offensive idea. But, but think about it even in terms of relationships where it's equally offensive. I think 0:43:57 - 0:44:19 I told the story. I overheard a mother talking to another mother about a daughter who had gone on a date with a man that was a little older than her. And the report was, well, it went really great. He was really polite and he's done a lot of amazing things in his life. And then the laundry list came 0:44:19 - 0:44:40 of all these remarkable things that this guy had done even in the years he was older, but he had packed his life with value. And now the neon sign question was why isn't he married yet? But let's set that aside for a minute because that wasn't the concern. The concern was well, you know, but she didn't 0:44:39 - 0:45:05 feel like he really saw her as his equal. And I was thinking because she's not. If he did that would be a problem, right? That, that would be a problem. And I said this in another video, but a, a quality man stands on top of a mountain and he says I've climbed up this mountain and I have everything that 0:45:05 - 0:45:25 entails. It's pretty good. You should come join me and I really hope you do because this happens to be exactly what I think is the best out of everything I know of. But if you don't, if you want something else instead that's fine. But if you want to come up here, come on up, the water is great. Right 0:45:25 - 0:45:49 . And if you have something better, I want to know about that too because that means you have a higher mountain and I want to climb it because that's what I'm all about. Right. And so that's true in relationships, whether they're romantic or friendships, it's true. It should be true in families that 0:45:48 - 0:46:17 form out of those romantic relationships. The father ought to have more to give than anyone else in his family. If that's not true, somebody made a poor choice or someone went off the rails or someone was subject to a horrific accident and that happens. Right. That happens. Um But it's also true of gathering 0:46:16 - 0:46:45 . There needs to be something with a gift, someone with a gift to give or else there's no reason to gather. There's no point for a bunch of people who think they're the same to come together. There's no point to that. Every good gift and perfect gift is from above. If you don't have someone you think 0:46:45 - 0:47:15 is above, there's no point in gathering. There's also no point in going to church. There's no point in being a member of some religion unless there is someone that you think is from above. Because otherwise, what are you doing? What's the point? It's just a social group. And you, you might say, well 0:47:14 - 0:47:39 , you could have a group that's a mutual, mutually beneficial only if people have things to give. And you, you're saying, well, yeah, but what we have to give is equal. There's no such thing. Go read the book of Abraham. There's no such thing as equal. If you think that you're in a situation with one 0:47:39 - 0:48:05 or more people where you all equally contribute, it means you're not the person who's above and you're taking from them without realizing that that is the case and you're incurring a debt that you're ignoring. Now, why does that matter? It, it doesn't matter to the person who's giving it to you. They 0:48:05 - 0:48:27 might not even know first off because it takes a certain amount of light to be able to discern these things. But um they might not even know. But even if they did know, they'd probably be just fine with that because they care about the benefit of the world more than what they get out of it. Net. So what's 0:48:27 - 0:48:52 the problem? The problem is you because you will never have as much joy as you would. If you understood more of the cost of what you received, the value, you find the joy you find in something is always equal to the value you find in it. The value you find in something is always the lesser of two things 0:48:51 - 0:49:15 . One is the actual value it has, which is the value God has in it. The other is the value you see in it and these could be different in any way. Ok? But the joy you receive in something is the lesser of these two factors. So let's say you have something that God sees is enormously valuable and you see 0:49:14 - 0:49:40 it as uh that's having little value. That's all the value you will find in it. When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden. Adam thought the garden had some value. Eve thought it had much less value. It wasn't until they were cast out that they realized it was much more valuable than they thought God 0:49:40 - 0:00:00 saw it as very valuable. He saw it as paradise. He saw it as the best possible place they could be at the time. And so it is with us, there's, there's no guarantee that you're gonna see the value in the things that you have. It's up to you to find out how God values it. And then to change your mind, 0:00:00 - 0:50:25 to see it the same way, change your heart, to see it the same way. He has many tools to help you with that. If you seek him, he will, he will lead you through that process. So if you're, if you think that you're in a marriage where you're equal partners or friendship, where you're equal partners or whatever 0:50:25 - 0:50:51 , whatever, whatever you're wrong and you're probably the one that's taking more than you give probably. And the end result of that is you have much less joy in that situation than you could immediately have. Just by seeing things more accurately, you wouldn't have to change anything else except your 0:50:51 - 0:51:11 perspective. Isn't that amazing? There's so much joy that you're leaving on the table in your life without making any changes except how you see things. That's all you'd have to change and you'd have massively more joy in your life. It's crazy. Huh? So, there's a lot more I could say about that. But 0:51:11 - 0:51:30 maybe that's enough, uh, just to hammer the point home though. One final thought. If you counter what I'm saying about reciprocal relationships being impossible. If you counter that by saying, yeah, but we each have strengths and weaknesses and they are complementary and, and they equal out in, in the 0:51:30 - 0:00:00 , in terms of a pair of people. Uh You could say this in a group too, we're all contributing and we're equals here because we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we make up for each other. Ok, fine. But there's two ways of looking at that, either of which are more correct than the way you are. 0:00:00 - 0:52:08 One is weigh out the actual value of what people contribute. I've seen so many teams, for example, in the programming world where everyone but one or two people thought they were equal partners. And it turns out that the one or two people who would dispute that actually produce something like 10 times 0:52:08 - 0:52:31 more than everyone else combined. And I'm not exaggerating in the scale of the difference when it comes to value, it takes one to know one. And so lower people in whatever the group it is. When you sort them by value, the people at the bottom are never going to accurately see the value of the people 0:52:30 - 0:52:52 at the top. That's the way it goes. You can only see value just beyond your own, were capped at