Judas, The Sons of Perdition and Service to Self

“During the Transformation the Service-to-Others find each other and take up abiding with each other, to the exclusion of abiding with those who are still spiritually undecided. Of course, as these individuals are usually a mainstay for others, the spiritually undecided clamor for their time and attention, but are increasingly given self help instructions and sent on their way. In fact, the spiritually undecided find the environment provided in a Service-to-Other community to be a drag, dull. No confrontations, everyone dedicated and preoccupied, just not lively enough. The Service-to-Self are generally driven from the ranks of both the Service-to-Other and the spiritually undecided as they are today. At times it takes awhile for them to show their colors, but this is quite inevitable.”

Wow. this is relevant. Who in the church or our family has truly chosen God with his liberation and forgiveness, and who in our church or family has chosen Lucifer, with his power hungry control structure. I have been wispered to by that serpent on ocasion as most have, “give me your power and I’ll make everyone follow the plan”. Put me in a position of power and I’ll “make” them all fit into my concept of righteousness. I’ll convince them to behave “rightly” with my eloquence and logic and power, now only if I was a Bishop or the Prophet, or could do miracles, then I could do some “good”.

Do we see the fallacies here? Do we try and control others to make ourselves feel like “righteous servents”? Or do we see how God cares so much about our freedom of choice that he builds into his true religion (all true religion) a structure where both the selfish “service-to self” and the unselfish “service to others” can succeed in thier chosen path. He sets up a tightly governed control structure that the selfish can use to manipulate others into thier world view… thier image of God. At the same time, the church is also a vessel which can be use by the non-selfish, “service to others” individual to better love and help each-other achieve thier own self determination.

As John explains, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1 John 2:19, also see GOHT 75:1). Judas chose service to self. By the end of his life, he became sufficiently selfish as to achieve resurrection or harvestability in that orientation. Jesus knew it. He knew Judas, the levite (a close childhood friend) had slowly drifted to that orientation from thier youth. He knew he was minupulative and thieving. But out of love and respect for his friend he kept him as an apostle. With time Christ even realized he would be murdered at Judas betraying hand. And yet “as a sheep openeth not his mouth”, he quietly let things play out knowing the outcome was thier destiny, but hoping all the while that his friend would change. That he would turn from his self-destructive path of selfishness and go to the light. In fact, in Christ’s death, and his treatment of Judas he sowed the seeds of his eventual salvation… (in a future cycle anyway).

It makes me wonder who in history has been as Judas? Judas thought he was “doing God a favor”. He was a true nationalist and believed Jesus would save Israel so it could fulfill its destiny of ruling all nations. He was deeply orthodox. He believed that by getting Jesus arrested he would use his miracles to finally show the rulers he was God, and that the people would set him up as the ruler (GOHT 76:29-30). He did not understand that Christ’s mission was one of submission and sacrifice, not control. He did not understand “what spirit he was of” (ref). He did not understand the needed ballance between obedience and sacrifice, between control and submission. The ballance of serving ones self in order to serve others instead of serving others in order to serve one’s self. I cant help but think that the ratio of one in twelve is an accurate ratio of truly service to self vs. truly service to others in this world. I cant help but think that perhaps there have been a handful of LDS apostles (and certainly dozens of Catholic Popes) that have been harvestable service to self individuals, radically adicted to control and dogma. But that is the plan, and always has been. It is the whole reason the father set up the garden drama in the first place. It is given to us to choose for ourselve, and it is the purpose of mortality to force us to make that choice. To choose Christ or Satan. Force or Liberty. It is somewhat of a shame that the “preacher” was taken out of the temple drama. Im guessing that there were good intentions in doing it, but it’s inclusion was God’s, Joseph’s and Brigham’s way of teaching us these very important lessons about the dual nature of both government and religion.