“Have Ye Spiritually Been Born of God”

Bryan Richards

See commentary for Mosiah 5:2 and Mosiah 27:25.

Ezra Taft Benson

“Would not the progress of the Church increase dramatically today with an increasing number of those who are spiritually reborn? Can you imagine what would happen in our homes? Can you imagine what would happen with an increasing number of copies of the Book of Mormon in the hands of an increasing number of missionaries who know how to use it and who have been born of God? When this happens, we will get the bounteous harvest of souls that the Lord promised. It was the ‘born of God’ Alma who as a missionary was so able to impart the word that many others were also born of God. (See Alma 36:23-26.)” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 79)

George Q. Cannon

"You brethren and sisters, who embraced this Gospel in other lands, where did you first feel this love, and how did it come to you? You doubtless can recall the time when a new love took possession of your heart, when feelings you never had known before were aroused in your hearts, and you felt that you had been born again. Your hearts were changed, and you became new men and new women. When did this occur? All of you who received the Gospel in other lands can turn your minds back to the day you heard the Gospel declared by a servant of God for the first time, and how new sensations took possession of you. It seemed as though a veil of darkness had been taken from your minds, so that you could perceive things in a new light. The Bible, with which you had been so familiar from your youth up, appeared in a new light. You understood its contents as you never had understood them before. Then you gave heed to the testimony of the servants of God and their exhortations to repent of your sins, to be baptized for the remission of them, and receive the Holy Ghost, and when you did this, you felt that you had indeed become new creatures. Your hearts were touched, your feelings were aroused, and you became new men and women in Christ Jesus. You were literally born again by the baptism of the water and of the Holy Ghost. A love then entered into your heart for everything that proceeded from God such as you had never known…
“Was not this the time when this love of which I have spoken was begotten in your hearts? I think if you were to have the opportunity today of testifying, you would say, ’Yes, that was the time. It was when I heard the Gospel and obeyed it. It was when I was baptized by a servant of God and I received the Spirit of God through the laying on of hands. It was then that my heart was changed, and I felt that I was born again--born of God, and that a new love had been aroused in my heart which changed my whole being and all my desires.’” (Collected Discourses, Vol.5, George Q. Cannon, August 22, 1897)

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