that. And it's for a reason, it, it, it's a helpful thing. It'd be extremely overwhelming if that veil were not in place. The other thing that I'll say on this and, and this would be better expressed with 0:52:52 - 0:53:12 a picture. So I'm being lazy here and forgive me for not taking the time to do a separate presentation at this time and draw this out. But think of the triangle of circles. And we, we frequently use this picture, right? Um There's a bunch of circles at different levels and they have lines between them 0:53:11 - 0:53:34 indicating some sort of connection. Well, what we see in real life, you might be looking at that and saying, oh, this person is much better at alphabetizing lists and this person's much better at decorating things and this person's much better. So if you have alphabetizing and decorating things and building 0:53:33 - 0:53:57 things that require precision and all these other skills as the circles at the bottom, each person is going to have a different profile of their strengths and weaknesses across those categories, not to complicate it. But you could draw a hub and uh like a, a spoke graph where each of those categories 0:53:56 - 0:54:22 is aligned and some would be shorter and some will be longer, right? That's the bottom of the triangle. And so at that level, maybe you could approach something like what, what seems like equality in a group. OK? Go up a level, go up a level and now at that level, how different are things and then go 0:54:22 - 0:54:44 up a level and then go up a level and then go up a level. And what you're going to find is every time you go up a level, the differences increase the differentiation between people increases. And as you go up a level and understanding you're, you're getting closer to God in terms of how he sees things 0:54:43 - 0:55:09 here in, in our bottom row perception, you might be able to make a case. I don't think you can, but you could approach a case. I don't think you can do it convincingly, but you can approach a case where there's something like equality. But as you go up, that equality vaporizes and what you're actually 0:55:09 - 0:55:35 doing by going up and, and moving into the transcendent, what you're doing is assessing those differences, not just on the situation at hand, which is not reality, it's a very, very, very limited picture of reality estimate. And you're, you're comparing these people across the whole of reality, what 0:55:35 - 0:55:59 really is, how they really are. So not to dive too deeply into this. But what's the difference between two people who are really good at calligraphy, random random thing. Right. Well, one person might be naturally good at calligraphy. Let's say that these people are good. They're not experts but they're 0:55:59 - 0:56:22 good. One person may have arrived there by picking up a pet. The other person may have spent 20 years of their lives spending 20 minutes a day every single day practicing and they were horrifically bad at the beginning in the snapshot of right now, those people will be equal at this one thing. And if 0:56:22 - 0:56:42 this is true of one spoke in that quality graph, we could obviously, it's true. If you, if you compared separate things like someone's like this with calligraphy, someone's like this with horseback riding. Ok. But there's an immense difference between these two people, not at that level, but at a higher 0:56:41 - 0:57:08 level because the kind of person that practices something they're weak at every day for 20 minutes a day, over years and years is a much better person than someone who's just naturally good at something and that quality will bleed through on many other things. Do you get that? So to make a statement 0:57:08 - 0:57:32 like that, we have to vastly compress all of reality down to channels that are far too narrow to, to be a good description of everything. But I'm just trying to express an idea and so we have to cut out a whole bunch of things to make it simple enough to, to convey. Do you get it. So if you go up enough 0:57:32 - 0:57:53 levels, there, there emerges enormous differences that are much easier to see. Ironically because they're at hidden levels. All right, I've probably ramped about this for long enough. So the objective here was to talk about gifts, how gifts incur obligations. Uh We didn't talk about what happens when 0:57:53 - 0:58:15 those obligations aren't honored. So, just very briefly, uh the gift is taken away. That's what Jesus is talking about when he continuously said in the New Testament to those who have will more be given. And from those who do not have will what they have be taken away in Luke. In the Luke version of 0:58:14 - 0:58:42 that, it says what they think they have. That's huge. Uh If, if, if Babylon could be described in a sentence, maybe a good candidate would be people who think they have much more than they do and it will be taken away. And it's true collectively and it's true on the individual level. So, uh that's what 0:58:42 - 0:59:02 happens when you don't live up to a gift. There are gifts that can be given that can never be paid back and they incur an eternal obligation and receiving valuable gifts is always a very good thing. It's always a very good thing. You might push back against that and say, what about David and Abraham 0:59:02 - 0:59:28 ? They, they turned away gifts, they turned away gifts from lesser people that weren't actually gifts because they had more than enough money to buy what they needed themselves. Because those people were really wise and were trying to get something more than what they pay for. To have David or Abraham 0:59:27 - 0:59:54 in your debt is worth much more than a field or a cave because they are worth much more than a field or a cave. You see, that's not turning away a gift that's avoiding a trap. It's a trap, right? So don't receive as a gift, what you can do for yourself. And now I ask you, why doesn't God do for us? What 0:00:00 - 0:00:28 So right now I'm thinking of collection of topics that I've been writing about. And I'd like to extract from those topics, a collection of, of uh summary of information that I think you can begin to apply right now in your life. And hopefully this, this front loads value so that you don't have to wait 0:00:27 - 0:00:51 for these books to be published in order to get a head start on, at least the beginnings of these ideas. Whenever I do this, I hope that um what, what happens as a result of this is I'm giving you new paper spindles and dumping in some sugar into the cotton candy machine and plugging it into the wall 0:00:51 - 0:01:09 and saying, have fun. I'll see you later and um some of you will try to eat the stick which you know, whatever. But um, and some of you will look at the stick and say this isn't cotton candy and throw it away. But hopefully some of you will fire up the machine and spin it up a little bit if you like 0:01:09 - 0:01:31 cotton candy and if you don't pick something else, I was at Lowe's the other day with my daughter and, uh, she's so funny. She hasn't quite mastered the art of manipulating people, which is good. Um, it has pros and cons, but we're, we're standing in line and, um, they had this display of these, these 0:01:30 - 0:01:54 gourmet lollipops, I guess they just have