Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Question
Elder Holland articulates a cure for the divisive and hostile time in which we now live. What can you personally do to seek a “higher and holier” life? How might you invite the love of God to “dwell” more fully in your heart?
Quote
Friends, in our present moment we find all manner of divisions and subdivisions, sets and subsets, digital tribes and political identities, with more than enough hostility to go around. Might we ask ourselves if a “higher and holier” life, to use President Russell M. Nelson’s phrase, is something we could seek? When doing so, we would do well to remember that stunning period in the Book of Mormon in which those people asked and answered that question so affirmatively:
“And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land … because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.
“And there were no envyings, nor strifes, … nor any manner of lasciviousness; and surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God.
“There were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God.
“And how blessed were they!”
What is the key to this breakthrough in contented, happy living? It is embedded there in the text in one sentence: “The love of God … did dwell in the hearts of the people.” When the love of God sets the tone for our own lives, for our relationships to each other and ultimately our feeling for all humankind, then old distinctions, limiting labels, and artificial divisions begin to pass away, and peace increases.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Scripture
13 And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in all the land…
15 [B]ecause of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.
4 Nephi 1:13, 15
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