D&C4:4
For behold the field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul;
Dale Miller of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said,
"Brothers and sisters, thrusting in our sickles to help build the Lord’s kingdom should be the prime focus of our lives. It seems reasonable to suggest that we each agreed to that in our premortal life. The key decisions pertaining to education, career, marriage, the very use of our time, talent, and means should prayerfully hinge on how best we serve the Master, building His kingdom and becoming perfected in Him."
On this special Easter Sabbath I have revisited a message from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
He said, “Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. His solitary journey brought great company for our little version of that path—the merciful care of our Father in Heaven, the unfailing companionship of this Beloved Son, the consummate gift of the Holy Ghost, angels in heaven, family members on both sides of the veil, prophets and apostles, teachers, leaders, friends. All of these and more have been given as companions for our mortal journey because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of His gospel. Trumpeted from the summit of Calvary is the truth that we will never be left alone nor unaided, even if sometimes we may feel that we are. Truly the Redeemer of us all said, “I will not leave you comfortless. [My Father and] I will come to you [and abide with you].”
“My other plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once. Now, may I ask that never again will He have to confront sin without our aid and assistance, that never again will He find only unresponsive onlookers when He sees you and me along His Via Dolorosa in our present day. As we approach this holy week—Passover Thursday with its Paschal Lamb, atoning Friday with its cross, Resurrection Sunday with its empty tomb—may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear. This Easter week and always, may we stand by Jesus Christ “at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death,” for surely that is how He stood by us when it was unto death and when He had to stand entirely and utterly alone.” (None Were With Him, General Conference, April 2009.)
“Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ … serve him.” (D&C 59:5.)
Confess the hand of God in all things. (See D&C 59:21.)
“Be patient in afflictions.” (D&C 24:8.)
“Be of good cheer.” (D&C 61:36.)
Sustain and support the priesthood in the home and Church. (See D&C 107:22.)
Pay an honest tithe and a generous fast offering. (See D&C 119:4; Mosiah 4:21.)
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” (D&C 59:6.)
Teach your children. Bring them up in light and truth. (See D&C 93:40, 42–43.)
“Cease to find fault one with another.” (D&C 88:124.)
“Forgive one another.” (D&C 64:9.)
Elect honest, good, and wise men to public office. (See D&C 98:10.)
Obey and befriend “that law which is the constitutional law of the land.” (D&C 98:6.)
Be thrifty. Stay out of debt. (See D&C 19:35.)
Do not covet. (See D&C 88:123.)
Be honest in your dealings with others. (See D&C 51:9.)
Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. (See D&C 59:10, 12–13.)
Abstain from the use of liquor, tobacco, and strong and hot drinks. (See D&C 89:5–9.)
“Cease to be unclean”; shun pornography. (D&C 88:124.)
Seek learning out of the best books. (See D&C 88:118.) Avoid literature and movies which portray evil as good and good as evil.
Do not commit adultery “nor do anything like unto it.” (D&C 59:6.) That means petting, fornication, homosexuality, and any other form of immorality.
“Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly.” (D&C 121:45.)
“Practice virtue and holiness” continually. (D&C 38:24.)
“Clothe yourselves with the bond of charity.” (D&C 88:125.)
Live by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God. (See D&C 98:11.)
Be valiant in your testimony of Christ. (See D&C 76:51, 79.)
Honor your covenants. (See D&C 25:13.)
“Endure to the end.” (D&C 14:7.)
'If I could speak so that the whole world would hear the utterance I would like to sound it in the ears of all mortal men—that there is no power that will ever be permitted to array itself, or to combine itself against this work of our God, to retard its onward progress from this time forward until the full consummation will be achieved—that is, if the Latter-day Saints themselves are faithful to God, if they will keep the commandments of God, if they will sanctify themselves and cleanse themselves from sin, and live pure and holy lives. If they will do this, then the success and the triumph and the continued growth and advancement of this kingdom … are assured unto us as a people. There is no doubt of it. I say in the name of Jesus Christ, that it will be so.' (Journal of Discourses, 25:325.)"I urge the people of the Church, wherever you may be, when you are faced with problems, first to try to solve those problems yourselves. Think about them, study alternatives available to you, pray about them, and look to the Lord for direction. If you are unable to settle them yourselves, then talk with your bishop or branch president. He is a man of God, called under the authority of the holy priesthood as the shepherd of the flock.
“We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.” (Meeting The Challenges of Today, BYU Speeches, Oct. 10, 1978.)
“The Framers of the Constitution . . . forbade the Congress to make any law "respecting" the establishment of religion, thus leaving the states free to do so (as several of them did); and they explicitly forbade the Congress to abridge "the free exercise" of religion, thus giving actual religious observance a rhetorical emphasis that fully accords with the special concern we know they had for religion. It takes a special ingenuity to wring out of this a governmental indifference to religion, let alone an aggressive secularism. Yet there are those who insist that the First Amendment actually proscribes governmental partiality not only to any single religion, but to religion as such; so that tax exemption for churches is now thought to be unconstitutional. It is startling [she continues] to consider that a clause clearly protecting religion can be construed as requiring that it be denied a status routinely granted to educational and charitable enterprises, which have no overt constitutional protection. Far from equalizing unbelief, secularism has succeeded in virtually establishing it.Sadly, we are now living in a day when religious convictions are heavily discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, "A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it" (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58).
[She continues:] “What the secularists are increasingly demanding, in their disingenuous way, is that religious people, when they act politically, act only on secularist grounds. They are trying to equate acting on religion with establishing religion. And—I repeat—the consequence of such logic is really to establish secularism. It is in fact, to force the religious to internalize the major premise of secularism: that religion has no proper bearing on public affairs.” [Human Life Review, Summer 1978, pp. 51–52, 60–61]
“Just as those who promote same-sex marriage are entitled to civility, the same is true for those who oppose it. The Church insists on its leaders’ and members’ constitutionally protected right to express and advocate religious convictions on marriage, family, and morality free from retaliation or retribution. The Church is also entitled to maintain its standards of moral conduct and good standing for members.”
“. . . if people are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold that grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would they be, anyway? Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go?”
"We all believe that the Lord will fight our battles (D&C 105:14); but how? Will he do it while we are unconcerned and make no effort whatever for our own safety when the enemy is upon us? . . . it would be quite as reasonable to expect remission of sins without baptism, as to expect the Lord to fight our battles without our taking every precaution to be prepared to defend ourselves. The Lord requires us to be quite as willing to fight our own battles as to have Him fight them for us. If we are not ready for the enemy when he comes upon us, we have not lived up to the requirements of Him who guides the ship of Zion, or who dictates the affairs of His kingdom" (Journal of Discourses 11:131).
“Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even these, however, must leave a record so that the choices before the people are clear and let others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds—a majority which was, till then, unconscious of itself.” (Meeting the Challenges of Today, BYU Speeches.)