special sugar. And, um, she's like saying all these things about the lollipops trying to be cute and whatnot. And she's like, dad, if I had to pick two of these lollipops, I would pick these two. I said, that's nice. And, uh, I knew where she was going. Right 0:01:54 - 0:02:09 . I just wanted to, to play around a little. I said, that's nice. And then I ignored her and then she just kept going on about it. And I said, I said, I'll tell you what. Uh, no, I, I said something like, well, I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to buy exactly two lollipops. I said that's kind of 0:02:09 - 0:02:31 a random thing. What, you know, and she just kept dancing around the fact and I said, I'll tell you what you can have one of those and she got all excited because, you know, the, the mouse had gotten the cheese. Um, anyway, I, she said, she said, dad, don't you want one? And I, I was thinking, I'd rather 0:02:31 - 0:02:52 have a steak and I think maybe this is one sign of old age. I don't know, maybe at least in men I don't have experience on the other side. Um, but when you, when you go from wanting treats to just wanting some meat anyway. Um So that's not what I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about gifts 0:02:52 - 0:03:18 . Um Maybe like that lollipop. So there's a lot to know about gifts and what I'd like to do here is just smash together a whole lot and we could look up scriptures, it, it just would take a lot more time. And so I don't want to share any of this by way of, uh I was gonna use the scriptural phrase by 0:03:18 - 0:03:39 way of commandment, but that probably would make a lot of people's heads explode. What I mean, that shorthand for, I'd like to make an appeal to the scriptures to show you that what I'm telling you is in line with what God has taught and what God expects and what God gives us the opportunities he provides 0:03:38 - 0:04:01 . Um But I'm going to try to keep this short, you'll find the long form later on. Um It, it will be very fully described. But what's going to happen is that these are going to be chopped into bits across different chapters and books. So I'm just going to squish it all together here in brief form, relative 0:04:00 - 0:04:27 to the content. I'm not making promises on the length of the video, it's always relative to the content. So, um but since I'm there, I'm, I'm going to go ahead and address something. I have two friends who I consider to be brilliant man. I, every time I talk with these people I think about things I've 0:04:27 - 0:04:53 never thought before and that's not an easy thing to do. To me it's an easy thing that the spirit does for me. But to generate that, to catalyze that I should say, I don't think it's an easy thing. Um I could go into that but whatever. Um, ok. But both of these men told me at different times, they both 0:04:53 - 0:05:13 said essentially the same thing which was that they felt like they were very long winded people. And I laughed at this because I don't know which one would be number one and number two. But they are number one and two on my list of people I know who are mortal who are able to say the greatest amount 0:05:12 - 0:05:36 in the least number of words to convey the greatest amount of information in the least number of words. And in both our cases, they've expressed to me that they feel like they're rambling when they're speaking and they try their best to try to uh compress the information that they're sharing and to limit 0:05:35 - 0:05:57 , I know exactly what's happening. I can see it. They're querying their network of understanding and grabbing just the parts that they need to say what they want to say. And then there's a compression operation. You can see that I think about this very much like a programmer, but that's not like a carpenter 0:05:56 - 0:06:19 using carpenter analogies to describe the way that the solar system works. It's information to information. It doesn't take a genius to connect those. It's the same thing, right? So they're querying their understanding, their network of understanding, hitting every relevant thing and taking that and 0:06:19 - 0:06:43 condensing it into the briefest possible chunk to convey to me. I see this happening and they're doing a masterful job. It's, it's a master class in how to do this. But they feel like their chumps at it and that they're, they're lacking in skill for this. And this is part of what Enoch Moses and others 0:06:42 - 0:07:09 who were excessively intelligent people and very close to the Lord described as being slow of speech, quote unquote. And this is a secret that maybe you didn't know they did not have a speech impediment, not in terms of uh when one of my sons was younger, he had a very cute speech impediment and he'd 0:07:09 - 0:07:32 say things like Bulger and turkey instead of burger and turkey. And it was really funny and it went on for a long time and, and we just, we just uh we thought it was cute. He, he got pretty frustrated at it and as tends to happen, uh reached a point where his frustration was great enough that he was 0:07:32 - 0:08:03 willing to make the sacrifice to make it go away because it's a choice uh in in cases such as that where it's not something physical, that's impeding it. It's merely a matter of how you're trained to speak. So that's a, that's a feature of holiness in general is seeing your own attributes as less than 0:08:02 - 0:08:21 what other people would. It's funny because that can be reversed and you see your, your attributes as more than other people would in other ways. But your, your closeness to the Lord, so so to speak, shines a brighter light on your shadows. And so you see them before other people do and you see them 0:08:20 - 0:09:04 as larger problems than other people do. And so when I hear these two gentlemen speak first off, because they're both uh beautifully sincere and humble people, the spirit has an auto correct that that's never wrong. It always makes things better and uh like a good wife. Um But second, because I can see 0:09:03 - 0:09:38 the challenge they labor under of trying to reduce into temporal limits. What does not have limits in the spirit they're taking from as Jesus said about the Holy Ghost, which everyone who has the Holy Ghost does this too, it takes from him and gives to us and that's the process it queries, it collects 0:09:37 - 0:10:05 , it reduces, it delivers and that's what these men are doing anyway. It's not what I meant to talk about, meant to talk about gifts. So gifts, I had an interesting conversation with someone that I've done quite a bit to help to whom I've given much to help. And he was a bit upset about something. And 0:10:05 - 0:10:35 he said, well, look, uh, I don't want, I don't want to get to a place where I owe you anything. And I laughed, literally out loud. I laughed and I said it's too late for that. So, uh, just like this jovial Lee. I, it's, it's funny to me, it's so funny to me, this idea of we could call it illusory independence 0:10:34 - 0:10:59 and we see this everywhere in the modern world. It's very unfortunate. I'll tell you where it comes from. It's a very unfortunate outcome of abundant unmerited prosperity, which we are swimming in still, even as everything falls apart and everyone's spending