Alma 26

Ammon glories in the Lord—The faithful are strengthened by the Lord and are given knowledge—By faith men may bring thousands of souls unto repentance—God has all power and comprehendeth all things. Between 90 and 77 B.C.

1 And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we ^astarted from the land of Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?

I love this chapter. I love how joyful Ammon sounds. They have been missionaries and instruments in the hand of the Lord and now they are seeing the fruits of their labors.

I mean, they converted the Lamanites! No one thought that was possible.

8 ^aBlessed be the name of our God; let us ^bsing to his praise, yea, let us give ^cthanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever.

9 For if we had not come up out of the land of Zarahemla, these our dearly beloved brethren, who have so dearly beloved us, would still have been racked with ^ahatred against us, yea, and they would also have been ^bstrangers to God.

And as Ammon said these words, isn't it interesting that Aaron said something like, "Hey Ammon, I'm afraid that your joy is turning into boasting."

But Ammon explained to him that he is just so full of joy and has so much desire to glory in the Lord, and to rejoice in God.

12 Yea, I know that I am ^anothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will ^bnot boast of myself, but I will ^cboast of my God, for in his ^dstrength I can do all ^ethings; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

13 Behold, how many thousands of our brethren has he loosed from the pains of ^ahell; and they are brought to ^bsing redeeming love, and this because of the power of his word which is in us, therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

14 Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the ^achains of hell.

I love how as he continues he points out, who can glory too much in the Lord? It is so true. Have you had one of those kinds of experiences in your life? Ones where you feel so blessed, have witnessed a miracle, experienced forgiveness, or just feel joy in the plan? It's those times when maybe we can get a glimpse of what Ammon felt. For in those moments, we cannot glory too much in the Lord.

And as I read verses 28 through 31, the thought came to me as to how we can apply this into our own lives. What these men went through was so hard, so inspiring, so long, painful at times, discouraging, etc. Yet, they worked and perservered because they knew that something could come out of it in the end. In a way, that is a lesson to us in our own lives. Sometimes we have to go through really hard things to get to the really good things. Sometimes we have to perservere for years and years with the faith and the hope that one day, we will reap a reward. Life can be just as difficult. We may "suffer all manner of afflictions." We may be "cast out" and "mocked." But behold the fruits of our labors will be many! I guess that's what it means about enduring to the end!