I love the Book of Mormon – not only for its beauty, but for its powerful potential to change the children of men into children of God.
President Marion G. Romney (a member of the First Presidency of the Church during the early 80s) said:
“If we the spirit. I know of no better way to do this than by daily reading the Book of Mormon” (Ensign, May 1980, p 66).
What a powerful statement this is from a man who would arrive at work thirty minutes early – so that he could read from the Book of Mormon before beginning his work day.
There are other witnesses to the power of the Book of Mormon. President Gordon B. Hinckley, currently our Church’s prophet and president, stated:
“I would like to urge every man and woman … and every boy and girl who is old enough to read to again read the Book of Mormon during this coming year. This was written for the convincing of the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus is the Christ. There is nothing we could do of greater importance than to have fortified in our individual lives an unshakable conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the living Son of the living God. That is the purpose of the coming forth of this remarkable and wonderful book. May I suggest that you read it again and take a pencil, a red one if you have one, and put a little check mark every time there is a reference to Jesus Christ in that book. And there will come to you a very real conviction as you do so that this is in very deed another witness for the Lord Jesus Christ” (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley [1997], p 44, emphasis added).
All the witnesses in the world, though, will not make as much a difference as your own personal witness. If you’ve not have the opportunity to read the Book of Mormon and to experience the power of its witness for the Redeemer of the world, even Jesus Christ, I invite you to do so. Follow this link to the online text. Feel free to bookmark the link in your own browser so you can easily return to more than once, daily even.
I also share my witness that this book is powerful. In fact, a verse contained within the Book of Mormon expresses it best. In the book of Helaman, chapter three, we read:
29 Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—
30 And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out (Helaman 3:29-30).
Yes, indeed, I love the Book of Mormon – not only for its beautiful text, but for its powerful potential to change the children of men into children of God.
