Stephen E. Robinson wrote:
There are . . . reasons to do the work of the kingdom. First, our work for the kingdom is a form of worship; in fact, it is the highest form of worship. God, in all his glorious attributes, in all his perfect righteousness, is our God. We love and respect and seek what he is. How can we worship him and not worship what he is? Therefore we honor, respect, and value righteousness—for he is righteous. We value love—for he is love. We value compassion and forgiveness for he is compassionate and forgiving. And what we value we seek to possess. Thus we worship God by seeking to possess his divine attributes in our own lives. The false gods of wealth, fame, sex and so on are worshiped by pursuing them and seeking to possess them. The person who worships money seeks to possess money; the person who worships fame seeks to be famous; and so forth. The true God is love, truth and light. So if we truly worship him, we pursue and seek to possess for ourselves love, truth and light. We cannot seek good, pursue good, worship good—without becoming (or at least without becoming better over time). The real question we must ask ourselves over eternity is not “What do I want to get?” but rather “Who do I want to be?”
We also work to testify. The scriptures give us several examples of this: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35) If Christ and I are truly one in the gospel covenant, then I must truly reflect his nature in my life. My behavior, in changing for the better, testifies of the Christ who has taken me to himself. The final result may not appear for some time, but the process of positive change in me will be unmistakable. If his countenance does not become, over time, more and more visible to me, if I do not begin to bear the fruits of my conversion, it becomes doubtful that I have really entered into the covenant in good faith or that I have not secretly changed my mind somewhere along the line.
Moreover, according to Ephesians 2:19-22, we members of the Church are like the individual stones or bricks in the structure of the Church. Now, what exactly do stones do? What great works do they perform? Well, they are just there, they don’t really do anything! Maybe that is so . . . but they are always there! That, in fact, is what they do. They are there. They are reliable. They are steadfast; they can be counted on—they endure in the place where they have been put. That is how they serve the Master Builder. They don’t come and go; They don’t move or wander; they don’t try to check out for a rest or shift their part of the burden to their neighbors—they don’t leave a gap in the wall. (continued) ~Stephen E. Robinson, Following Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019) 343-347 Dwarsligger edition