more and more money for the same things or 0:10:59 - 0:00:00 frankly, much worse things than they had before your, your new toaster is gonna last six months instead of 50 years. And it's going to cost twice as much as the old one or four times as much or whatever the case may be and on and on. So we live in a flood of unmerited prosperity and because of that, 0:00:00 - 0:11:56 we have plenty of reasons to entertain the delusion that anyone is independent. So let's delve into that a bit. So the average old person today who's approaching the end of life, they will do anything they can to preserve the illusion of independence. If you have some sort of cognitive dysfunction, it's 0:11:56 - 0:12:17 probably not a good idea to be driving a car. In fact, at kind of a surprisingly young age, you lose quite a bit of your ability to see at night. And this is why a lot of older people will say things like, hey, if you have a function and it's night time, I'm not coming or I'll come and then I have to 0:12:17 - 0:12:37 leave really early because I can't see at night. And those of us driving on the highway with these people, we know because they're going way slower than the speed limit. And we're looking around thinking what is going on because our eyes still function to a point that we can see in the dark and they 0:12:37 - 0:13:01 can't. So uh once you start forgetting where you are randomly, these sorts of things, even physical dysfunction. So people have joint problems, maybe it's really hard to drive a car. It used to be harder when people had manual transmissions more often. Uh That's more physical movement, obviously, whatever 0:13:01 - 0:13:21 the case might be. The point is that at some point, old people need to stop driving. Now in the military, I'll say we had to do this test where there's a box, I think there was a light that flashed and then you hit, it had to hit a pedal when the light flashed something like that. But it was, it was 0:13:20 - 0:13:46 testing your timing response. And because it's the military, they had standards on everything. And if you couldn't respond in the amount of time allotted, they pulled your driver's license, your military driver's license. And, um, funny side note that's super relevant in ways that I would label a thing 0:13:45 - 0:14:15 must be what it is. I'd love to talk a lot about that theme. It's, it's not the right time though. I think of that. I have signed hundreds of military driver's licenses as an officer. Um, and I'd never had one. I never had one. It's so funny that there were millions and millions of, of opportunities 0:14:14 - 0:14:34 to get one. But every single time we did that training, I was either in charge of it and therefore couldn't participate or, um, I was off doing something else because they couldn't find anyone to run a rifle range or something like this or run a PT test or something they needed an officer for and they 0:14:34 - 0:14:55 didn't have any. So I had to go do that instead. And I actually, so the terminus of my time in the military, I was a company commander and we had a lot of vehicles in that company for what we were doing. We needed a lot of vehicles. And it's funny because I didn't have a license for any of them. And 0:14:55 - 0:15:21 yet legally speaking, I owned all of them, so I owned all of them and yet I was not authorized to drive any of them. So I actually had a driver, uh, which isn't unusual for a commander, but I had a driver for my humvee. And, um, it's so funny. So, but there were times when that person was occupied doing 0:15:21 - 0:15:39 more important things and then I'd get a call from my boss, the, the battalion commander and then I'd have to drive off to go see the battalion commander and I didn't have a license. And so that was really funny because I, I had the authority to sign a license so I could, I could literally give myself 0:15:38 - 0:15:57 any license. I wanted to, but they didn't have any license. So that was really funny to me. And, uh, on that, I remember the first time I drove a humvee, I actually had to pull a sergeant aside and say, like, how do I start this thing? Where's the brake? Ok. Ok. And, and, uh, go off how you turn on the 0:15:57 - 0:16:24 four wheel drive. Um, I don't actually remember if on a humvee, it's just always on. I think that's the case. I don't remember. Uh, it's been a long time. So anyway, um, gift in ancient times, it was well understood that when you received a gift, it always came with strings attached. The sense of justice 0:16:24 - 0:16:53 in ancient times was much stronger than it is in modern times. And um, no one would have believed in ancient times that the gift made you independent, quite the opposite, quite the opposite. A gift obligated you to the person who gave you the gift. This is why, for example, uh Abraham and David refused 0:16:52 - 0:17:18 to accept gifts for the things, the sacrifices they were performing for God. I've talked about this in completely different terms by saying the phrase leaving the chips on the table. That's a connected idea. It's not one and the same, but it's connected. David and Abraham never took their chips off the 0:17:17 - 0:17:40 table. They were smart enough to leave them and whenever they, they, uh well, I said they never took them off the table. They always made sure that enough stayed on the table to perpetuate that compounding of blessings. Um They'd only take a few off at a time and they wouldn't do it very often. And this 0:17:40 - 0:18:04 refusing to accept gifts was a piece of that. Abraham insisted on paying for the cave. He buried his wife in that also became his own tomb and David insisted on paying for the threshing floor on which he made sacrifices. And uh they not only insisted on paying, they insisted on paying market price and 0:18:03 - 0:18:33 probably a little over it is because they understood the Lord's justice. They understood the Lord's justice. They understood the, the obligation that always comes with a gift. So I was ranting about old people and um as a, as a, as a ready example of our idolatry of independence, our idolatry of illusory 0:18:32 - 0:18:57 independence. And so old people consider gifts their right and they're not alone in this. It's just for whatever reasons, it's concentrated or obvious enough that they make a ready example for us to poke fun at, in this regard. And so they think that they have a right to drive even as they lose the ability 0:18:57 - 0:19:20 to do so without harming others or even really inconveniencing others. So if a person is just driving a little slower, ok. No big deal. But if they're going 40 in a 70 in a single lane on a single lane highway and there's a, there's a train of 300 people behind them who are now going to be an hour late 0:19:20 - 0:19:43 to where they're going. That's probably not worth the cost. It's probably time for them to get off the road. Right. Or if they can't react in time, that's why I went into the military memories. Uh, it's probably time to pull their license. But what we do in our society is we tend to bend over backwards 0:19:43 - 0:20:08 for, uh, in order for people to preserve the illusion of independence. COVID was a wonderful example of that and uh independent of how misguided all of that was what we saw were