God’s Intent Is to Bring You Home
Patrick Kearon, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Elder Kearon describes God's intent to bring His children home with love and mercy.
Open talk in Gospel LibraryContents
Topics
Understanding God's Plan for Us
Elder Kearon explains that God's plan is designed to bring us home, not to keep us out. He emphasizes that God is in relentless pursuit of us and uses every possible measure to bring us back.
Our Father’s beautiful plan, even His “fabulous” plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out.
God is in relentless pursuit of you. He “wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,” and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.Key Points:
- God's plan is designed to bring us home.
- God is in relentless pursuit of us.
- Can you share a time when you felt God was in relentless pursuit of you?
- How has understanding God's plan of happiness helped you in your life?
The Role of Jesus Christ in God's Plan
Elder Kearon discusses the role of Jesus Christ in God's plan. He explains that Christ's atoning gift removes every roadblock that would separate us from our eternal home.
He sent His precious Beloved Son to this fallen world to live the full range of the human experience, to provide an example for the rest of His children to follow, and to atone and redeem.
Christ’s great atoning gift removes every roadblock of physical and spiritual death that would separate us from our eternal home.Key Points:
- Jesus Christ lived the full range of the human experience to provide an example for us.
- Christ's atonement removes every roadblock that would separate us from our eternal home.
- How has the Atonement of Jesus Christ helped you remove roadblocks in your life?
- Can you share a time when you felt the redeeming power of Jesus Christ in your life?
The Intent of God's Plan
Elder Kearon explains the intent of God's plan, which is our happiness, redemption, mercy, and salvation. He emphasizes that the plan is not to prevent our happiness but to give it to us.
The intent of the Father’s great plan of happiness is your happiness, right here, right now, and in the eternities. It is not to prevent your happiness and cause you instead worry and fear.
The intent of the Father’s plan of redemption is in fact your redemption, your being rescued through the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, freed from the captivity of sin and death. It is not to leave you as you are.Key Points:
- The intent of God's plan is our happiness, redemption, mercy, and salvation.
- God's plan is not to prevent our happiness but to give it to us.
- How has understanding the intent of God's plan brought happiness to your life?
- Can you share a time when you felt redeemed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ?
The Role of Repentance in Our Lives
Elder Kearon discusses the importance of repentance in our lives. He explains that God wants us to change and repent, and to live on a higher plane of moral conduct.
Surely one of Jesus’s most consistent invitations and pleas during His mortal ministry was that we change and repent and come unto Him.
God wants for us a radical reorientation of our selfish and prideful impulses, the eviction of the natural man, for us to “go, and sin no more.”Key Points:
- God wants us to change and repent.
- God wants for us a radical reorientation of our selfish and prideful impulses.
- Can you share a time when repentance led to a positive change in your life?
- How has the principle of repentance helped you in your journey of personal progression?
The Infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ
Elder Kearon discusses the infinite nature of Christ's Atonement. He assures that the Atonement covers everyone, without exception.
If you are prone to worry that you will never measure up, or that the loving reach of Christ’s infinite Atonement mercifully covers everyone else but not you, then you misunderstand. Infinite means infinite. Infinite covers you and those you love.
The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is “not willing that any should perish.”Key Points:
- The Atonement of Jesus Christ is infinite and covers everyone.
- Jesus Christ is not willing that any should perish.
- How has understanding the infinite nature of the Atonement brought comfort to your life?
- Can you share a time when you felt the infinite reach of Christ's Atonement in your life?
