Here are three religious books I have recently read and would recommend:

The Spirit is breathing new life into Christ’s church.  You can feel it.  It’s time to lower the drawbridge, open the shutters, and let the air in.  It’s time to take the precious gifts that God has entrusted us with, and that we have been carefully stewarding for two centuries, and use them to bless the world.  It’s time to let the Restoration do its work not just for the church but for the world. The Restoration is God’s ongoing invitation to modern humanity to come to Christ and be healed.  The Restoration is the work of a loving Father and Mother who are pained that their children needlessly suffer and who have already prepared the banquet for their beloved prodigals.  The Restoration is today’s fulfillment of an age-old promise to a worldwide family (pg. 8).

 

 

God, as the Supreme Power in the universe, invites His people to enter into a covenant.  They are agents unto themselves.  He does not force them.  He gives them choice.  The covenant is conditional.  If they keep the commandments and divine statutes that He reveals, they will be blessed with a fullness of the promises made to Abraham.  Those who fail to show devoted loyalty to God lose their access to the blessings of Abraham (pg. 72). God will not force us to accept the promises He made to Abraham.  God will not compel us to make covenants.  God will not require us to live in His promised lands.  God loves and invites.  He makes the covenants available. He has prophetic writers preserve the stories of faithful individuals who trusted God and reaped the covenantal rewards so that we as readers will be encouraged to also trust the god of covenants.  The purpose of this life is for us to choose to be on the covenant path (pg. 261). 

 

This is the God we believe in.  The God of rams in thickets.  The shipbuilder, the well giver, the prison breaker.  A God who opens up seas and dries up mud.  The One who wins battles with broken pitchers and single stones, who stands in fiery furnaces and closes the mouths of lions.  Every story is different, but the outcome is the same.  Unexpected deliverance (pg. 6).

 

 Here is Benjamin Crowder's art piece depicting the First Vision, titled "First Vision XIII". Using simple shapes, Mr. Crowder tries to convey gospel concepts and events.

This piece is called "Pillar of Light" by Daniel S. LeFevre. Daniel explains, "I wanted to show a stark contrast between the darkness of the world around Joseph and the bright white of a divine revelation.  It's the same story visually and literally." I love this piece.

These are just two representations of a marvelous event that happened in 1820. A fourteen year-old farm boy named Joseph Smith wondered which church was true. He lived in a time of religious contention, and after pondering and studying the issue he could still not determine an answer. Joseph read in the book of James where it says a man can approach God, and God will "giveth liberally," so with courage and faith Joseph went into the woods and knelt in prayer, calling upon God. To Joseph's surprise, God the Father and His son Jesus Christ appeared to him and called him by name. This vision began the restoration of Christ's church upon the earth.  I am a member of that church--the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I believe that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and His son Jesus Christ and that they did in fact speak to him. Though Joseph suffered immense persecution even unto death, he did not deny his testimony. I praise and honor him!

I am deeply grateful for a living prophet who is on the earth today--even President Russell M. Nelson.  I know he is a man of God and that He serves under the direction of Jesus Christ. This week President Nelson shared five important truths:

Truth number one: You are sons and daughters of God.

Truth number two: Truth is truth.

Truth number three: God loves every one of us with perfect love.

Truth number four: The Lord Jesus Christ, whose Church this is, appoints prophets and Apostles to communicate His love and teach His laws.

Now, for the fifth truth: You may know for yourself what is true and what is not by learning to discern the whisperings of the Spirit.

At the close of his remarks (September 17, 2019), President Nelson said:
My dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to seek earnestly a confirmation from the Spirit that what I have told you is true and is from the Lord. He has declared that we may seek knowledge from heaven and expect to receive it: “If thou shalt ask,” the Lord promised, “thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge.”
Ask your Heavenly Father if we truly are the Lord’s Apostles and prophets. Ask if we have received revelation on this and other matters. Ask if these five truths are—in fact—true.

I have a brother who texted, "After listening to it [the talk], I felt like I needed to do what he asked, and get on my knees and ask if the 5 truths were true, and for a confirmation that he and the apostles are guiding us.  He asks it so directly, how can you not?" 

As for me...I know that I am a daughter of God and that truth is truth.
I understand that God loves every one of us with a perfect love.
I have a testimony that there are prophets and Apostles on the earth today, appointed by Jesus Christ to teach laws, and communicate the Savior's love.
I do not have to take President Nelson's word for it, although he is a brilliant and wise individual.  I can know for myself if these things are true, and I do know.

Lucky  me--I get to teach a lesson to the young women this Sunday about the restoration.  I have been reading (for my enjoyment and interest--I can't fit it all in during the lesson) about the restoration these past few weeks.  Elder Bruce R. McConkie gave a talk in General Conference in 1985 titled "Once or Twice in a Thousand Years" and here are some wonderful lines from that talk:

Once or twice in a thousand years--perhaps a dozen times since mortal man became of dust a living soul--an event of such transcendent import occurs that neither heaven nor earth is ever thereafter the same.

Once or twice in a score of generations the hand from heaven clasps the hand on earth in perfect fellowship, the divine drama unfolds, and the whole course of mortal events changes.

Almost always apart from the gaze of men and seldom known by  more than a handful of people--the Lord intervenes in the affairs of men and manifests His will relative to their salvation.

Once or twice in a score of generations a new era dawns:  the light from the east begins to drive the darkness of the earth from the hearts of men.  

Now and then in a peaceful grove, apart from the gaze of men, heaven and earth share a moment of intimacy, and neither is ever thereafter the same.  Such a moment occurred on that beautiful, clear morning in the spring of 1820 in a grove of trees near Palmyra, New York.