Free to Choose | Ronald A. Rasband

Описание: Elder Ronald A. Rasband teaches about the the gift of agency. Because of the religious freedom we enjoy, we are free to choose joy, to choose how we worship, and to choose to follow Jesus Christ.

This speech was given on January 21, 2020.

Elder Rasband is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

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Good morning, dear faculty and students of BYU. You honor the Lord Jesus Christ by being here at this devotional this morning. I have been sitting here looking at all of you and thinking how grateful we are to you and for all the good you can do throughout the world.

Brothers and sisters, I am honored to be here today and grateful to have Sister Rasband here, as well as many members of my family. I appreciate the support of President Worthen and his colleagues, who are on the stand and in the audience, and I am grateful for you and for the Spirit of the Lord you have all brought to this devotional today.

Our coming together reminds me of King Benjamin speaking to the people at the temple site:

Hearken unto me, and open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view.1

In these words we hear the Lord asking us to exercise our agency, to choose to listen, to choose to feel, and to choose to grasp the doctrines of the gospel as they apply to our individual lives. He is speaking of agency in the most personal sense.

My message today is of the fundamental doctrine of agency—the opportunity to choose between good and evil.

Choose to Feel Joy
In the Grand Council in Heaven we chose to accept our Heavenly Father’s plan. It hinges on agency—the freedom to choose. Lehi taught his son Jacob, “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.”2 We “are free to choose liberty and eternal life” or “to choose captivity and death.”3 Our everlasting welfare is dependent on living the laws of God. His commandments are fixed; they do not change except as directed by revelation.

We chose to come to earth and receive a body. We committed to live the commandments that we might be worthy of eternal life, the greatest of all God’s blessings. Central to our Father’s plan was the mission of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, which makes it possible for us to repent, be forgiven, and recommit to the covenant path. The very name of Jesus Christ speaks of salvation for all mankind. He is “the Son of the most high,”4 our “Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,”5 and “the Saviour of the world.”6 Yet His work and His ministry were never about Him. He sought only “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”7 That is you and me.

Satan, on the other hand, presented his own plan that would have compelled us to live by his rules. His intent was to have us circle about him for his glory. Everyone in this room and everyone who has lived or yet will live on this earth chose not to follow him. Satan has already lost more than we have right now. He does not have a body, he can never progress beyond where he is today, and he can never be exalted. But still he continues to fight the war that he waged in heaven because he wants more than he has. He wants us to join him in his misery.

By divine design we can become like Heavenly Father and receive all He has.8 That promise means something on those days when things aren’t going right and we ask ourselves—and we have all done it—“This is it?” Well, it isn’t. This is mortality, a stage of progression that guarantees for those who are righteous exaltation in the kingdom of God. Forever.

You probably feel like forever is too abstract, too far away. You may not feel you can even deal with today, and you may be dragging around your mistakes from yesterday as well. Perhaps you are thinking, “Let me tell you, Elder Rasband, about this monster of a class I have, and the lab requirements, and my girlfriend who just dumped me, and my car that isn’t running well in the cold, and how I cannot figure out what I am going to do or what I am going to major in”—and so it goes. Who is thinking about forever?

Well, brothers and sisters, you have the agency to look farther than that. You have the capacity to become gods and goddesses in a realm that knows no sorrow and no defeat, that feels no pain and no rejection, and that promises light and goodness and peace everlasting. You are “the children of light,”9 and you must never let the darkness of today get in the way of your desire to be with God and become like Him.