Testimonies of the Savior

One of the great blessings of the Restoration is the call of modern prophets and apostles to testify to us of the Savior.  When the resurrected Lord commissioned His eleven apostles with the work of salvation He sent them forth with these words, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:19-20).  They were to go forth and teach the words of the Savior to all nations, and how blessed we are today to also have modern apostles to teach and testify of the Savior and help us to follow Him.  For the remaining Sundays before general conference as I write about the Restoration, I have decided to focus on the testimonies of the Savior we have from the most recent general conference from those fifteen men we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.  Elder Holland said this, “Those blessed with sight will recognize that, in spite of everything else this conference tradition may offer us, it will mean little or nothing unless we find Jesus at the center of it all. To grasp the vision we are seeking, the healing that He promises, the significance we somehow know is here, we must cut through the commotion—joyful as it is—and fix our attention on Him. The prayer of every speaker, the hope of all who sing, the reverence of every guest—all are dedicated to inviting the Spirit of Him whose Church this is—the living Christ, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace.”  A witness of the Savior is indeed at the center of the words spoken to us by our modern-day prophets at general conference. 

               Elder Christofferson’s testimony to us was that through following Jesus Christ we can have great joy in our lives.  He quoted President Nelson’s powerful statement from a previous general conference: “When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation … and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. … For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!”  Elder Christofferson testified that following the commandments the Savior gives us brings us joy: “Keeping the Lord’s commandments enables us more fully and more easily to feel His love. The strait and narrow path of the commandments leads directly to the tree of life, and the tree and its fruit, the sweetest and ‘most desirable above all things,’ are a representation of the love of God and fill the soul ‘with exceedingly great joy.’”  He also testified of the joy we gain in overcoming our trials through Christ: “As we strive to overcome these challenges with the Savior’s help, it preserves both the joy we feel now and the joy we anticipate.”  Lastly, he encouraged us to serve and follow the Savior to be filled with that joy: “The joy ‘set before us’ is the joy of assisting the Savior in His work of redemption. As the seed and children of Abraham, we participate in blessing all the families of the earth ‘with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.’”

               Elder Renlund also spoke of the “joy of the faithful,” in particular those Saints in Congo who recently had a temple dedicated in their land, as he invited us to have an “unwavering commitment to Jesus Christ.”  He taught us to “cast our old ways completely out of reach and begin a new life in Christ” as we rid our lives of those things not compatible with the Savior’s teachings.  We do this through covenants like baptism that “anchor us to the Savior and propel us along the path that leads to our heavenly home.”  We need to be steadfast in those covenants which bring us “to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their Redeemer.”  He invited us to “link our identity with the Savior’s by pledging our willingness to take upon us His name, to always remember Him, and to keep His commandments.”  His witness was a powerful reminder that in our day we need much more than a half-hearted profession of faith in the Savior: we need an unwavering commitment to Jesus Christ to see us through all our challenges. 

               Elder Rasband similarly invited us to “stand by our promises and covenants” that we make with the Savior.  He declared, “Keeping promises is not a habit; it is a characteristic of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.”  Doing so “means rising above the ways of the world, receiving and acting on personal revelation, living righteously with hope and faith in the future, making and keeping covenants to follow Jesus Christ, and thereby increasing our love for Him, the Savior of the world.”  He described how we “covenant at baptism to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, to live as He lived.”  Elder Rasband, “as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ,” gave us this powerful promise: “He will be with you, my dear brothers and sisters, and you can, with confidence, look forward to being ‘received into heaven, that thereby [you] may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness … for the Lord God hath spoken it.’”