Favorite Scriptures

One of my friends asked everyone to send in their three favorite scriptures and why they are our favorites for a personal project she is doing. It looked like a really fun project so I sent her my three, and I decided that I wanted to post them up here as well.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to give you my three all time favorite scriptures… because they tend to vary. But here are the three that come to mind right now:

Jarom 1 (because that’s the only chapter there is) verse 2–

And as these plates are small, and as these things are written for the intent of the benefit of our brethren the Lamanites, wherefore, it must needs be that I write a little; but I shall not write the things of my prophesying, nor of my revelations. For what could I write more than my fathers have written? For have not they revealed the plan of salvation? I say unto you, Yea; and this sufficeth me.

Mormon Abridging the Plates – Image Credit LDS.org

I love this scripture because it just says it all so plainly and simply. I lovingly refer to Enos, Jarom & Omni as the books of slackers because you have at least 7 different authors who can barely pull together 7.5 pages in over 300 years (my favorite example of this is Omni 1:9). But I love what Jarom says, because I think that too often we try to look to hard and we miss what’s staring us right in the face. We want more and more revelations, but we don’t really do enough with what we already have. The gospel is really a lot more simple than we make it.

Alma 5:46 –

Behold, I say unto you they are made known unto me by the Holy Spirit of God. Behold, I have fasted and prayed many days that I might know these things of myself. And now I do know of myself that they are true; for the Lord God hath made them manifest unto me by his Holy Spirit; and this is the spirit of revelation which is in me.

Angel Appears to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah, by Jerry Thompson; Image Credit LDS.org

I really like this scripture in context. Remember that this is the same Alma who was stopped from persecuting the church by seeing an angel. Here he says that he has a testimony because he has “fasted and prayed many days that [he] might know of [himself].” An angel didn’t cut it. We can all have just as strong of testimonies as Alma. Miracles and heavenly manifestations do not make a testimony, a testimony comes from within.

Alma 56:47-48 –

Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

Two Thousand Young Warriors (Two Thousand Stripling Warriors), by Arnold Friberg, Image Credit: LDS.org

This is another one that I like in context. Remember that the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s were the ones who decided to bury their weapons of war in the earth. Then when the Lamanites came to attack them they knelt down and prayed to God while the Lamanites slaughtered them. It says that they killed over a thousand of these people before they stopped. The men that were killed in the process of these prayers were the fathers of many of these stripling warriors. And it says that their mothers, the wives of these slain men, knew that “if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.” I just think that’s such a powerful testimony. If anyone had good reason to doubt that God would deliver their sons in battle it was definitely these women who watched their husbands be killed by the sword because of a covenant they had made while in the act of praying to their God. But as it says in the next verse they “did not doubt [their] mothers knew it”. Maybe to some people that would weaken the testimony, but the faith of these women I think is remarkable.

I don’t know if I would choose those three scriptures ultimately if I could only have three, but I guess those are the three that are most on my mind as of late. It probably won’t surprise you that I’m reading the Book of Mormon right now, and that I’m getting close to the end of Alma. But those are definitely 3 scriptures that I really like a lot.

Oh, I guess the other one that I really like, is D&C 76:22.

And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

The Resurrected Jesus Christ, by Harry Anderson – Image Credit LDS.org

It’s a scripture mastery so it’s not very original. But I really like it because it just sorta spells out what the gospel is all about. That after everything else that’s been said, this is what we want to say last of all, this is what’s important. That Christ Lives. I think it says so much in so few words so elegantly. Anyways, I know that it puts me past my 3 but that one is probably more of an all time favorite whereas the other three are more of current favorites.