Allegiance to God | D. Todd Christofferson

We will be ruled by something. If we choose God as our ruler through allegiance and willing submission, we choose true freedom and great peace.
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"If we are honest, we must first acknowledge that God has every right to direct us. We are, after all, His creation.
Beyond our being His creation, made up of materials that He owns, there is the even more important fact that, through His Son, He is the author of our salvation. Thus we are eternally indebted to Him not only for our mortal lives but also for our eternal lives. Paul said, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Hebrews 9:12). Joseph Smith testified, “That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24)-or, in other words, born again into the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has paid our ransom and satisfied justice. “He hath purchased [us] with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). In a very real sense, the Father and the Son can claim ownership of us.
Knowing these things, it is only with the most colossal arrogance that one could claim he owes no allegiance to God. There can be no argument, really. On what basis could we justify any resistance to His commandments? The case for disobedience simply does not exist.
Even so, our submission to God is not simply a question of duty or obligation. The blessings that flow from welcoming God’s rule in our lives are so enticing, and the alternative so appalling, that if we see things in their true light, we cannot be kept from walking in wisdom’s paths. Among the greatest of the blessings that come from yielding to His will, though it seems ironic to some, is freedom. [...]
Our yielding to God and his right to rule and reign over us brings other blessings. Among the foremost are the faith and confidence that permit us to live with peace. [...]
Although it is God’s right to rule and reign over us, it is a right that generally He does not enforce. It is a true principle that He accepts only voluntary obedience, only that which is unforced. [...]
I can tell you what will happen to you. In yielding your will to His, God will tutor you in the successful use of moral agency. You will find freedom to be, to feel, and to do. You will be supported in all your trials. You will “bring forth as a very fruitful tree which is planted in a goodly land, by a pure stream, that yieldeth much precious fruit” (D&C 97:9). Over time your prayers will become powerful, and you will come into God’s presence, through prayer, with confidence. Because of your unwearyingness in seeking the Lord’s will rather than your own, He may promise you as He did Helaman’s son, Nephi, “even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will” (Helaman 10:5). Your life, your personality will take on the characteristics and qualities of Christ. As B. H. Roberts observed:
The man who so walks in the light and wisdom and power of God, will at the last, by the very force of association, make the light and wisdom and power of God his own-weaving those bright rays into a chain divine, linking himself forever to God and God to him. This [is] the sum of Messiah’s mystic words, “Thou Father in me, and I in thee”-beyond this human greatness cannot achieve.' " - D. Tod Christofferson
D. Todd Christofferson was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given at BYU on 19 October 1999.
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