Come Follow Me

This afternoon in Priesthood Russ Ellsworth gave the closing prayer.  He began by expressing to the Lord how grateful we all were that we had the opportunity to attend Priesthood today.  I hardly heard anything else that was said in the prayer because of the effect that opening had on me.  Those simple words are spoken around me all the time but in my whole life I have never felt more grateful for attending Priesthood than I did today and expressing that to the Lord was enough to make me lose my concentration for the rest of the prayer.  Sometimes in Priesthood the Spirit teaches the lesson and sometimes it is the teacher who teaches.  A big thank you to Clint who let the Spirit teach today.

We read a talk by Elder Bruce R. McConkie entitled The Purifying Power of Gethsamane.  It reminded me a lot of my favorite talk by Elder Holland called None Were with Him from the April 2009 conference.  Both talks are essentially each apostle's personal testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.  The power and eloquence with which Elder McConkie delivered his testimony of the Savior was stunning.  To see the talk given would probably be even more amazing and I certainly intend to watch it.  Elder McConkie's passion and love for Jesus Christ is clear and moving.  Toward the end of his talk he mentions that even though we can not quite comprehend the scope of the atonement and of Christ's love for us, one day we will.  Elder McConkie echoed my thoughts when he said the following:

In Eden we will see all things created in a paradisiacal state—without death, without procreation, without probationary experiences.  We will come to know that such a creation, now unknown to man, was the only way to provide for the Fall.  We will then see Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, step down from their state of immortal and paradisiacal glory to become the first mortal flesh on earth.  Mortality, including as it does procreation and death, will enter the world. And because of transgression, a probationary estate of trial and testing will begin.

Then in Gethsemane we will see the Son of God ransom man from the temporal and spiritual death that came to us because of the Fall.  And finally, before an empty tomb, we will come to know that Christ our Lord has burst the bands of death and stands forever triumphant over the grave.

I firmly believe that one day I will have the chance to become intimately familiar with Jesus Christ and know him better than I ever have by watching and perhaps feeling some of what He went through in his mortal lifetime.  My love for Christ and my understanding of His love for me will be amplified beyond my current comprehension by this and I eagerly await it.  But I know, as Elder McConkie said, that "I shall not know any better then than I know now that He is God’s Almighty Son, that He is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through His atoning blood and in no other way."

I know my Savior.  I know His voice.  I know His touch.  I know what He did for me.  I know He lives and I know that I can live because of Him.  I want nothing more than to follow Him in everything he does.  The words Come Follow Me went through my mind at the end of the talk and I wished we could have sung them because they are exact descriptions of what I was feeling.  Read those words and feel His love and with it a desire to change whatever you have to about your life and follow Him.  I bear my own witness of Christ in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.