Digital Only: Young Adults
4 Things God Promises to Restore
God gives us hope that He will help all things work out in His time and way.
Have you ever gotten sucked into watching those videos of someone restoring a random kitchen tool or other vintage items? There’s just something so satisfying about seeing old, rusted, useless stuff cleaned, repaired, and brought back to their original states. The idea of restoring things is something we can see that our Savior and Heavenly Father love too. It’s comforting that because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, God’s promises to restore all things are true (see Doctrine and Covenants 132:45).
Restoration is, in fact, a manifestation of God’s power. Here are four things the scriptures say He will restore:
The Truth of the Gospel Back to the Earth
The fulness of the gospel was lost from the earth for a time, but God has restored it through latter-day prophets. Because of that Restoration, each of us can experience spiritual restoration in our own lives as we accept those restored truths and come unto Christ.
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained how this spiritual restoration can come about:
“The sublime end of all [God’s] labor is to help us, His children, succeed in our quest for immortality and eternal life [see Moses 1:39].
“We can become new creatures in Christ, for God has promised, ‘As often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me’ [Mosiah 26:30] and “remember them no more’ [Doctrine and Covenants 58:42].
“My beloved brothers and sisters, dear friends, we all drift from time to time.
“But we can get back on course. We can navigate our way through the darkness and trials of this life and find our way back to our loving Heavenly Father if we seek and accept the spiritual landmarks He has provided, embrace personal revelation, and strive for daily restoration. This is how we become true disciples of our beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Repentant Individuals to Righteousness and Eternal Life
Because of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice, He extends His grace to all who have faith in Him, repent of their sins, and make and keep covenants with Him. To those who continue to persist in sin, He asks:
“Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?
“… If ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life” (3 Nephi 9:13).
Jesus Christ is eager to bless us with His grace when we repent.
In the prayer offered at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, Joseph Smith asked the Lord to grant that “when [any of] thy people transgress, … they may speedily repent and return unto thee, and find favor in thy sight, and be restored to the blessings which thou hast ordained to be poured out upon those who shall reverence thee in thy house” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:21).
Elder Gerrit W. Gong taught that one promise of “our Lord’s Atonement is that, spiritually, ‘all things shall be restored to their proper order’ [Alma 41:4]. This spiritual restoration reflects our works and desires. Like bread upon the water, it restores ‘that which is good,” ‘righteous,’ ‘just,’ and ‘merciful’ [Alma 41:13]. No wonder the prophet Alma uses the word restore 22 times as he urges us to ‘deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually’ [Alma 41:14].”
If we desire and choose to do good in this life, good will be “restored” to us in the Final Judgment, and we can be assured of being “restored” to all the blessings that God wants to give to His faithful children, including the gift of eternal life in His presence.
Our Bodies and Spirits
One of God’s most beautiful promises is that because of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection, we will all live again. The scriptures assure us that “the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the other … by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel” (2 Nephi 9:12).
Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles also expounded on what this means for us: “First, resurrection includes physical restoration of our ‘proper and perfect frame’; ‘every limb and joint,’ ‘even a hair of the head shall not be lost’ [Alma 40:23]. This promise gives hope to those who have lost limbs; those who have lost ability to see, hear, or walk; or those thought lost to relentless disease, mental illness, or other diminished capacity. He finds us. He makes us whole.”
Because Jesus Christ rose again, we all can have our lives and our loved ones restored to us.
His Covenant People
After the ancient people of Israel were scattered, God promised that someday He would “commence his work among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, to bring about the restoration of his people upon the earth” (2 Nephi 30:8).
In the Book of Mormon, Nephi prophesied that someday his descendants would “be restored unto … the knowledge of Jesus Christ” (2 Nephi 30:5). And Mormon foresaw God’s work of “restoring all the house of Jacob unto the knowledge of the covenant that he hath covenanted with them” (3 Nephi 5:25).
In the last days, the people of Israel will be “restored to the true church and fold of God” and “gathered home to the lands of their inheritance” (2 Nephi 9:2). God began this work of gathering His covenant people through the Prophet Joseph Smith (see 2 Nephi 3:24). In 1830 Joseph wrote, “The day is fast hastening on when the restoration of all things shall be fulfilled, which all the holy prophets have prophesied of, even unto the gathering in of the house of Israel.”
Our loving God has promised to restore truth, goodness, life, His covenant people, and all things. Because of the sacrifice of our Savior, we can have hope that all can be restored.