2 Nephi 33

I am sorry for the long delay. The past couple months have flown by and I am sorry for the tardiness of this post. Today I was reading in 2 Nephi 33 and a couple of things stuck out to me.

1) Nephi is concluding his remarks to the Nephites and he is telling us about the things he has written. He first said that the things he wrote were “written in weakness,” but he prays that they will be “made strong” unto those that read them. He further goes on to tell us, the readers, what his purpose was in writing. The purpose, according to Nephi, was to “[speak] of Jesus.” He then tells us that he hopes his writings about Christ will “persuade [men] to do good,” “persuade [men] to believe in [Christ],” and “to endure to the end, which is life eternal.” Those are the dying wishes of a man that has given himself in the service of others. Those are the dying wishes of a man who has given his will over to Heavenly Father. Those are the dying wishes of a loving father to his children. He is looking back on his life and saying, “Yeah, I am weak. I made some mistakes in my life,” but he hopes that through Christ his feeble attempts will be made strong to persuade people to come unto Christ. Although Nephi was talking about his record, I believe that we can, and should, apply this to our lives. We need to live in a way that we “speak of Christ.” In doing so we will make mistakes because of our weakness, but through Christ our actions can persuade men to do good, to believe in Christ, and to endure to the end. That is the purpose of this life. We, though our efforts, are supposed to “stand as a witness of God at all times, in all places, and in all things.” We do that through our actions. If our actions contradict our words, people will always believe our actions. Our actions are powerful. That is why Nephi uses the verb “persuade” instead of “invite.” An invitation is strictly oral, but to persuade suggests that there is some assent and change on the part of the other person. Let us be like Nephi and live, albeit in weakness, as to persuade those that we come in contact with to come unto Christ. That is what we covenant to at the waters of baptism and in the walls of the temple. Let us live up to those covenants!

2) Secondly, I am always struck by the last 4 words Nephi engraves upon the plates. He ends his teachings and his writings with “I must obey, amen.” I think that sums up the life of Nephi in such a profound way. He must obey. Throughout his life he was given tasks from God that might have seemed hard, tedious, or insignificant, but Nephi obeyed. Do we have that firm of conviction to say “I must obey” when God speaks? I definitely can’t say that I have always been that strong. I just hope to strengthen my commitment so that when I am called upon I can, like Isaiah, say “here am I, send me.”

Again, I am sorry for the delay in posting. This morning I was struck during my scripture study of those things I mentioned above and I knew that I needed to post today. Let us live as to persuade people to come unto Christ and also let us strengthen our resolve to obey so that we can become like Nephi.