He will make your hearts as gold

The lilies of the field and

even the smallest sparrow bear record of His generous and personal care.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?

and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

Matthew 10:29

Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Matthew 10:31

As we live a pure and virtuous life, we will be refined by our life’s experiences,

and as we “trust in the Lord” and draw closer to Him,

 He will “make your hearts as gold”

Though our path may wind across the mountains,
He knows the meadows where we feed. …
He clothes the lilies of the field,
He feeds the lambs of His fold,
And He will heal those who trust Him,
And make our hearts as Gold

Forever refreshed

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?

for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest

 have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a

 well of water springing up into everlasting life.

The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

~ John 4: 9-15

This Samaritan woman was probably searching for something that would help to quench the longings of her heart . . . fill her

loneliness . . . fill the empty cistern of her heart . . . and here was this man, a stranger and an enemy to her people,

offering her a gift which would do just those things .



But it does not stop there . . . this is an offer which stands today, as it did back then. The Saviour's offer of living water is as clear and as pure now as it was way back then as he sat on the wall next to Jacob's well. His offer is not withheld because we are empty, broken…. In fact . . . he thoroughly understands our condition . . . and the offer and promise of healing and forgiveness are still there. We, too, can drink from this well of living water and be forever refreshed.  All we have to do is to accept his offer . . . and drink.

It comes through a lifetime of effort

“Each of us will have our own Fridays those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered

about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again.

We will all have our Fridays.

“But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

“No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come.”

Joseph B. Wirthlin

An Invitation to Know the Savior

“What does it mean to seek the face of the Savior? Surely it means more than just recognizing His picture. Christ’s invitation to seek Him is an invitation to know who He is, what He has done for us, and what He has asked us to do. Coming to Christ, and eventually seeing His face, comes only as we draw close to Him through our faith and our actions. It comes through a lifetime of effort.”

Cheryl C. Lant

"Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness

 of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine."

Gordon B. Hinckley

I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands

When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was first founded, you could see persons rise up and ask, “What sign will you show us that we may be made to believe?” I recollect a Campbellite preacher who came to Joseph Smith, I think his name was Hayden. He came in and made himself known to Joseph, and said that he had come a considerable distance to be convinced of the truth. “Why,” said he, “Mr. Smith, I want to know the truth, and when I am convinced, I will spend all my talents and time in defending and spreading the doctrines of your religion, and I will give you to understand that to convince me is equivalent to convincing all my society, amounting to several hundreds.” Well, Joseph commenced laying before him the coming forth of the work, and the first principles of the Gospel, when Mr. Hayden exclaimed, “O this is not the evidence I want, the evidence that I wish to have is a notable miracle; I want to see some powerful manifestation of the power of God, I want to see a notable miracle performed; and if you perform such a one, then I will believe with all my heart and soul, and will exert all my power and all my extensive influence to convince others; and if you will not perform a miracle of this kind, then I am your worst and bitterest enemy.” “Well,” said Joseph, “what will you have done? Will you be struck blind, or dumb? Will you be paralyzed, or will you have one hand withered? Take your choice, choose which you please, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ it shall be done.” “That is not the kind of miracle I want,” said the preacher. “Then, sir,” replied Joseph, "I can perform none, I am not going to bring any trouble upon any body else, sir, to convince you.

George Albert Smith

25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the ^aprint of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 ¶And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and ^athrust it into my side: and be not ^bfaithless, but ^cbelieving.

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast ^aseen me, thou hast believed: ^bblessed are they that have not seen, and yet have ^cbelieved.

30 ¶And many other ^asigns truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not ^bwritten in this book:

31 But these are ^awritten, that ye might ^bbelieve that Jesus is the ^cChrist, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have ^dlife through his ^ename.

John 20:25-31

Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands

 1 Nephi 21:16

Believe in Christ

"To all who may have doubts, I repeat the words given Thomas as he felt the wounded hands of the Lord: 'Be not faithless, but believing.' Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the greatest figure of time and eternity. Believe that his matchless life reached back before the world was formed. Believe that he was the Creator of the earth on which we live. Believe that he was Jehovah of the Old Testament, that he was the Messiah of the New Testament, that he died and was resurrected, that he visited the western continents and taught the people here, that he ushered in this final gospel dispensation, and that he lives, the living Son of the living God, our Savior and our Redeemer."

