2 Nephi 31:20 (part 4)


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20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

Quotes for Discussion

Feasting upon the Word of God

We need to feast upon the words of Christ in the scriptures and as these words come to us from living prophets. Just nibbling occasionally will not do. (See 2 Nephi 31:20 and 32:3). Feasting means partaking with relish and delight and savoring—not gorging episodically in heedless hunger, but partaking gratefully, dining with delight, at a sumptuous spread carefully and lovingly prepared by prophet-chefs over the centuries.

Neal A. Maxwell

Meeting God in scripture has been like a divine intravenous feeding for me—a celestial I.V. that my son once described as an “angelical” cord.

Patricia T. Holland, Best of Women’s Conference, 198

I urge you to recommit yourselves to a study of the scriptures. Immerse yourselves in them daily so you will have the power of the Spirit to attend you in your callings. Read them in your families and teach your children to love and treasure them. Then prayerfully, and in counsel with others, seek every way possible to encourage the members of the Church to follow your example. If you do so, you will find, as Alma did, that “the word [has] a great tendency to lead people to do that which [is] just—yea, it [has] more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which [has] happened unto them.” (Alma 31:5.0

Ezra Taft Benson, “The Power of the Word,” May Ensign, 1986

The spiritual strength sufficient for our youth to stand firm just a few years ago will soon not be enough. Many of them are remarkable in their spiritual maturity and in their faith. But even the best of them are sorely tested. And the testing will become more severe….

The pure gospel of Jesus Christ must go down into the hearts of students by the power of the Holy Ghost. It will not be enough for them to have had a spiritual witness of the truth and to want good things later. It will not be enough for them to hope for some future cleansing and strengthening. Our aim must be for them to become truly converted to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ while they are with us.

Then they will have gained a strength from what they are, not only from what they know. They will become disciples of Christ. They will be His spiritual children who always remember Him with gratitude and in faith. They will then have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion. Their hearts will be turned outward, concerned for the temporal and spiritual welfare of others. They will walk humbly. They will feel cleansed and they will look on evil with abhorrence.

Henry B. Eyring, CES Symposium, BYU, 2001

On a visit he made to a mission president and his family in Russia, Elder Maxwell sat down with the five young daughters in the family one morning to converse. The first thing he asked them was what scripture they had been pondering that day. The question took the girls by surprise. But think about it. Elder Maxwell just assumed that the scriptures were as precious as gold and sweeter than honey to them as they were to him. If we did as he suggested and always had a scripture in mind, scripture study would be happening as we walked between classes, drove to appointments, or cleaned our houses. It would begin early in our lives and be ongoing and constant. We would be continually feasting, averting personal famine and spiritual hunger. The words of God would be “written…not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of [our] heart” (2 Corinthians 3:3).

Susan W. Tanner, BYU Devotional, Sept. 11, 2005

The words in the scripture “Ye must…endure to the end”…It sounded grim, like sitting still and holding on to the arms of the chair while someone pulled out my tooth.

It can surely seem that way to a family depending on crops when there is no rain. They may wonder, “How long can we hold on?” It can seem that way to a youth faced with resisting the rising flood of filth and temptation. It can seem that way to a young man struggling to get the training he needs for a job to support a wife and family. It can seem that way to a person who can’t find a job or who has lost job after job as businesses close their doors. It can seem that way to a person faced with the erosion of health and physical strength which may come early or late in life for them or for those they love.

But the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty. It is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remembered Him and the commandments He gave us. And to endure well is to keep those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us….

The combination of trials and their duration are as varied as are the children of our Heavenly Father. No two are alike. But what is being tested is the same, at all times in our lives and for every person: will we do whatsoever the Lord our God will command us? ...

The first, the middle, and the last thing to do is to pray….

Another simple thing to do, which allows God to give us strength, is to feast on the word of God: read and ponder the standard works of the Church and the words of living prophets….

Go to your meetings, even when it seems hard. If you are determined, He will help you find the strength to do it….

There is another simple thing to do. The Lord’s Church has been restored, and so any call to serve in it is a call to serve Him….

In his service the Holy Ghost comes as a companion to those who try to do the best they can….

So, whenever the invitation to serve comes, take it. It brings with it help to pass tests far beyond those of that call.

Now not all have formal calls. But every disciple serves the Master by bearing testimony and being kind to people around them….

The Father will grant you greater peace and strength in this life and with it a happy anticipation of hearing the words, when the test of life is over, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21).

Henry B. Eyring, Ensign, May 2004 [salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004], 17-19

There is nothing in all the world so satisfying as a task of performance well done. There is no reward so pleasing as that which comes with the mastery of a difficult problem or challenge. My plea is that we constantly take the position that every one of us can do better than we are now doing….As a nation and as a people, we will not rise to a position of excellence before the world until we have begun to restore and rebuild a foundation of moral, ethical, and spiritual strength. Happily, such a lofty and crucial pursuit does not require genius. But it does require endurance and commitment.

A verse in Ecclesiastes reminds us that “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Life’s winners are generally those who endure to the end. What tremendous strength there is in commitment!

Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing For Something [New York: Random House, Inc., 2000], 176-177

Mortality therefore is not a convenient, suburban, drive-around beltway with a view. Instead it passes slowly through life’s inner city. Daily it involves real perspiration, real perplexity, real choosing, real suffering—and real refining! …

The refining and enduring process is of necessity painful and protracted. Moreover, the process requires our voluntary participation and our continued cooperation if it is to achieve any lasting results. Even Christ cannot perform our personal refining and enduring for us. He bore that huge, atoning portion—our sins—which we could not bear. Now He offers us His grace to help us endure our smaller portion, the painful refining process in which He separates the sin, which He hates, from His children, whom He loves.

“In process of time” the patina of pride is burnished off. Hearts that were so set on the things of the world, if sufficiently meek, will either go through “a mighty change” or be broken, so “a new heart” can be given (see D&C 121:35; Alma 5:14; Ezekiel 18:31; 36:26). The righteous and covenant-keeping individuals who endure it well will inherit “all that my Father hath” (D&C 84:38).

Neal A. Maxwell, If Thou Endure It Well, p. 8-9

After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, 9by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St. John, in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to the 27th verses.

TPJS 150; emphasis added

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