“The Story That Is Ever New,” New Era, Dec. 2010, 32–33
Gospel Classics
The Story That Is Ever New
No one ever lived upon the earth who exerted the same influence upon the destinies of the world as did our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The story of Jesus the Christ is a story of old that ever remains new. The oftener I read of His life and labors the greater is the joy, the peace, the happiness, the satisfaction that fills my soul. There is ever a new charm comes to me in contemplating His words and the plan of life and salvation which He taught to men during His life upon the earth.
We all know that no one ever lived upon the earth who exerted the same influence upon the destinies of the world as did our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; and yet He was born in obscurity, cradled in a manger. He chose for His Apostles poor, unlettered fishermen. [More than] 1,900 years have passed and gone since His Crucifixion, and yet all over the world, in spite of all strife and chaos, there is still burning in the hearts of millions of people a testimony of the divinity of the work that He accomplished. …
It is a source of unbounded joy to me and fills my heart beyond my power of expression to contemplate the fact that God our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus Christ have visited the earth and again revealed the gospel to man; and it fills me with thanksgiving and gratitude, far beyond my power to tell, that He has blessed me with a knowledge of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged. My constant and earnest prayer to Him has always been that my mind should never become darkened, that I should never depart from the path of rectitude, but that as I grew in years I would increase in understanding, that the light and inspiration of the Spirit of God might burn in my heart and enlighten my understanding and keep me firm and faithful in serving my Heavenly Father.
And I want to say to the Latter-day Saints that it behooves us, having received a testimony of the divinity of the work in which we are engaged, so to order our lives from day to day that glory shall be brought to the work of God by the good deeds that we perform, so letting our light shine that men, seeing our good deeds, shall glorify God. No people upon the face of the earth have ever been blessed as have been the Latter-day Saints; no people have ever had the manifestations of the kindness and mercy and long-suffering of God that have been bestowed upon us, and I say we, above all men and women upon the earth, should live godlike and upright lives.
Mother and Child, by J. Kirk Richards; photo illustration by Christina Smith