Gordon B. Hinckley

It is finished

I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.

Mosiah 2:21

The Three Prayers of Gethsemane

S. Michael Wilcox

There are three recorded prayers from Gethsemane, or at least three versions of the same prayer.  For they are all poignant and beautiful, yet they teach different truths …

but all of them tell us something about that moment in the Savior’s life.

 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Matthew 26:36

 And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.

Mark 14:36

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

Luke 22:41-42

So Jesus began to drain the bitter cup. He drinks it all through Gethsemane. It is easy to visualize the shaking that accompanied drinking that extremely bitter cup.  He drank it through his trial before the Sanhedrin as well as the trials before Herod and Pilate.  He drank it through Calvary and the Crucifixion and finally arrived at that moment on the cross near the end when he made one request for himself.  Two Simple words! They are the simplest request a man in pain can make. “I thirst”.  Soldiers mocked him, coming to him, and offering him vinegar. Vinegar is Bitter. David, in the Psalms, looking forward with prophetic vision to that some moment, voiced the Savior’s own feelings at that moment when the vinegar was given.

 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none…..and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

When Jesus tastes the proffered vinegar, he knows that he has drunk the bitter cup to the very last drop. He then says, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” It is finished, and he dies.

"These simple words-"He is not here, but is risen"-have become the most profound in all literature. They are the declaration of the empty tomb. They are the fulfillment of all He had spoken concerning rising again. They are the triumphant response to the query facing every man, woman, and child who was ever born to earth."

Gordon B. Hinckley

Loyalty ~~Precious...

By God's Grace

God did not promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, nor sun without rain,

but He did promise strength for the day, Comfort for the tears and light for the way.

"This Jesus, who is called Christ, wrought out a perfect atonement for all mankind by His incomparable life, His suffering in Gethsemane, the shedding of His blood, His death upon the cross, and His glorious Resurrection.

He conquered the grave, and because of Him, so will we."

Bishop Keith B. McMullin

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. -- Titus 1:2

By God’s Grace, heirs of the hope of eternal life. -- Titus 3:7

"God offers to His children the promise of a glorious and infinite existence and has provided a way for us to progress in knowledge and glory until we receive a fulness of joy. He has promised us all that He has."If all that is not enough reason to love our Heavenly Father, perhaps we can learn from the words of the Apostle John, who said,

'We love him, because he first loved us' (1 John 4:19)."

~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf,

"God loves us because He is filled with an infinite measure of holy, pure, and indescribable love. We are important to God not because of our résumé but because we are His children. He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken. God's love is so great that He loves even the proud, the selfish, the arrogant, and the wicked."What this means is that, regardless of our current state, there is hope for us. No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate

Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us."

~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf

clay in the hands

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life – the life God is sending one, day by day.”

C. S. Lewis

We will be able to face and conquer our challenges more willingly and courageously when we understand that such obstacles are encountered as a natural part of living, and that our Heavenly Father has provided the way and the means for us to successfully meet the “unpleasant interruptions” that are part of our “real life.”

The Lord has made available to us, through prayer and faith, powers which will turn our challenges into opportunities. These are powers which will enable us to understand the Apostle Peter’s declaration that such trials of our faith are indeed more precious than gold; experiences that will strengthen and refine us.

Rex D. Pinegar

“Here then is a great truth. In the pain, the agony, and the heroic endeavors of life, we pass through a refiner’s fire, and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our faith bright, intact, and strong. In this way the divine image can be mirrored from the soul. It is part of the purging toll exacted of some to become acquainted with God. In the agonies of life, we seem to listen better to the faint, godly whisperings of the Divine Shepherd.

“Into every life there comes the painful, despairing days of adversity and buffeting. There seems to be a full measure of anguish, sorrow, and often heartbreak for everyone, including those who earnestly seek to do right and be faithful. … In this way the soul can become like soft clay in the hands of the Master.”

James E. Faust