Hearts Knit Together in Unity

In his recent general conference talk, Elder Christofferson encouraged us to seek for unity. He asked, “In our extremely contentious world, how can unity be achieved, especially in the Church, where we are to have ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’? Paul gives us the key: ‘For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ.’” It is in Christ that we can be one, and it is the only cause that can truly unite us despite our differences. He continued, “We are too diverse and at times too discordant to be able to come together as one on any other basis or under any other name. Only in Jesus Christ can we truly become one.” As followers of the Savior we may disagree on various things and have different opinions on a wide variety of topics, but our faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel should unite us. I love the fact that as we go across the world, we can feel at home among the Saints. Dr. Daniel Peterson recently noted in a podcast, “I've traveled a lot. You know that you sometimes go to a ward where you don't speak the language. It's very foreign culture. The thing is you can feel at home almost immediately and you know they would if they came to your ward because you know what's going on, you know the order of presiding, the order of the service and so on. That's a marvelous thing. It's amazing to me that given the fact that the church is led by laypeople, not trained for the ministry, that around the world you'll find such uniformity. And so, I can feel at home in a ward in Guatemala or in Hong Kong, I walk in and I immediately know where we are in the program, what's going on. I can figure out pretty quickly who's conducting, probably who's presiding, and the sacrament is passed in much the same way. I really love that actually. We're no more strangers or foreigners even if we're wandering around the world.” We should be unified with Saints throughout the world through our testimony of the restored Gospel and our devotion to following the Savior. The same Spirit which will inspire us will also guide them and bring us into the unity of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

                Elder Christofferson also gave this interesting thought about how we should seek for unity: “Becoming one in Christ happens one by one—we each begin with ourselves. We are dual beings of flesh and spirit and are sometimes at war within ourselves…. Jesus was also a being of flesh and spirit. He was tested; He understands; He can help us achieve unity within. Therefore, drawing upon the light and the grace of Christ, we strive to give our spirit—and the Holy Spirit—dominance over the physical.” I had never thought about the idea that to obtain unity with others we need to find unity within ourselves. I think that means that we strive to live according to our beliefs; we will have internal harmony and unity when our beliefs align with what we actually do. But if our Sunday sermons don’t resemble our thoughts, words, and deeds the rest of the week, we will not have unity within ourselves. And how we feel internally—the harmony or discord within us because of how our behavior matches what we try to portray to others—will directly affect how we interact with others. The more we feel at peace with ourselves, the more we will be at peace with those around us. As Captain Moroni put it, “I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also” (Alma 60:23). He had to cleanse the internal element of the Nephite society in order to be united to take on the Lamanites, and we too must cleanse our inward vessel first before we can be united with other Saints in the cause of Christ. Then we can have, like the people of Alma of old, “hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another” (Mosiah 18:21).