- Elder Andersen settled his own faith while a BYU student in 1973, but said today’s students face a new information overload.
- President Dallin H. Oaks wrote that reason authenticates revelation, but “Revelation has the final word.”
- Elder Andersen told students to let unanswered questions rest in a box labeled “Answers Forthcoming.”
An apostle told a packed BYU audience Tuesday that now is the time for them to courageously choose the road of discipleship with a determination to never turn away.
Students should be working to get their faith in Jesus Christ and their devotion to the restored gospel “settled in their hearts,” said Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It means that you have spiritually weighed the blessings and sacrifices of following Jesus Christ,” he said. “Exercising your precious will and agency, you have determined — you have chosen in your mind and spirit — that this will absolutely be the path your life will take. You are going forward no longer doubting your decision.”
Elder Andersen said he settled his faith in his heart when he was a BYU student in 1973. Students today face an overload of information and misinformation at the dawn of the AI age, he told 14,898 during the weekly campus devotional at the Marriott Center.
He joked that if Robert Frost were writing his famed poem “The Road Not Taken” today, he might begin with, “One hundred roads diverged in a yellow wood.”
Put Jesus Christ in the center
“To make your faith in the Savior central to all your important motivations and decisions requires an unusual clarity of purpose, a humility and a firmness of mind,” Elder Andersen said.
The former business leader quoted Luke 14 from Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible: “Wherefore, settle this in your hearts, that ye will do the things which I shall teach, and command you.”
Elder Andersen defined settling one’s mind as: to resolve definitively and conclusively, to calm or bring to rest, and to make stable and permanent.
He twice told the students that to “settle this in your heart” does not mean they have to settle everything in their mind.
President Dallin H. Oaks about reason and revelation
Elder Andersen said church President Dallin H. Oaks once wrote that study and reason come first, and revelation comes second and has the final word.
“Reason can authenticate revelation and inspiration by measuring them against the threshold tests of edification, position and consistency with gospel principles,” President Oaks wrote. “But reason has no role in evaluating the content of revelation in order to accept or reject it according to some supposed standard of reasonableness. Revelation has the final word.”
Elder Andersen said he really liked President Oaks’ couplet: “Reason has the first word; revelation has the last word.”
“Reason alone,” Elder Andersen said, “will not fully explain the events of the church in the 19th century, the methods of translation or policies that seem foreign to us now. If we are not wise to the workings of the Spirit, there is an internet full of questions that can bring doubt and fear and become obstacles to ‘settling this in our heart.’”
Truth now and in the future
The apostle told students to allow questions that do not yet have answers to rest patiently in a box labeled “Answers Forthcoming.”
Then he shared 10 truths he said will settle in students’ hearts as they solidify their faith in Christ:
- God is our Father; we are his children.
- He hears our prayers; we need his answers.
- We are on Earth for an important purpose.
- Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God.
- Keeping his teachings brings happiness in mortal life and promises eternal life.
- His suffering and resurrection allow us to be forgiven and to live beyond the grave.
- He restored his gospel and priesthood through the Prophet Joseph Smith.
- His sacred word in the Bible and Book of Mormon guides us.
- Receiving his ordinances and observing our covenants is our path to return home.
- The Gift of the Holy Ghost is needed in our every moment.
2 ways to act on settling truth in the heart
Elder Andersen then gave the students what he said were two powerful ways to receive the spiritual strength to settle those truths in their hearts.
First, they should think more about the Savior. Second, they should more completely embrace the Book of Mormon.
“Immerse yourself deeply into the divine mission, the perfect life, the life-changing teachings, the incomparable Atonement and the breathtaking promises (Jesus Christ) offers you,” Elder Andersen said. “Pray more in his name; read his words; apply his teachings; speak his name in reverence and conviction; believe in his power to forgive and refine you.”
He said that if they have not recently read the Book of Mormon, “it is time to read it again.”
“In my many years of experience,” he said, “I have come to see that all — yes, all — those who have ‘settled the truthfulness of the restored gospel in their hearts’ have an abiding conviction that the Book of Mormon came through the Prophet Joseph Smith by the gift and power of God.”
Elder Andersen promised the students that if they followed this path, they would receive a “heavenly conferral, a greater vision of our purpose here on earth, a sustained ability to feel and to know, and an added abundance of spiritual gifts.”
Elder Andersen has served as an apostle, a special witness of Christ, since 2009. He closed the devotional with his testimony.
“I declare with a sureness and knowledge that he who we worship and adore, Jesus Christ, is the light and life of the world. He lives. He is the central being of all human history.”
The devotional can be viewed on BYUtv.