Asia Area Leader Message (September 2022)

A Mighty Change of Heart

Today, we can have the same experience as Elijah who felt and heard his Deliverer through a still small voice.

Elder Stephen C. K. Lai
Elder Stephen C. K. Lai of the Seventy

From time to time, we recognize and experience unspeakable joy through the manifestation of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes, it has caused us to shed tears of gratitude because of our Savior’s tender mercies toward us. Such experiences naturally point our moral compass to Jesus Christ. And we then become like the people of King Benjamin who “know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”[1]

A mighty change of heart does may be akin to an awakening or a realization of a positive event in our lives. It helps us realize that what we have experienced cannot be manufactured artificially. It is difficult to express adequately that “the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.”[2] 

Our own deliverance can only come when we are willing to turn our hearts over to Jesus Christ, without reservation. Such action facilitates a change in heart as we “[put] off the natural man and [become] a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and [become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him.”[3]

 


“Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.”

Exodus 14:13

In the Come, Follow Me curriculum of the Old Testament we learn that many of the prophets’ names are tied directly to diety. The Hebrew meaning of some of the following prophets are as follows:

Joshua -- God is deliverance

Elijah -- Jehovah is my God

Elisha -- God is my salvation

Isaiah – God saves 

However, the crowning name of all names is that of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  His name signifies the Anointed One who came to earth to fulfill His foreordained mission from His Heavenly Father to be “the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world.”[4]  He was also anointed to be our Deliverer who “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”[5]  And He will fulfill His crowning anointed mission to “rule as King of Kings and reign as Lord of Lords, and every knee shall bend and every tongue shall speak in worship before Him”[6] when He comes again on earth.

Today, we can have the same experience as Elijah who felt and heard his Deliverer through “a still small voice.”[7] The Lord invites everyone to a weekly sacramental renewal. This is our privilege to come before Him as He is willing to bear and lighten our burdens and afflictions. We can hear Him when we “be still and know that [He is] God.”[8] We can then reverently and joyfully experience a spiritual change within us through a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.”[9]

When our minds and hearts are fully focused on the Lord—not only through the few minutes of the administration of the sacrament, but throughout the remaining meetings and on His Sabbath Day—we can surely hear His voice.

“Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.”[10]

 

A Mighty Change of Heart

Today, our living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson has emphasized the critical need to partake of the sacrament weekly. 

“Partaking of the sacrament is a sacred and sanctifying privilege. Doing so makes it possible for us to draw more fully upon the Lord’s power. We wish for all who desire to partake of the sacrament to have that opportunity.”[11]

Our Lord has performed many miracles directly and indirectly through His prophets. He saved the widow of Zarephath and her son from starvation.[12] He raised the only dead son of a widow to life.[13] He healed a very poor woman with a blood issue of twelve years.[14] He paid His highest respect to a widow who consecrated all her two mites into the treasury.[15] Surely, He who notices “one of the least”[16] will also notice us. “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”[17]

Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is ever willing to give us “a new heart …, and a new spirit”[18] and be our Deliverer weekly if we are willing to come before Him to partake of His sacrament. Whenever we are willing to align our will to that of Christ’s will, then a simple or mighty change of heart will occur because “I [the Lord] will draw near unto you.”[19]

 


[1] Mosiah 5:2

[2] 1 Nephi 1:20

[3] Mosiah 3:19

[4] 1 Nephi 10:10

[5] Revelation 21:4

[6] “The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles,” Ensign or Liahona, April 2000, 3.

[7] 1 Kings 19:12

[8] Psalms 46:10

[9] 2 Nephi 2:7

[10] Exodus 14:13

[11] Russell M. Nelson, Facebook, May 28, 2020, facebook.com/russell.m.nelson

[12] See 1 Kings 17:9-24

[13] See Luke 7:12-15

[14] See Luke 8:43-48

[15] See Luke 21:1-4

[16] Matthew 25:40

[17] Doctrine & Covenants 84:88

[18] Ezekiel 36:26

[19] Doctrine and Covenants 88:63