Scripture Blog

This weblog is my personal online scripture journal. I try to read the scriptures each morning as I exercise on my cross-trainer. It has a great impact on my life and my testimony of the Savior and his restored church. The journal is really for my own benefit but I have set it up as a web log in hopes to benefit anyone else that may be interested. "For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost..." 1 Nephi 10:19

Friday, December 20, 2024

President Jeffrey R. Holland - I Am He

 Quoting the Savior's words, Elder Holland explained - 

"As the soldiers approached, Jesus, in an effort to protect His disciples, stepped forth and said, “Whom seek ye?” They replied, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said, “I am he. … As soon … as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward, and fell to the ground.”

To me, that is one of the most stirring lines in all of scripture. Among other things, it tells me straightforwardly that just being in the presence of the Son of God—the great Jehovah of the Old Testament and Good Shepherd of the New, who bears no weapons of any kind—that just hearing the voice of this Refuge from the Storm, this Prince of Peace, is enough to send antagonists stumbling into retreat, piling them in a jumble, making the whole group wish they had been assigned kitchen duty that night.

Just a few days earlier, when He had entered the city triumphantly, “all the city was moved,” the scripture says, asking, “Who is this?” I can only imagine that “Who is this?” is the question those muddled soldiers were now asking!

The answer to that question could not have been in His looks, for Isaiah had prophesied some seven centuries earlier that “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” It certainly wasn’t in His polished wardrobe or His great personal wealth, of which He had neither. It could not be from any professional training in the local synagogues because we have no evidence that He ever studied at any of them, though even in His youth He could confound superbly prepared scribes and lawyers, astonishing them with His doctrine “as one having authority.”"

President Hollands message was about love, love of God and fellowman.

"During His mortal mission, Jesus taught that there were two great commandments. They have been taught in this conference and will forever be taught: “Love the Lord thy God [and] love thy neighbour as thyself.” If we are to follow the Savior faithfully in these two crucial and inextricably linked rules, we ought to hold firmly to what He actually said. And what He actually said was, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” On that same evening, He said we were to “love one another; as I have loved you.”"

"First, He loved with “all [of His] heart, might, mind and strength,” giving Him the ability to heal the deepest pain and declare the hardest reality. In short, He is one who could administer grace and insist on truth at the same time. As Lehi said in his blessing to his son Jacob, “Redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth.” His love allows an encouraging embrace when it is needed and a bitter cup when it has to be swallowed. So we try to love—with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—because that is the way He loves us.

The second characteristic of Jesus’s divine charity was His obedience to every word that proceeded from God’s mouth, always aligning His will and behavior with that of His Heavenly Father."