PERSEVERANCE

Christ came to overcome the world and he overcame. Now it is our turn. We have to overcome.

To be able to overcome life on earth, our Father in Heaven has blessed us with a Savior and the example of his life. He has given us the Church. We have prophets, apostles, other leaders, scriptures and the Spirit. In the Church, we have been blessed with ordinances that place us under a covenant with our Heavenly Father. Obeying those covenants lead us back to our Heavenly Father. These things along with many others provide us with spiritual and inner strength. This strength is necessary to be able to persevere.

It is when we think we cannot go any further is when we know we are at the point of reaching success. Times will be hard and it will make it hard to obey the commandments and covenants that we have been given. We must persevere in the truth of the Lord. It’s not what you finish; it’s how you finish it. “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7.) You have to love truth or you are never going to obey it.

We cannot keep living the same way every day. We need to be constantly looking for different ways that we can improve our life each day. It is time we step up to the plate and begin the process of exaltation to become like our Father. We need to get to the point where we look for, invite responsibility, and then go beyond that responsibility. An obedient person who is full of the spirit will desire more opportunities to obey the Lord because that person knows that the more he obeys the closer he will be to the Lord.

“Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a clove 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.” (2 Nephi 31:20.)

Let us be one persevering in Christ, unifying our will and our hearts with the Lords.

“Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God.” (Helaman 3:35.)