Choose [Eternal] Life

Moses concludes his final sermon by laying a stark contrast before his people:

See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil

Deuteronomy 30:15

He then elaborates on the choice:

• Flourishing through righteousness: “I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:16).
• Ruin through rebellion: “But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:17-18).

Finally, he affirms their agency while urging them to make the right choice:

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

Deuteronomy 30:19

At the end of Lehi’s life, he follows the same pattern. In a sermon on agency, initially addressed to his son Jacob but expanded by the end to all of his sons, Lehi echoes and deepens Moses’s words:

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;
And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

2 Nephi 2:27-29

Same contrast, same admonition. But Lehi clearly indicates that his promises and warnings aren’t limited to mortality. Moses sets before his people “life and death,” urging them to “choose life.” Lehi admonishes his sons to “choose eternal life,” not “eternal death.” The message is the same, but the perspective is broader and the implications are therefore more profound.

Today I will make decisions with an eternal perspective. I will follow Moses’s and Lehi’s admonition to choose “life and good,” “liberty and eternal life.”