As His Covenant Daughters, We Are a Conduit through Which Jesus Christ Provides Relief
2024 Worldwide Relief Society Devotional
Sunday, March 17, 2024
As His covenant daughters, we are a conduit through which Jesus Christ provides His relief.
Sisters, you are fulfilling your divine mandate as a member of the Relief Society whenever you do anything to bring relief to others—temporal or spiritual—because you are bringing them the love of Jesus Christ.
I testify that as you do, you will be blessed to find your own relief in Him. Jesus Christ is relief. And you belong to the Relief Society.
From that small group of 20 women, assembled in Nauvoo in 1842, a global organization of nearly 8 million women has blossomed. The Relief Society is leading out in the Church’s global humanitarian initiative to address the needs of women and children.
As covenant daughters of God, we strive to care for those in need by engaging in humanitarian efforts which have the greatest possible impact. Global progress starts with women and children, and so we have prioritized their needs through maternal and newborn care, child nutrition efforts, immunizations, and education worldwide.
My dear sisters, you are a part of this global effort when you tenderly care for your own child, teach a friend to read, patiently address the needs of an elderly neighbor, cry with a sister who is grieving, prepare food for the sick, and minister as the Savior would.
Often the best humanitarian outreach is to those closest to us in everyday acts of kindness. When you serve your families and your neighbors, you are part of our global cause. Thank you for expressing your testimony of Jesus Christ by being His gentle hands, His nimble feet, His listening ears, His kind-speaking lips.
We evaluate needs globally, and then we seek to satisfy those needs one by one, just as the Savior did. The Savior ministered to the one woman at the well. He healed the one daughter of Jairus. He blessed the Nephite children one by one. He loves us one by one.
We will bring His relief to others, one by one.
The Relief Society was organized during the construction of the Nauvoo temple and in anticipation of the ordinances and covenants to be offered there. The sisters were engaged in physical preparations for the temple and were prepared spiritually to receive the blessings of the temple by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Now, in this season of unprecedented temple building, the objective of the Relief Society remains the same: to prepare a people temporally and spiritually for the blessings of the house of the Lord.
We want our Relief Society sisters to have access to all the blessings of a covenant relationship with God, including His priesthood power available to those who make covenants in the house of the Lord. No worldly organization can articulate a comparable, divinely appointed platform to that of the Relief Society.