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. . . Just As God Cannot Look Upon Sin With The Least Degree Of Allowance, As We Become More Like Him, Neither Can We. The Best People Have A Heightened Awareness Of What Little Of The Worst Is Still In Them! Indeed, The Divine Discontent, The Justifiable Spiritual Restlessness That We Feel, Is A Natural Follow-on Feeling In The Disciple Who Has Taken The Lord's Counsel To "make You A New Heart And A New Spirit." (ezekiel 18:31.)

-Neal A. Maxwell

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Neal A. Maxwell

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. . . Just As God Cannot Look Upon Sin With The Least Degree Of Allowance, As We Become More Like Him, Neither Can We. The Best People Have A Heightened Awareness Of What Little Of The Worst Is Still In Them! Indeed, The Divine Discontent, The Justifiable Spiritual Restlessness That We Feel, Is A Natural Follow-on Feeling In The Disciple Who Has Taken The Lord's Counsel To "make You A New Heart And A New Spirit." (ezekiel 18:31.)

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Satan Delights To Have Us Put Ourselves Down. Self-contempt Is Of Satan. There Is No Such Thing In Heaven.

Selfishness Is Much More Than An Ordinary Problem Because It Activates All The Cardinal Sins! It Is The Detonator In The Breaking Of The Ten Commandments.

If One Is Devoid Of Hope And Thanksgiving, He Cannot For Long Remain Sinless, For He Will, In Despair, Have Slackened His Resolve. Feelings Of Futility Foster Vulnerability. Self-pity Is Such A Busy Stagehand, Rearranging The Scenery To Help Sin Make Its Entrance. No Wonder The Prophets Say That Without Faith In The Lord, There Is No Hope.

If We Knew How Often The Obedience Of Others Is Affected By Our Own, And How Often Our Stepping Forth Soon Brings Forth A Whole Platton Of Helpers, And How Often Our Speaking Forth Soon Creates A Chorus - We Would Be Even More Ashamed Of Our Slackess And Our Silence.

Any Assessment Of Where We Stand In Relationship To Him Tells Us That We Do Not Stand At All. We Kneel.

The Lord Doesn't Ask About Your Ability, Only Your Availability; And, If You Prove Your Dependability, The Lord Will Increase Your Capability.

We Cannot Improve The World If We Are Conformed To The World.

Let Us Have Integrity And Not Write Checks With Our Tongues Which Our Conduct Cannot Cash.

There Is No Democracy Of Facts.

To Be Cheerful When Others Are In Despair, To Keep The Faith When Others Falter, To Be True Even When We Feel Forsaken—all Of These Are Deeply Desired Outcomes During The Deliberate, Divine Tutorials Which God Gives To Us—because He Loves Us. These Learning Experiences Must Not Be Misread As Divine Indifference. Instead, Such Tutorials Are A Part Of The Divine Unfolding.

Thus It Is That Our Faith And Trust In Our Heavenly Father, So Far As This Mortal Experience Is Concerned, Consists Not Simply Of Faith And Gladness That He Exists, But Is Also A Faith And Trust That, If We Are Humble, He Will Tutor Us, Aiding Our Acquisition Of Needed Attributes And Experiences While We Are In Mortality. We Trust Not Only The Designer But Also His Design Of Life Itself, Including Our Portion Thereof!

Sometimes, If You're Like Me, [god] Will Brace Or Reprove In A Highly Personal Process Not Understood Or Appreciated By Those Outside The Context.

Every Dimension Of The Gospel Is Relevant To One Or More Of Our Social And Political Problems Of Our Time.

It Is Possible To Know When, At Least Basically, We Please God. In Fact, Joseph Smith Taught That One Of The Conditions Of Genuine Faith Is To Have "an Actual Knowledge That The Course Of Life Which [one] Is Pursuing Is According To [god's] Will."

When We Don't Like To Face Up To Hard Facts, We Use Soft Words. We Do Not Speak About Killing A Baby Within The Womb, But About "termination Of Potential Life." Words Are Often Multiplied To Try To Cover Dark Deeds.

Occasionally Some Individuals Let The Seeming Ordinariness Of Life Dampen Their Spirits. Though Actually Coping And Growning, Others Lack The Quiet, Inner-soul Satisfaction That Can Steady Them, And Are Experiencing Instead, A Lingering Sense That There Is Something More Important They Should Be Doing . . .as If What Is Quietly Achieved In Righteous Individual Living Or In Parenthood Are Not Sufficiently Spectacular.

It Is Extremely Important For You To Believe In Yourselves Not Only For What You Are Now But For What You Have The Power To Become. Trust In The Lord As He Leads You Along. He Has Things For You To Do That You Won't Know About Now But That Will Unfold Later. If You Stay Close To Him, You Will Have Some Great Adventures. You Will Live In A Time Where Instead Of Sometimes Being Fulfilled, Many Of Them Will Actually Be Fulfilled. The Lord Will Unfold Your Future Bit By Bit.

If We Spent As Much Time Lifting Our Children As We Do Criticizing Them, How Effectively We Could Help Them To See Themselves In A More Positive Light!

If The Kingdom Of God Is Not First, It Doesn't Matter What's Second.

Trying To Observe The Slow Shift From Self-centeredness To Empathy Is Like Trying To Watch Grass Grow.

Walking And Overcoming By Faith Is Not Easy. For One Thing, The Dimension Of Time Constantly Constrains Our Perspective. Likewise, The World Steadily Tempts Us. No Wonder We Are Given Instructive Words From Jesus About The Narrowness And The Straightness Of The Only Path Available To Return Home: “i Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life” (john 14:6). And Then He Said, “no Man Cometh Unto The Father, But By Me.” Jesus Laid Down Strict Conditions.

