Christ said, and I invoke Elder Nelson's witness,
I am the true vine, and ye are the branches.
Abide in me and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide
in me.
Now abide in me is an understandable and beautiful
enough concept in the elegant English of the King James
bible.
But abide is not a word we use much anymore.
So I gained even more appreciation
for this admonition from the Lord
when I was introduced to the translation
of this passage in another language.
In Spanish, that familiar phrase is
rendered [? permanaced ?] en mi.
Like the English verb abide, permanecer means to remain,
to stay.
But even gringos like me can hear the root cognate there
of permanence.
The sense of this then is stay, but stay forever.
That's the call of the gospel message to Chileans,
and everyone else in the world.
Come, but come to remain.
Come with conviction and endurance.
Come permanently for your sake and the sake of all
the generations who must follow you,
and we will help each other be strong to the very end.
Jesus said, without me ye can do nothing.
I testify that that is God's truth.
Christ is everything to us and we
are to abide in him permanently, unyieldingly, steadfastly,
forever.
For the fruit of the gospel to blossom and bless our lives,
we must be firmly attached to him, the Savior of us all.
And to this church which bears His holy name.
He is the vine that is our true source of strength,
and the only source of eternal life.
In him, we will not only endure, but will prevail and triumph
in this Holy cause that will never fail us.
May we never fail it, nor fail Him.