enormous irrational costs to preserve the illusion of independence for older people. Oh, we got to keep granny alive for another 0:20:07 - 0:20:33 week. So she doesn't get COVID. We're gonna shut down the entire world. Ok. Well, that's, that's probably not a good idea. Um, so, but we do it right. We do it, you see special suspensions of rational thought when it comes to the elderly. Um, and they're not alone in this people do it with the military 0:20:32 - 0:21:00 . People do it with a lot of things. You know, somebody think of the Children. This is a, this is a common thing. It's not uncommon, but there are specific groups of people that seem to trigger it. So there's a difference between a gift and something that is earned. And the obligation that comes with 0:21:00 - 0:21:32 a gift is that you're called to earn it, called to earn it. Which means if someone gives you a gift, you have the obligation to reciprocate to them, the value of the gift. And in ancient times, this was understood that the modern notion of a gift as something that's given freely is a new idea. That's 0:21:31 - 0:22:09 not what it means. When you read about gifts in the scriptures, it's a new idea and it's kind of a funny idea. So if a gift conveys an obligation, what happens when you can't pay that obligation? Well, you owe everything up to it, you owe everything up to it. That's the answer. And uh in, in movies and 0:22:09 - 0:22:39 stories there, there's this, there's this idea of, there's a trope of a person saving someone's life and then that person whose life is saved becomes their servant effectively until they save their lives and then they're free from the debt. Maybe you've seen that in a movie or story, it's very common 0:22:38 - 0:23:08 . Fair enough. That's an even exchange, right? But what happens when someone gives you a gift without not just without regard to what they'll get in return, but they give you a gift that you could never ever repay. So Jesus says, when you have a feast, invite the poor invite the people that could never 0:23:07 - 0:00:00 ever pay you back. And he says, if you do this, God will pay you back. And this, this brings up many uncomfortable ideas, things we don't like talking about in the Gospel because they contradict pieces of what we believe. And one this in particular, this is the idea of payment in the Gospel payment. 0:00:00 - 0:24:02 You should do a word search of reward in the scriptures. And you're going to find some very interesting verses that you've probably skipped over conveniently in the past, Paul says, for example, that in order to have faith, you have to believe that God is a rewarder, but he will pay out to people what 0:24:02 - 0:24:38 , what they deserve. This flies in the face of most modern Christian beliefs uh about justice, about mercy, certainly about gifts. There is an obligation and God will repay justice or just Lee, it's the same mechanism as divine punishment. Divine blessing is the same. There are important subtleties in 0:24:38 - 0:25:06 all of this but just sort of glossing over it to focus on gifts. We read that while we were yet sinners, Jesus loved us first. How do you repay an obligation like that? Well, there's two parts to it. One is the fact that He forgave us or did what he needed to do in order to be able to forgive us while 0:25:06 - 0:25:34 there wasn't any reason to do so. We were so lost that there was no reason for him to do that. And yet he did it anyway. How do you repay a gift that is given when there is very little to reason to believe, or no reason to believe that it's going to do any good? Is that gift worth more? Then what uh 0:25:34 - 0:26:00 than giving a gift to a person where it's really obvious that it's going to do some good. Of course, it is Jesus said, if you only forgive those who love you, you're no different than every bad person. He said, you have to forgive your enemies to be Godly because that's, that is on the order of what 0:26:00 - 0:26:30 the Lord would do. So if you only give gifts to those who will reciprocate them, is that really a gift? It's still a gift, it's just not worth as much and it doesn't impute an obligation of reciprocation beyond what they were going to do anyway. So the further your expectation is away from reciprocation 0:26:29 - 0:27:08 , the greater the gift. So there's another piece here that's slipping for me now. Um Thank you there. Well, there are some gifts that can't be paid back. Let's go back to that and the obligation is up to whatever you can give. Here's an interesting theme to search out in the Old Testament, especially 0:27:08 - 0:27:39 in the early books, you, you're going to find um in the story of Israel, you're going to find the Lord having discussions with Moses and Moses conveying to the people again and again, that the Lord rescued them from slavery. You see this again and again and again and again, you see this in the book of 0:27:39 - 0:28:16 Mormon too when they, they speak of remembering uh the bondage of their fathers or remembering Lehi being brought out from Jerusalem, which was going to be destroyed. So, in these scriptures, you'll find some very strong language about how that act obligated the Israelites or the leighs to give everything 0:28:15 - 0:28:48 forever to the Lord because it wasn't a gift they could ever repay. When you're given something that fully exceeds your capability. You are fully obligated with all of your future capability to the individual that gives you the gift that really flies in the face of this idea of independence. We squish 0:28:48 - 0:29:08 down all of our human interactions and even our interactions with God. Unfortunately, into this lateral transmission, you know, you give me something, I reciprocate and now I'm independent. Again, I give you something you reciprocate and now you're independent. Again, that is not the way it actually 0:29:08 - 0:29:43 works. All gifts are given from above. If it doesn't come from above, it's not actually a gift. Um We read, I will look this one up, read and James every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, that's pretty crystal clear, isn't it? If it's a good gift and if it's a perfect gift, it's from above 0:29:43 - 0:30:11 and coming down from the Father of Lights with whom is no variable, neither shadow of turning. So if it's a good gift and if it's a perfect gift, it comes from above, not laterally, not at the same level that you could consider it a gift, but it's really just a loan and you're going to reciprocate and 0:30:11 - 0:30:39 then it goes away. That's a debt. That's not a gift, it's a debt and you repay it. You can never repay the gifts that God gives you. You can't what you can do and what you have to do. These are the terms and conditions is to turn to those who do not have that gift, whatever it is and freely share it 0:30:39 - 0:31:18 with them. That's exactly what he commands us to do. He says, love others as I have loved you that encompasses every gift. So how does that work then? In terms of obligation? Well, it, it works exactly how we've discussed. So what, what is the debt incurred then? And and now to distinguish between the 0:31:18 - 0:31:51 I was using debt as a lateral something you can settle. But what's the eternal debt? What are some things that