What a revolutionary teaching for personal relationships! Love even your enemies! But who are our enemies? The full meaning of enemies in the sources from which King James’s translators chose the word enemies includes military foes but even extends to any who actively oppose one another. Today we might say that we are commanded to love our adversaries. All mortals […]
Knowing God and becoming His friend comes with the conversion process. Enos found it. King Benjamin’s subjects found it. Alma found it. It is available to all who will repent and obey the commandments. This conversion is an intimate and intensely personal experience. It is about relationships. It involves awakening the Spirit of Christ, which […]
Easter in Jesus Christ helps us mend, reconcile, make right our relationships, on both sides of the veil. Jesus can heal grief; He can enable forgiveness. He can free us and others from things we or they have said or done that otherwise bind us captive. – Gerrit W. Gong, “Eternity’s Great Gifts: Jesus Christ’s […]
The Savior numbers each of us and watches over us. This watchcare is not trivial or insignificant. Rather, it is exalting, elevating, and eternal. I see the Savior’s declaration “ye are my friends” as a clarion call to build higher and holier relationships among all of God’s children “that we may be one.” We do […]
Each of us is a beloved spirit son or daughter of a loving Heavenly Father.1 But while that spiritual genealogy provides a foundation, it does not of itself create a meaningful relationship with God. A relationship can be built only when we choose to trust in Him. – Paul B. Pieper, “Trust in the Lord,” Liahona […]
Relationships can be strengthened through the veil with people we know and love. That is done by our determined effort to continually do what is right. We can strengthen our relationship with the departed individual we love by recognizing that the separation is temporary and that covenants made in the temple are eternal. When consistently […]
We can learn much from the scriptures about how our Savior, Jesus Christ, will help us successfully navigate the things in our lives that are broken, no matter our age. He can heal broken relationships with God, broken relationships with others, and broken parts of ourselves. – Amy A. Wright, “Christ Heals That Which Is […]
Our most valuable relationships are with the Father and the Son and with our own families because our ties to them are eternal. The great plan of happiness is a wonderful manifestation of God’s love for us. With eyes riveted on God’s plan, we willingly choose to carve out soil and rocks within us that […]
So life has its oppositions and its conflicts, and the gospel of Jesus Christ has answers and assurances. In a time of terrible civil warfare, one of the most gifted leaders ever to strive to hold a nation together said what could be said of marriages and families and friendships. Praying for peace, pleading for […]