“Glad Tidings of Love and Joy,” Liahona, January 2025.
Glad Tidings of Love and Joy
The blessings of the Restoration should cheer our hearts and fill us with gratitude for God’s great love.
Our message of hope and peace to all is that Jesus Christ lives and has restored His gospel and Church in these latter days.
“How indescribably glorious are these things to mankind!” the Prophet Joseph Smith declared. “Of a truth they may be considered tidings of great joy to all people; and tidings, too, that ought to fill the earth and cheer the hearts of every one when sounded in his ears.”
For centuries following the earthly ministry of the Savior, God’s children sought Him and yearned for more light and truth. Now the glad tidings of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ongoing Restoration go forth to bless all people and prepare the world for the day when Jesus Christ will return to “rule as King of Kings and reign as Lord of Lords.” This is a profound manifestation of the unending love of our Father in Heaven and our Savior. I rejoice that I can spend my life proclaiming these truths to all the world.
The Unlikely and the Remarkable
A new day dawned for the human family in a grove of trees, where God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared and spoke to Joseph Smith in answer to young Joseph’s prayer about which church he should join (see Joseph Smith—History 1:14–20). Jesus Christ told Joseph not to join any church. He promised that the fulness of His gospel would be revealed to Joseph in the future.
To many, Joseph seemed the most unlikely to be called to such an important work, and they were right. He was an uneducated and inconsequential boy from a small farm in an obscure town. Just as some said of the Savior in His day, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46), many wondered what good could come from an unlearned 14-year-old in Palmyra, New York. But through Joseph—as unlikely as he may have seemed—Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ would bring to pass the truly remarkable. This should bring us hope that in our small and humble way, we can also contribute in meaningful ways to the work of the Lord.
In time, the Lord called upon Joseph “and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments” (Doctrine and Covenants 1:17). Joseph received precious revelations and vital doctrine that brought new light to our understanding of Heavenly Father’s loving plan and Jesus Christ’s redeeming love and the power of His atoning sacrifice. Remarkably, these glad tidings came at the precise moment when significant advances in transportation, communication, and other areas would allow God’s light to shine forth to bless more and more of His children.
The Angel Moroni Delivering the Plates to Joseph Smith, by C. C. A. Christensen
A Powerful Witness of God’s Love
The appearance of the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith was essential to the Restoration and powerful evidence of God’s love. Moroni told Joseph of a record, written upon gold plates, buried nearby (see Joseph Smith—History 1:33–34). Eventually, Joseph would be given “power from on high” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:8) to translate that record into what would become the Book of Mormon, which stands alongside the Bible and is another testament of Jesus Christ.
Throughout the Book of Mormon, we read of people who, hundreds of years before Christ, knew and foretold of His coming and yearned for it. We also find the extraordinary account of the resurrected Savior’s personal appearance and ministry among the Nephites, during which He invited all to come unto Him and feel the mark in His side and the prints of the nails in His hands and feet (see 3 Nephi 11:14–15). He healed the sick, the lame, the blind—“all them that were afflicted in any manner”—and then blessed the little children and prayed for them (see 3 Nephi 17:7–9, 21). We learn so much about the Savior’s love and compassion from this sacred account.
The Book of Mormon witnesses that “Jesus is the Christ.” The assurances in the Book of Mormon repeatedly remind us that our Father in Heaven and our Savior love us beyond anything we can imagine.
The Blessings of the Priesthood and the Church
The Restoration continued with the appearance of other heavenly messengers to Joseph Smith. “The resurrected John the Baptist restored the authority to baptize by immersion for the remission of sins. Three of the original twelve Apostles—Peter, James, and John—restored the apostleship and keys of priesthood authority. Others came as well, including Elijah, who restored the authority to join families together forever in eternal relationships that transcend death.”
On April 6, 1830, Jesus Christ established through the Prophet Joseph a church patterned after the church He organized in New Testament times (see Articles of Faith 1:6), complete with “the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes the blessings of restored priesthood power available to all of God’s children who prepare themselves to receive it.
As President Russell M. Nelson has taught us, we can find joy in daily repentance as we turn to Heavenly Father and our Savior. To any who feel down or that they do not measure up or belong: all are invited to come unto Christ and His Church. The Church is not a monastery for the perfect but a hospital for the sick. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reminds us that “we come to church not to hide our problems but to heal them.”
At church we find joy in opportunities to turn ourselves outward, serve others with love, and share our own personal experiences with the abundance of Christ’s goodness. We can be “numbered among the people of the church of Christ” and “be remembered and nourished by the good word of God” (Moroni 6:4). What a tremendous blessing!
A Reason for Great Joy
The Prophet Joseph Smith once declared, “Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:19).
These glad tidings have come because Heavenly Father and His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, love us and desire—more than anything—to welcome us back into Their presence, that we might have forever the kind of life They live. The Restoration reveals that They have done everything necessary to make this a glorious possibility for us all. In our eternal journey, we will experience trials and difficulties, but “[we] are, that [we] might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25) in this life and the next. The Prophet Joseph knew this better than most.
Joseph faced frequent opposition and persecution, yet he kept his “native cheery temperament” (Joseph Smith—History 1:28). He remained joyful, strong, and resilient, and he accomplished the extraordinary work he had been given to do. I pay tribute to all the early Saints who believed, supported, and followed the Prophet Joseph Smith and consecrated themselves to the building of the Church. We owe them such a debt of gratitude and honor.
It was bumpy in the early days of the Church, and it can be bumpy today. But the Restoration is ongoing. With Jesus Christ at the head of this Church, living prophets will continue to guide us. Houses of the Lord will continue to be built, that the blessings of eternal covenants with God might bind us to Him and to our loved ones on both sides of the veil (see Matthew 16:19). The love of God and Jesus Christ will extend to all the world as we follow the Savior’s command to feed His sheep and share His gospel. We will witness the truths of the Restoration go forth in ways and to places that would have hardly been imaginable in Joseph’s day.
We can find strength and great joy—as the Prophet Joseph did—as we embrace and live these precious truths. The call Joseph made to the Saints in his day continues with us today: “Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, … and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:22).
May the glad tidings of love and joy that the Restoration brings bless and guide our lives—now and always.