Ahmad S. Corbitt | You Can Gather Israel! | General Conference April 2021 | Faith To Act

You Can Gather Israel!
By Ahmad S. Corbitt

First Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency

I am absolutely sure you youth can do this because of something about your identity and an enormous power within you.

Almost three years ago, President Russell M. Nelson invited all youth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “to enlist in the Lord’s youth battalion to help gather Israel” on both sides of the veil. He said, “That gathering is the most important thing taking place on earth today.”1 I am absolutely sure you youth can do this—and do it very well—because of (1) something about your identity and (2) an enormous power within you.

Ahmad S. Corbitt's Parents
Forty-one years ago, two missionaries from our Church felt led to a house in New Jersey, in the United States. In time, miraculously, both parents and all 10 children were baptized. In the prophet’s words, they “let God prevail”2 in their lives. I should say “our lives.” I was the third child. I was 17 years old when I decided to make a permanent covenant to follow Jesus Christ. But guess what else I decided? I would not serve a full-time mission. That was too much. And this could not be expected of me, right? I was a brand-new Church member. I had no money. Besides, although I had just graduated from the toughest high school in nearby West Philadelphia and faced down some dangerous challenges, I was secretly terrified of leaving home for two whole years.

Family Portrait
Your True Identity
But I had just learned that I and all of humanity had lived with our Heavenly Father as 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 God’s 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 of 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 the courage and faith 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 love, share, and invite8 now and always—to invite others to come and see, come and help, and come and belong, as that same war for the souls of God’s children rages on.

Ahmad S. Corbitt
The Powerful Faith within You
What about the enormous power within you? Think of this: you shouted for joy9 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 from not only our own sins but others’ sins too. Humanity would experience virtually every imaginable type of brokenness and disappointment10—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.