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Devotionals

President and Sister Meredith Teach of Rededicating Our Lives to Christ and His Atonement

Winter 2025 Opening Devotional Recap

President & Sister Meredith Devo - Jan 2025

Sister Jennifer Meredith: “The Secret to a Life of Joy” [1]

Celebrating the seventh anniversary of the day President Russell M. Nelson was sustained and set apart as the 17th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Sister Jennifer Meredith highlighted the seven invitations that President Nelson gave in his October 2024 general conference address, “The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again:” [2]

  1. Rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ 
  2. Help gather scattered Israel 
  3. Prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord 
  4. Talk of Christ 
  5. Testify of Christ 
  6. Have faith in Christ 
  7. Rejoice in Christ 

If we follow these invitations and “come unto Christ and ‘offer your whole [soul]’ to Him,” President Nelson promises that “this is the secret to a life of joy!”

Focusing on the first invitation, to “rededicate your lives to Jesus Christ,” Sister Meredith described the impact of prayerfully and intentionally setting goals to follow this invitation.

In 2005, President Gordon B. Hinckley stated that “the lives of our people must become the most meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship.” [3]

Seeing our lives as personal temples, Sister Meredith encouraged listeners to consider, “If we are the temples of God, what do people see when they see us? How can we dedicate or rededicate ourselves to Jesus Christ so that our lives become the most meaningful expression of our faith?”

Sister Meredith closed by reminding students that we can have confidence in the Holy Ghost’s guidance and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ’s strength, and that offering our whole souls to Christ is truly “the secret to a life of joy.”

President & Sister Meredith Devo - Jan 2025

President Alvin F. Meredith III: “The Atonement of Jesus Christ” [4]

President Alvin F. Meredith III expanded on President Russell M. Nelson’s invitation during the October 2024 general conference to “to devote time each week—for the rest of your life—to increase your understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” [5]

He highlighted how, as Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, “the Atonement of Christ is the most basic and fundamental doctrine of the gospel,” yet “it is the least understood of all our revealed truths.” [6]

Studying the Creation and the Fall of Adam gives necessary context for comprehending the power of Christ’s Atonement.

In the premortal existence and the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had the positive conditions of living in the presence of God and being immortal, but they had the negative conditions of being unable to progress, know true joy, and have a family.

After the Fall, the positive and negative conditions switched—they were able to progress, feel joy, and have a family, but they no longer lived in the presence of God and were subject to death and the vulnerabilities of mortality.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ resolved the outcomes of the Fall. President Meredith said, “In the eternal realm, the negative effects of the Fall can be restored to beautiful positives, and the positives of our mortal life are magnificently amplified, all because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

President Meredith closed with his testimony of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and its power to cleanse, enable, and strengthen us—all of us—in our times of need. “I am eternally indebted and grateful that He, as President Nelson has said, paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay. [7] The Lord Jesus Christ is my and our Savior and Redeemer. May we all be strengthened in our resolve to be His disciples,” he said.


Notes

  1. Jennifer Meredith, "The Secret to a Life of Joy," BYU-Idaho Speeches, Jan. 21, 2025, https://www.byui.edu/speeches/devotionals/jennifer-e-meredith/the-secret-to-a-life-of-joy.
  2. Russell M. Nelson, “The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again,” Liahona, Nov. 2024, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2024/10/57nelson.
  3. Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Symbol of our Faith,” Ensign, April 2005, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2005/04/the-symbol-of-our-faith.
  4. Alvin F. Meredith III, "The Atonement of Jesus Christ," BYU-Idaho Speeches, Jan. 21, 2025, https://www.byui.edu/speeches/devotionals/alvin-f-meredith-iii/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ.
  5. Russell M. Nelson, “The Lord Jesus Christ Will Come Again.”
  6. Bruce R. McConkie, “The Purifying Power of Gethsemane,” Ensign, May 1985, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1985/04/the-purifying-power-of-gethsemane.
  7. Russell M. Nelson, in Handel’s Messiah: Debtor’s Prison (video), ChurchofJesusChrist.org/media-library.