In Him All Things Hold Together

Blessed be the Father for his loving-kindness in giving his Only Begotten as Our Redeemer! We do not know, nor could we appreciate if we did, the feelings of the Father as he watched his firstborn go through the Atonement. How great our Father is. Blessed be the Son, Jesus Christ, for his loving-kindness in atoning for our sins. I "scarce can take it in" ("How Great Thou Art"). Whenever you and I witness and experience in a human being impressive loving-kindness, we marvel--and we should marvel. But such highly developed loving-kindness is still not closely comparable to Jesus' loving-kindness. So it is with each of his qualities about which I have spoken tonight. When we are fortunate enough to experience the stirring samples of likeness, these are real and wonderful experiences, but they are not yet fullness. They are not yet the fullness found in Jesus. Even so, he of fullness clearly and kindly beckons us to develop that greater likeness in our lives which precedes fullness. It is that likeness that will give us the light in our lives so that we might, as Paul says, "shine as lights in the world." These are the attributes that convey to us the added authority of example. And as we emulate him, by developing likeness in these attributes, he will bless us and magnify us for his purposes.

My quorum president, President Howard W. Hunter, said twenty-six years ago in April general conference, "He loves the Lord with all his heart, who loves nothing in comparison of him and nothing but in reference to him."

As one of his special witnesses, I testify to you tonight that he is risen. And how marvelous it is, even given the great distance of the trek spoken of earlier, that he beckons us to develop this likeness so that one day we may have fullness with him. It is the journey of journeys. Nothing else is even remotely comparable to it in its importance. There is nothing in comparison of him. Indeed, as Paul said, "in Christ all things hold together."

That is my witness to you on this Easter night, the reality of his mercy, the genuineness of his loving-kindness. He has said to us, "What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am" (3 Nephi 27:27). What an invitation! That invitation verifies the possibility of its realization.

I salute you for who you are, but, more important, for what you have the possibilities to become. There is none like him. And as he has said to us in the marvelous imagery of holy scriptures, "I wait for you with open arms." But it is we who must go to him in this journey of journeys.

Finally, I witness to you the reality of the great Atonement. It is the central act of all human history. Nothing else even remotely approaches it in terms of significance. The meek Jesus says: "Here am I, send me." Jesus will come in majesty, and we will hail him for his loving-kindness. If we love him, we must so love one another.

He is risen, and the symbol of Christianity might well be the empty tomb that bespeaks the fullness of the great Atonement of which I testify to you tonight in love and in appreciation and in recognition of who you really are. I bear this witness to you humbly, lovingly, but, most important, in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Elder Neal A. Maxwell, "In Him All Things Hold Together" (BYU Fireside, March 31, 1991)

http://speeches.byu.edu/reader/reader.php?id=7068

The God of the 4th Watch (S. Michael Wilcox)

The scriptures are our Father in Heaven’s letters; only He knows more than I did as a father what you and I would need. There are times in our lives when we need to open the letter and communicate with our Father in Heaven, and understand what He is like and His concern for us. I would like to share this morning, with you, four letters from my Father in Heaven that have been very important to me—that I hope will be indicative of the power that the scriptures can be for us as we face different trials and challenges of our lives. The first letter is called "The Fourth Watch." That letter comes from the sixth chapter of Mark. The Savior has fed the five thousand that day, and in the late afternoon, early evening, He is sending his apostles down into the ship. He will dismiss the multitude. He wishes to pray that evening, and then He will meet the apostles a little later on the shore and they are to pick Him up. In late afternoon, early evening, the apostles...

we must learn to be righteous in the dark (Brigham Young; Maxwell)

President Brigham Young once made a statement which has impressed me very much. In a quiet moment with his secretary and two others, someone asked, “President Young, why is it that the Lord is not always at our side promoting universal happiness and seeing to it that the needs of people are met, caring especially for His Saints? Why is it so difficult at times?” President Young answered, “Because man is destined to be a God, and he must be able to demonstrate that he is for God and to develop his own resources so that he can act independently and yet humbly.” Then he added, “ It is the way it is because we must learn to be righteous in the dark .” (Brigham Young’s Office Journal, 28 January 1857)(emphasis added) quoted by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, September 1982 fireside See also 1 Nephi 8:4-8

Brigham's confidence in Joseph Smith (Brigham Young)

I can tell the people that once in my life I felt a want of confidence in brother Joseph Smith, soon after I became acquainted with him. It was not concerning religious matters—it was not about his revelations—but it was in relation to his financiering—to his managing the temporal affairs which he undertook. A feeling came ever me that Joseph was not right in his financial management, though I presume the feeling did not last sixty seconds, and perhaps not thirty. But that feeling came on me once and once only, from the time I first knew him to the day of his death. It gave me sorrow of heart, and I clearly saw and understood, by the spirit of revelation manifested to me, that if I was to harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I would begin to lose confidence in him, and that feeling would grow from step to step, and from one degree to another, until at last I would have the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece for the Almighty, and I would ...

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