Choose Christ
This page is our own summary. The original belongs to BYU Speeches; please read it there.
In a BYU devotional, Elder Alexander Dushku invites students to “cross the Rubicon” of faith and choose the living Christ of the Restoration over everything else.
Elder Alexander Dushku, a General Authority Seventy, gave this BYU devotional on September 22, 2026. His message fits in two words that he asked students to remember even if they forgot everything else: "Choose Christ!"
Crossing the Rubicon
Elder Dushku retold how Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River in 49 BC, a point of no return. Without holding up Caesar as a model, he used the phrase to invite students to make a settled, final decision to be "all in" for the Lord while they are young.
Why choose Christ?
He urged listeners to choose the full Christ of the Restoration, not a watered-down figure admired only for kindness and wisdom. He shared an experience in the temple in which he felt the Lord tell him to teach his ward that God loves them and wants to be with them. Because agency matters, he said, Christ cannot force that relationship; we must let Him in so He can change our natures. He quoted C. S. Lewis's image of God rebuilding a "living house" into a palace, and President Russell M. Nelson's teaching that Jesus Christ, not an abstract "Atonement," is the source of healing and power.
What it means to choose Him
Drawing on Joshua 24:15, he taught that there is no middle ground: we serve the Lord or some other god. Commandments, he said, are not just rules but chances to show love and loyalty, and sin at its root is turning away from Christ. He pointed to Peter's answer, "Lord, to whom shall we go?"
How to choose Him
He listed familiar practices (prayer, scripture study, repentance, the sacrament, covenants and following living prophets) and shared his own simple prayer: "Heavenly Father, I choose Thy plan and my Savior, Jesus Christ." He contrasted the world's "You do you" with the Savior's invitation to follow Him.
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