cause eternal debt? What about your parents having you, especially your mom that incurs an eternal debt that can never be repaid. There's nothing you can ever do to repay your mother for birthing 0:31:51 - 0:32:20 you. Because when she did it, no, he loved us while we were yet sinners, he loved us before. There was a reason to your mother chose to have you before. She had any idea how you were. There was, there was no way of her anticipating what she would get in return for that and she did it anyway and it could 0:32:20 - 0:32:48 have cost her her life. That was part of the deal is that she could die. So there's nothing we can do to ever repay that. So that's why the commandment is honor your father and your mother because that is what's just because it's the only way to live not to repay them because you can't but to live in 0:32:47 - 0:33:22 accordance with the value of what you've received. Are there other examples? There are uh at some point I want to talk about uh giving and taking life. That's a juicy topic. But there are many scriptures where the Lord refers to the difference made by a righteous person and whether others live or die 0:33:22 - 0:33:55 . So if a servant of God intervenes and causes you to survive, what you would otherwise be, be killed in or killed for or whatever, but die if he intervenes and you don't die or she intervenes and you don't die. What is your obligation thereafter? So these are major themes and you might think well, yeah 0:33:55 - 0:34:19 , this is all well and good. But this is, this is some extreme stuff. I mean, how does this have anything to do with me? Well, in the end times it's not going to be so extreme. Well, it will be, but it won't be so uncommon. And another thing that will become much more common is your receipt of information 0:34:18 - 0:34:47 you had absolutely no ability to get for yourself, your receipt of opportunities that you had absolutely no ability to get for yourself. And if you don't correctly understand, I could go on with more examples. But if you don't correctly understand where this place is, you and what it's worth, you're 0:34:47 - 0:35:11 not going to get out of it. What you could. In fact, you're, you're going to decline gifts that are offered because in your mind, at least subconsciously you're going to try to avoid situations that take away your independence. But what you mean by independence is very different than what God means by 0:35:11 - 0:35:33 independence. He's made us free. You are free and no one can take away that freedom that God gives. What is that freedom? But it doesn't mean that you're physically free to do whatever the heck you want. Someone can put you in chains and then you can't do what you want. It means you're free to think 0:35:32 - 0:36:10 and feel and you're free to guide your actions based on moral decisions. And so it's about information and opportunity that freedom doesn't go away ever while you're alive. You have it uh modulo. So this is fine print maybe. But there's a path and it's a broad path it's taken by many people. But in that 0:36:10 - 0:36:34 path, your freedom to receive and evaluate information is successively impeded through your choice to turn away from what you see as what is best. That's how the flax and chords become chains. And your understanding darkens and all these scriptural phrases. But basically your ability to see good declines 0:36:33 - 0:37:02 , You can't discern good and evil as well as you could before and therefore you make worse and worse choices. But other than than that, which requires your choice anyway, no one can do anything to, no one else can do anything to take away the freedom that God gives you has already given you. So coming 0:37:01 - 0:37:28 away from what you think of as independence is not coming away from the independence that God gives you, which is moral independence. And this is very important because God's kingdom is a kingdom and a kingdom is not a kingdom of people who do whatever the heck they want. It's not a set of people who 0:37:28 - 0:37:55 do whatever the heck they want. It's not a set of people who are independent. If you're in a kingdom, you are subject to a king. You are a subject of the case. If that's a righteous king like the Lord, then that is better than anything else could be, especially being independent because the natural man 0:37:55 - 0:38:26 is an enemy to God and will be forever and ever unless he submits to the Lord. So being a subject of the Lord is better than any other thing you could do. So, I suppose with that, we've, we've probably covered enough ground. Um I did want to mention specifically this, this idea of opportunities in the 0:38:26 - 0:38:58 end times. What you're going to find is a clash between several ideas that exist right now that are somewhat mutually exclusive. One idea that is gaining in popularity is to see things of value and dismiss them as unearned. For example, if you know a person who is worth $100 million you might look at 0:38:57 - 0:39:25 that person and be tempted to minimize what they did to get there. Now, this is easy to do because there are abundant examples of people who have lots of money who maybe didn't do what that amount of money would require in order to be fair. But there are an awful lot of, of situations where what some 0:39:25 - 0:39:51 someone has came through doing what others who don't have. It were not willing to do and still aren't. There are a lot of those. So keeping that clear in your mind is actually super important. Why uh in the end times as, as we go through the end times, what you're going to find, I'll just say this plainly 0:39:50 - 0:40:13 , there are going, there's going to be a movement where people, I'm not saying all people per se but people in wealthy nations. Uh you, you will see this in the United States and Canada for sure, group together on land and start farming it and living as independently from the rest of the nation as they 0:40:13 - 0:40:48 can. These groups don't need to be huge. It's, it could just be two families or a group of five people. And this is, this is one of the challenges of that is going to be overcoming this idea that the only things worth doing are things that can be done where people are equals, things that can be done 0:40:48 - 0:41:14 in ways that maintain the illusion of independence. Let's suppose, I know a guy who owns 1000 acres of land, it's raw land in the middle of nowhere and it happens to somehow be in a county where they're not all up in your business about every little thing you do suppose. This guy says, hey, um I'd like 0:41:14 - 0:41:37 to invite up to three families to come live on this land and let's start a collective where we farm it and we try to produce as much of what we use as we can so far. So good. The issue is that the families that come are very much going to think of themselves as closer to the equal of the person who gives 0:41:36 - 0:42:07 the land when they are not in any way his equal, unless they're bringing something else of equally great value as 1000 acres of raw land. In the middle of nowhere in a county where people leave you alone, which is an extraordinarily rare feat. It takes an immense amount of prior sacrifice to get to that 0:42:07 - 0:42:35 point. II I hope this is