Ahmad S. Corbitt, First Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency addressed the youth (and all of us) and spoke of his conversion experience during April 2021 general conference:
Your True Identity
. . . .I had just learned that I and all of humanity had lived with our Heavenly Father and His spirit sons and daughters before our birth. Others needed to know, as I knew, that He longed for all His children to enjoy eternal life with Him. So, before anyone was on earth, He presented all with His perfect plan of salvation and happiness, with Jesus Christ as our Savior. Tragically, Satan opposed the plan.3 According to the book of Revelation, “there was war in heaven”!4 Satan cunningly deceived a third part of Heavenly Father’s spirit children into letting him prevail instead God.5 But not you! The Apostle John saw that you overcame Satan “by the word of [your] testimony.”6
Knowing my true identity helped by my patriarchal blessing, gave me courage to accept President Spencer W. Kimball’s invitation to gather Israel.7 It will be the same for you, dear friends. Knowing you overcame Satan by the word of your testimony before will help you live, share, and invite 8 now and always—to invite others to come and see, come and help, and come and belong, as the same war for the souls of God’s children rages on.
The Powerful Faith Within You
What about the enormous power within you? Think of this: you shouted for joy 9 to come to a fallen world where all would face physical and spiritual death. We would never be able to overcome either on our own. We would suffer not only from our own sins but others’ sins too. Humanity would experience virtually every imaginable type of brokenness and disappointment 10 —all with a veil of forgetfulness over our minds and the world’s worst enemy continuing to target and tempt us. All hope for returning resurrected and clean to God’s holy presence rested entirely upon one Being keeping His promise.11
What empowered you to go forward? President Henry B. Eyring taught, “It took faith in Jesus Christ to sustain the plan of happiness and Jesus Christ’s place in it when you knew so little of the challenges that you would face in mortality.”12 When Jesus Christ promised He would come into mortality and give His life to gather 13 and save us, you did not simply believe Him. You “noble spirits”14 had such “exceedingly great faith” that you saw His promise as sure.15 He could not lie, so you saw him as if He had shed His blood for you, long before He was born.16 . . . .
In John’s symbolic words, you “overcame [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb.”17 President Dallin H. Oaks gaught that in that world “[you] saw the end from the beginning.”18
. . . . How can you awaken your giant faith in Christ and use it to gather Israel now and triumph over Satan again? By relearning to look forward and see with that same certainty the Lord’s promise to gather and save today. He mainly uses the Book of Mormon and His prophets to teach us how. Long before Christ, the Nephite “prophets, and . . . priests, and . . . teachers . . . [persuaded the people] to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in Him as though he already was.”20 The Prophet Abinadi taught, “And now if Christ had not come into the world, speaking of things to come as though they had already come, there could have been no redemption.”21 . . .
For Brother Ahmad S. Corbitt’s complete talk, including working links, click: You Can Gather Israel!
