Easter, 15 April 2001
When I was a young student of the scriptures, I quickly learned the importance of having the Holy Ghost with us to do good, to do the work of the Lord. I virtually made emphasis on this topic my theme song.
But as I have grown older, I have realized that there is something more important than the companionship of the Holy Ghost. I learned that you can have the Holy Ghost with you and still fail. I finally heard the words I had known most of my life: “Though I speak with the tongue of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” (1 Cor 13:1–2). One must have the gift of the Holy Ghost to speak with the tongue of angels, to prophecy, to understand the mysteries and have all knowledge, to have faith to move mountains; but all these marvelous and supernatural powers are nothing compared with the one special gift—the pure love of Christ. Unless we specially seek and gain and master the gift of charity, all else we do is relatively in vain. The companionship of the Holy Ghost is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient; we must press on to the end, which end is to receive and reflect charity, the pure love of Christ. To be able to show forth that love is eternal life.
That love is what makes the Kingdom of God on the earth prosper. Those leaders who give it draw their flocks to Christ. Those missionaries who have it draw their contacts into the Church. Those husbands who have it draw their wife and children into the celestial kingdom. It is the sine qua non of all good work in Christ.
So in this Easter season, I wish to turn our minds to that greatest of all manifestations of pure love, the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He who knows all truth makes sure that all humans are invited to know all truth. He who was sinless suffered for the sins of all humans so that they too might have the opportunity to become sinless. He who never would have had to die gave up His own mortality in order to assure that you and I would also live eternally. There is nothing necessary or desirable for your salvation and for my salvation that our Savior has not done or will not do to share all that He has received from the Father with us.
So far as I can see, there is really only one thing to live for on this earth: to live to promote the cause of Christ in the earth. Which is to say, to promote the cause of the pure love unfeigned, the cause of peace, the cause of health and happiness. Anything else is a distraction, an investment unworthy of our time or effort. For as we lose ourselves in that great cause of Christ, He provides for our needs and desires so much more fully than we could wish for that there is no contest. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the blessings God has prepared for them that love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9)
May the Kingdom of God on the earth prosper. May the Oak Hills Stake be a stake which is Zion, not only a stake of Zion. May each of us find that fulness of blessing which the Lord has in store for each of us as we ever more humbly and diligently reach out in the pure love of Christ to our wives, to our children, to our stake members, to our friends outside the Kingdom, as we thusly love and serve our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.