clear what I'm saying in all this. So if you were to show up at a place like that, thinking that you're all equals, you're going to be sorely disappointed because the same things that caused that guy to be in a position where he has 1000 acres. Uh Wisdom is not ever limited to 0:42:35 - 0:43:05 one thing. Light truth intelligence, it doesn't matter what you wanna call it, it's an all or nothing affair. The spirit doesn't just operate in narrow channels. It quickens you. It's a complete thing. So maybe your success in something is the effect of chains of a stroke of luck and that's totally possible 0:43:04 - 0:43:33 . But odds are that there is some wisdom there too and where there's exceptional capability or resources of whatever sort, there's also exceptional wisdom. It's not always the case, but it is more often than not the case. And so if you were coming to a place like that, the question is, what are you bringing 0:43:33 - 0:43:58 to the table? And what did it cost you if what you're bringing to the table is your body and what it cost you was nothing except showing up. You're not an equal there. This is an extraordinarily offensive idea. But, but think about it even in terms of relationships where it's equally offensive. I think 0:43:57 - 0:44:19 I told the story. I overheard a mother talking to another mother about a daughter who had gone on a date with a man that was a little older than her. And the report was, well, it went really great. He was really polite and he's done a lot of amazing things in his life. And then the laundry list came 0:44:19 - 0:44:40 of all these remarkable things that this guy had done even in the years he was older, but he had packed his life with value. And now the neon sign question was why isn't he married yet? But let's set that aside for a minute because that wasn't the concern. The concern was well, you know, but she didn't 0:44:39 - 0:45:05 feel like he really saw her as his equal. And I was thinking because she's not. If he did that would be a problem, right? That, that would be a problem. And I said this in another video, but a, a quality man stands on top of a mountain and he says I've climbed up this mountain and I have everything that 0:45:05 - 0:45:25 entails. It's pretty good. You should come join me and I really hope you do because this happens to be exactly what I think is the best out of everything I know of. But if you don't, if you want something else instead that's fine. But if you want to come up here, come on up, the water is great. Right 0:45:25 - 0:45:49 . And if you have something better, I want to know about that too because that means you have a higher mountain and I want to climb it because that's what I'm all about. Right. And so that's true in relationships, whether they're romantic or friendships, it's true. It should be true in families that 0:45:48 - 0:46:17 form out of those romantic relationships. The father ought to have more to give than anyone else in his family. If that's not true, somebody made a poor choice or someone went off the rails or someone was subject to a horrific accident and that happens. Right. That happens. Um But it's also true of gathering 0:46:16 - 0:46:45 . There needs to be something with a gift, someone with a gift to give or else there's no reason to gather. There's no point for a bunch of people who think they're the same to come together. There's no point to that. Every good gift and perfect gift is from above. If you don't have someone you think 0:46:45 - 0:47:15 is above, there's no point in gathering. There's also no point in going to church. There's no point in being a member of some religion unless there is someone that you think is from above. Because otherwise, what are you doing? What's the point? It's just a social group. And you, you might say, well 0:47:14 - 0:47:39 , you could have a group that's a mutual, mutually beneficial only if people have things to give. And you, you're saying, well, yeah, but what we have to give is equal. There's no such thing. Go read the book of Abraham. There's no such thing as equal. If you think that you're in a situation with one 0:47:39 - 0:48:05 or more people where you all equally contribute, it means you're not the person who's above and you're taking from them without realizing that that is the case and you're incurring a debt that you're ignoring. Now, why does that matter? It, it doesn't matter to the person who's giving it to you. They 0:48:05 - 0:48:27 might not even know first off because it takes a certain amount of light to be able to discern these things. But um they might not even know. But even if they did know, they'd probably be just fine with that because they care about the benefit of the world more than what they get out of it. Net. So what's 0:48:27 - 0:48:52 the problem? The problem is you because you will never have as much joy as you would. If you understood more of the cost of what you received, the value, you find the joy you find in something is always equal to the value you find in it. The value you find in something is always the lesser of two things 0:48:51 - 0:49:15 . One is the actual value it has, which is the value God has in it. The other is the value you see in it and these could be different in any way. Ok? But the joy you receive in something is the lesser of these two factors. So let's say you have something that God sees is enormously valuable and you see 0:49:14 - 0:49:40 it as uh that's having little value. That's all the value you will find in it. When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden. Adam thought the garden had some value. Eve thought it had much less value. It wasn't until they were cast out that they realized it was much more valuable than they thought God 0:49:40 - 0:00:00 saw it as very valuable. He saw it as paradise. He saw it as the best possible place they could be at the time. And so it is with us, there's, there's no guarantee that you're gonna see the value in the things that you have. It's up to you to find out how God values it. And then to change your mind, 0:00:00 - 0:50:25 to see it the same way, change your heart, to see it the same way. He has many tools to help you with that. If you seek him, he will, he will lead you through that process. So if you're, if you think that you're in a marriage where you're equal partners or friendship, where you're equal partners or whatever 0:50:25 - 0:50:51 , whatever, whatever you're wrong and you're probably the one that's taking more than you give probably. And the end result of that is you have much less joy in that situation than you could immediately have. Just by seeing things more accurately, you wouldn't have to change anything else except your 0:50:51 - 0:51:11 perspective. Isn't that amazing? There's so much joy that you're leaving on the table in your life without making any changes except how you see things. That's all you'd have to change and you'd have massively more joy in your life. It's crazy. Huh? So, there's a lot more I could say about that. But 0:51:11 - 0:51:30 maybe that's enough, uh, just to hammer the point home though. One final thought. If you counter what I'm saying about reciprocal relationships being impossible. If you counter that by saying, yeah, but we each have strengths and weaknesses and they