Visiting Teaching Message:

Become an Instrument in the Hands of God by Being of One Heart and One Mind

Prayerfully select and read from this message the scriptures and teachings that meet the needs of the sisters you visit. Share your experiences and testimony. Invite those you teach to do the same.

What Does It Mean to Be of One Heart and One Mind?

1 Corinthians 12:20, 27: “Now are they many members, yet but one body. … Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.”

President Gordon B. Hinckley: “The Lord said that except ye are one, ye are not mine. (See D&C 38:27.) This great unity is the hallmark of the true church of Christ. It is felt among our people throughout the world. As we are one, we are his. … We pray for one another that we may go on in unity and strength. If we do so, no power beneath the heavens can stop the onward progress of this great kingdom” (“Except Ye Are One,” Ensign, Nov. 1983, 5).

President Marion G. Romney (1897–1988), First Counselor in the First Presidency: “It is the mission of the Church of this last dispensation to develop another people who shall live the gospel in its fulness. This people are to become ‘pure in heart,’ and they shall … be the Lord’s people. They shall walk with God because they shall be of one heart and one mind, and they shall dwell in righteousness, and there shall be no poor among them” (“Living Welfare Principles,” Ensign, Nov. 1981, 93).

How Will Striving to Be of One Heart and One Mind Help Me Be a Better Instrument in the Hands of God?

Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Presidency of the Seventy: “We must begin by becoming one within ourselves. We are dual beings of flesh and spirit, and we sometimes feel out of harmony or in conflict. … As we endeavor day by day and week by week to follow the path of Christ, our spirit asserts its preeminence, the battle within subsides, and temptations cease to trouble. There is greater and greater harmony between the spiritual and the physical until our physical bodies are transformed … to ‘instruments of righteousness unto God’ (see Romans 6:13)” (“That They May Be One in Us,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 71–72).

Kathleen H. Hughes, former first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency: “[The Lord] requires ‘the heart and a willing mind’ (D&C 64:34; emphasis added). … The Lord asks us to open ourselves to Him, holding nothing back. He says to us, seek not ‘thine own life’; seek ‘my will, and to keep my commandments’ (Helaman 10:4). The newness of heart comes when we do and give all we can, then offer our heart and will to the Father” (“Out of Small Things,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2004, 111).

Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: “Spiritual submissiveness means … community and communion as the mind and the heart become settled. We then spend much less time deciding, and much more time serving. … Yielding one’s heart to God signals the last stage in our spiritual development. Only then are we beginning to be fully useful to God! How can we sincerely pray to be an instrument in His hands if the instrument seeks to do the instructing?” (“Willing to Submit,” Ensign, May 1985, 71).

Photographs of sculpture and tools by Craig Dimond; photograph of woman by Matthew Reier, posed by model; border © Artbeats