This is one of the first insights in Messages from the Scriptures. It was originally posted at my publisher's blog (and of course, it can be found in the book itself).
True conversion is marked by the loss of a desire to sin.
And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Mosiah 5:2)
When the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi were converted to the gospel, the king said: “God hath taken away our stains, and our swords have become bright, then let us stain our swords no more . . . behold, we will hide away our swords, yea, even we will bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright, as a testimony that we have never used them” (Alma 24:12, 16). This burial of weapons became a physical testimony of the people’s abandonment of sin. When more Lamanites converted to the truth later, “they did also bury their weapons of war, according as their brethren had” (Alma 25:14). More than seventy years later, Samuel the Lamanite mentioned that upon their conversion, the Lamanites would still bury their swords (see Helaman 15:9). Mormon wrote that “as many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were converted unto the Lord, never did fall away” (Alma 23:6). The righteous Lamanites were a great example of being firm in the faith and enduring to the end.
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