are complementary and, and they equal out in, in the 0:51:30 - 0:00:00 , in terms of a pair of people. Uh You could say this in a group too, we're all contributing and we're equals here because we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we make up for each other. Ok, fine. But there's two ways of looking at that, either of which are more correct than the way you are. 0:00:00 - 0:52:08 One is weigh out the actual value of what people contribute. I've seen so many teams, for example, in the programming world where everyone but one or two people thought they were equal partners. And it turns out that the one or two people who would dispute that actually produce something like 10 times 0:52:08 - 0:52:31 more than everyone else combined. And I'm not exaggerating in the scale of the difference when it comes to value, it takes one to know one. And so lower people in whatever the group it is. When you sort them by value, the people at the bottom are never going to accurately see the value of the people 0:52:30 - 0:52:52 at the top. That's the way it goes. You can only see value just beyond your own, were capped at that. And it's for a reason, it, it, it's a helpful thing. It'd be extremely overwhelming if that veil were not in place. The other thing that I'll say on this and, and this would be better expressed with 0:52:52 - 0:53:12 a picture. So I'm being lazy here and forgive me for not taking the time to do a separate presentation at this time and draw this out. But think of the triangle of circles. And we, we frequently use this picture, right? Um There's a bunch of circles at different levels and they have lines between them 0:53:11 - 0:53:34 indicating some sort of connection. Well, what we see in real life, you might be looking at that and saying, oh, this person is much better at alphabetizing lists and this person's much better at decorating things and this person's much better. So if you have alphabetizing and decorating things and building 0:53:33 - 0:53:57 things that require precision and all these other skills as the circles at the bottom, each person is going to have a different profile of their strengths and weaknesses across those categories, not to complicate it. But you could draw a hub and uh like a, a spoke graph where each of those categories 0:53:56 - 0:54:22 is aligned and some would be shorter and some will be longer, right? That's the bottom of the triangle. And so at that level, maybe you could approach something like what, what seems like equality in a group. OK? Go up a level, go up a level and now at that level, how different are things and then go 0:54:22 - 0:54:44 up a level and then go up a level and then go up a level. And what you're going to find is every time you go up a level, the differences increase the differentiation between people increases. And as you go up a level and understanding you're, you're getting closer to God in terms of how he sees things 0:54:43 - 0:55:09 here in, in our bottom row perception, you might be able to make a case. I don't think you can, but you could approach a case. I don't think you can do it convincingly, but you can approach a case where there's something like equality. But as you go up, that equality vaporizes and what you're actually 0:55:09 - 0:55:35 doing by going up and, and moving into the transcendent, what you're doing is assessing those differences, not just on the situation at hand, which is not reality, it's a very, very, very limited picture of reality estimate. And you're, you're comparing these people across the whole of reality, what 0:55:35 - 0:55:59 really is, how they really are. So not to dive too deeply into this. But what's the difference between two people who are really good at calligraphy, random random thing. Right. Well, one person might be naturally good at calligraphy. Let's say that these people are good. They're not experts but they're 0:55:59 - 0:56:22 good. One person may have arrived there by picking up a pet. The other person may have spent 20 years of their lives spending 20 minutes a day every single day practicing and they were horrifically bad at the beginning in the snapshot of right now, those people will be equal at this one thing. And if 0:56:22 - 0:56:42 this is true of one spoke in that quality graph, we could obviously, it's true. If you, if you compared separate things like someone's like this with calligraphy, someone's like this with horseback riding. Ok. But there's an immense difference between these two people, not at that level, but at a higher 0:56:41 - 0:57:08 level because the kind of person that practices something they're weak at every day for 20 minutes a day, over years and years is a much better person than someone who's just naturally good at something and that quality will bleed through on many other things. Do you get that? So to make a statement 0:57:08 - 0:57:32 like that, we have to vastly compress all of reality down to channels that are far too narrow to, to be a good description of everything. But I'm just trying to express an idea and so we have to cut out a whole bunch of things to make it simple enough to, to convey. Do you get it. So if you go up enough 0:57:32 - 0:57:53 levels, there, there emerges enormous differences that are much easier to see. Ironically because they're at hidden levels. All right, I've probably ramped about this for long enough. So the objective here was to talk about gifts, how gifts incur obligations. Uh We didn't talk about what happens when 0:57:53 - 0:58:15 those obligations aren't honored. So, just very briefly, uh the gift is taken away. That's what Jesus is talking about when he continuously said in the New Testament to those who have will more be given. And from those who do not have will what they have be taken away in Luke. In the Luke version of 0:58:14 - 0:58:42 that, it says what they think they have. That's huge. Uh If, if, if Babylon could be described in a sentence, maybe a good candidate would be people who think they have much more than they do and it will be taken away. And it's true collectively and it's true on the individual level. So, uh that's what 0:58:42 - 0:59:02 happens when you don't live up to a gift. There are gifts that can be given that can never be paid back and they incur an eternal obligation and receiving valuable gifts is always a very good thing. It's always a very good thing. You might push back against that and say, what about David and Abraham 0:59:02 - 0:59:28 ? They, they turned away gifts, they turned away gifts from lesser people that weren't actually gifts because they had more than enough money to buy what they needed themselves. Because those people were really wise and were trying to get something more than what they pay for. To have David or Abraham 0:59:27 - 0:59:54 in your debt is worth much more than a field or a cave because they are worth much more than a field or a cave. You see, that's not turning away a gift that's avoiding a trap. It's a trap, right? So don't receive as a gift, what you can do for yourself. And now I ask you, why doesn't God do for us? What 0:59:54 - 1:00:09 we could do for ourselves? See, everything He does is because he loves us and he's really out for what's best for us all the time. All right, I'm cutting this off here. Take care.