Area Presidency Message
Men Are That They May Have Joy
In the premortal realm we joyfully embraced the Father’s plan to continue our progression.
As you read this article my hope and prayer is that you are strengthened in your resolution to live your life with faith, hope, joy and the power to never quit. After all, you and I come from an eternal world where we lived as spirit children of a divine Father in Heaven, part of an eternal family in which there was joy, no death, no pain and no suffering.
However, our loving Heavenly Father desires us to achieve the fullness of joy that He enjoys, a joy that embraces a perfected, glorified, immortal body not subjected to pain, death, or suffering in which we will experience a fullness of joy, eternal increase, and all the power and glory reserved for those who are pure, holy, sinless and perfected.1
In our premortal realm we, who are born into mortality, lived lives of exceedingly great faith, good choices and good works.2 In fact, we kept our first estate and joyfully embraced the Father’s plan to come to an earth in which we would continue our progression and work out our salvation in a mortal condition in which we would not remember our first estate. This perfect testing condition on earth called upon us to once again exercise “exceedingly great faith”, make good choices and do good works and thereby become pure, holy (and in time) sinless and perfected.
A feat impossible without Christ
Our mortal probationary experience requires us to exercise all of our strength to resist evil and to live righteous lives. However, without divine help this would be impossible.3 Accordingly, our Heavenly Father sent our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ, to earth to show us how we should live our lives, and to make it possible through the power of the Atonement of Christ for us to be forgiven of our sins and be cleansed from all sin and unrighteousness. Furthermore, He broke the bands of death through His Resurrection and enabled each and every one of us to be resurrected into a state of never-ending life.
Though resurrection provided us with the possibility of immortality it did not automatically grant us the power to return to our Heavenly Father or to receive of His glory and the fullness of joy He enjoys. These sublime blessings would be reserved only for those who met the conditions upon which these blessings are predicated.4
Alongside the Resurrection, our Saviour Jesus Christ provided the power for us to be cleansed from our sins and to overcome the world. In addition, He has not left us without God’s presence and the power given to us through the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is able, once we have been baptized and have received the gift of the Holy Ghost, to sanctify and purify us from all sin. He can cause our hearts, and therefore our attitude and behaviour, to change so that each of us can become a “new creature” in Christ.5
In order to not leave us rudderless and without the support to return to Him, the Father has given us His Church, even, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The doctrine, ordinances and covenants of His gospel, together with the teachings of His latter-day prophets, apostles and other authorized and inspired leaders, provide us with the means to return to our Heavenly Father in spite of the challenging conditions we face in this world.6
‘It will teach you what to do and where to go’
As divine sons and daughters of God you and I are never alone. The gift of the Holy Ghost is constant and ever near if we seek its power in our lives. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught,
“Tell the people to be …sure to keep the Spirit of the Lord and it will lead them right. Be careful and not turn away the small still voice; it will teach [you what] to do and where to go.”7
In regard to the remarkable power of the Holy Ghost, Elder Orson Pratt of the Twelve taught:
“Water Baptism is only a preparatory cleansing of the believing penitent . . . ; whereas, the Baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost cleanses more thoroughly, by renewing the inner man, and by purifying the affections, desires, and thoughts which have long been habituated in the impure ways of sin. Without the aid of the Holy Ghost, a person . . . would have but very little power to change his mind . . . and to walk in newness of life.
“Though his sins may have been cleansed away, yet so great is the force of habit, that he would, without being renewed by the Holy Ghost, be easily overcome, and contaminated again by sin. Hence, it is infinitely important that the affections and desires should be, in a measure, changed and renewed, so as to cause him to hate that which he before loved, and to love that which he before hated: to thus renew the mind of man is the work of the Holy Ghost.”8
You and I are the offspring of divine parents. We are to worship our Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ. We are never alone. Our Heavenly Father answers our earnest and righteous prayers immediately though it is always done in His way and in His time. The humblest prayer is heard. He is anxious to help. In fact, He knows our needs and desires even before they are expressed and He blesses us accordingly.
‘What we insistently desire is what we will become’
Many years ago Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Twelve taught, “Therefore, what we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity. “For I [said the Lord] will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts” (D&C 137:9; see also Jeremiah 17:10). Alma said, “I know that [God] granteth unto men according to their desire, . . . I know that he allotteth unto men . . . according to their wills.”9
When life gets hard and when some of us feel neglected or forgotten of the Lord we should always remember that this is not the true state of affairs. In fact, these debilitating thoughts are always of the evil one who seeks our destruction.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland powerfully taught, “However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”10
We will never be tested beyond our capacity to withstand temptation and the challenges of life. As the Apostle Paul taught, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”11
The Lord’s purpose for us, not only beyond the veil of death, but in our mortal sojourn itself, is joy: “men are, that they might have joy.”12
Of these things I humbly add my testimony and witness.