With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

"With great power comes great responsibility"This morning in my scripture study, I was reading when Alma warns the people of Ammonihah that they  need to repent or else God will "utterly destroy [them] from off the face of the earth; yea and visit [them] in his anger" (Alma 9:12). Alma also explains to them that even though the Lamanites were a wicked people at that same time, the Lord would look more favorably upon the Lamanites than upon the people of Ammonihah on the day of judgement because the Lamanites were following incorrect traditions that had been handed down to them, whereas the people of Ammonihah knew better. The people of Ammonihah were a "highly favored people of the Lord... above every other nation, kindred, tongue or people" (Alma 9:20)Now it's kinda cheesy but when I read this I thought about the movie Spiderman, when Uncle Ben is in the car talking to Peter and tells him "these are the years when a man changes into the man he is going to become for the rest of his life; just be careful who you change into" and then he later says "with great power comes great responsibility". It is true that this average boy, Peter Parker, ends up getting bit by a spider that turns him  into Spiderman and now he suddenly is blessed with all this power; along with that, he has responsibility to protect not only himself, but others as well. His uncle so lovingly tries to tell him and warn him and yet Peter gets defensive and leaves upset. Are there times in our lives where our parents, or teachers, or church leaders have given loving counsel and yet we get upset of by it? I know I have a few times in my life. What does that say about our character when we do that? Food for thought. We need to realize that they are doing it out of love, just like Alma when he is speaking to these people. Alma wants them to succeed and he knows that they have been given such power because they know right from wrong and because of that, they have great responsibility to live righteously.
D&C 82:3 "unto whom much is given much is required".... at times it can feel like the demands placed upon us seem heavy and almost too much to bear, but Sister Sheri Dew said "shouldn't we expect the journey towards eternal glory to stretch us? ...The Lord's standard of behavior will always be more demanding than the world's, but then the Lord's rewards are infinitely more glorious-including true joy, peace and salvation" ("We Are Women of God", 1999)As we continue to go on with our lives, we need to remember that we have a lot of responsibility put on us because of the amazing power the Lord has given us.