We Can Hold To The Iron Rod Even If Others Slip Away And A Few End Up Mocking Us From "the Great And Spacious Building."

We Are Vulnerable If We Can Be Taken By A Wave Of Emotion, Invaded By An Invidious Impulse, Roughed Up By Resentment, Or Engulfed By A Surge Of Selfishness.

Clearly, When We Baptize, Our Eyes Should Gaze Beyond The Baptismal Font To The Holy Temple. The Great Garner Into Which The Sheaves Should Be Gathered Is The Holy Temple.

C. S. Lewis Pointed Out That Some People Are Angry With God For His Not Existing, And Others For His Existing But For Failing To Do As Mortals Would Have Him Do. Instead Of Such Childishness, We Are Urged To Know God And To Learn Of His Attributes.

Ironically, As Some People Become Harder, They Use Softer Words To Describe Dark Deeds. This, Too, Is Part Of Being Sedated By Secularism. Needless Abortion, For Instance, Is A "reproductive Health Procedure, . . ." "illegitimacy" Gives Way To The Wholly Sanitized Words "non-marital Birth" Or "alternative Parenting."

Faith In God Includes Faith In God's Timing.

Like Jesus, We Can Decide, Daily Or Instantly, To Give No Heed To Temptation (see D&c 20:22). We Can Respond To Irritation With A Smile Instead Of Scowl, Or By Giving Warm Praise Instead Of Icy Indifference. By Our Being Understanding Instead Of Abrupt, Others, In Turn, May Decide To Hold On A Little Longer Rather Than To Give Way. Love, Patience, And Meekness Can Be Just As Contagious As Rudeness And Crudeness.

Blessed Is He Who Will Not Be Offended

The Truth Is That Not Yet Usually Means Never. Trying To Run Away From The Responsibility To Decide About Christ Is Childish. Pilate Sought To Refuse Responsibility For Deciding About Christ, But Pilate's Hands Were Never Dirtier Than Just After He Had Washed Them.

Brigham Young Observed, "man's Machinery Makes Things Alike" (jd 9:370), While God Gives To Seemingly Like Individuals Pleasing Differences. Secularism Is No Friend Of Righteous Individuality.

When The Real History Of Mankind Is Fully Disclosed, Will It Feature The Echoes Of Gunfire Or The Shaping Sound Of Lullabies? The Great Armistices Made By Military Men Or The Peacemaking Of Women In Homes And In Neighborhoods? Will What Happened In Cradles And Kitchens Prove To Be More Controlling Than What Happened In Congresses? When The Surf Of The Centuries Has Made The Great Pyramids So Much Sand, The Everlasting Family Will Still Be Standing, Because It Is A Celestial Institution, Formed Outside Telestial Time.

Our Goals Should Stretch Us Bit By Bit. So Often When We Think We Have Encountered A Ceiling, It Is Really A Psychological Or Experimental Barrier That We Have Built Ourselves. We Built It And We Can Remove It. Just As Correct Principles, When Applied, Carry Their Own Witness That They Are True, So Do Correct Personal Improvement Programs. But We Must Not Expect Personal Improvement Without Pain Or Some 'remodeling.' We Can't Expect To Have The Thrills Of Revealed Religion Without The Theology. We Cannot Expect To Have The Soul Stretching Without Christian Service.

Let The Scriptures Refresh You.

It's Service, Not Status, That Counts.

The More Quickly We Loosen Our Grip On The Things Of The World The More Firmly We Can Take Hold Of The Things Of Eternity.

When Our Minds Really Catch Hold Of The Significance Of Jesus' Atonement, The World's Hold On Us Loosens.

It Is So Easy To Be Confrontive Without Being Informative; Indignant Without Being Intelligent; Impulsive Without Being Insightful.

Even The Good Can Become Careless Without The Lord's Being There To Chasten.

There Are Also Flat Periods In Life Which May Well Be The Periods During Which-before New Lessons Come- The Past Lessons Of Life Are Allowed To Seep, Quietly And Deeply, Into The Marrow Of The Soul. These Outwardly Flat Periods, When Enduring Well May Not Seem Very Purposeful,, Are Probably The Times When Needed Attitudinal Alignments Are Quietly Occurring.

These Transcending Truths Restructure Our Understanding Of Ourselves And Of The Universe And Bring Within Our View Resplendent Reality. To Be Seen Only By Those Who Have Eyes To See, These Flakes Of Fire Are Embedded In The Holy Scriptures. There These Tr.

The Soul Is Like A Violin String: It Makes Music Only When It Is Stretched.

The Cumulative Weight Of All Mortal Sins--past, Present, And Future--pressed Upon That Perfect, Sinless, And Sensitive Soul! All Our Infirmities And Sicknesses Were Somehow, Too, A Part Of The Awful Arithmetic Of The Atonement. (see Alma 7:11-12; Isa. 53:3-5; Matt. 8:17.) The Anguished Jesus Not Only Pled With The Father That The Hour And Cup Might Pass From Him, But With This Relevant Citation. 'and He Said, Abba, Father, All Things Are Possible Unto Thee; Take Away This Cup From Me.' (mark 14:35-36.)

I Thank The Father That His Only Begotten Son Did Not Say In Defiant Protest At Calvary, "my Body Is My Own!" I Stand In Admiration Of Women Today Who Resist The "fashion Of Abortion, By Refusing To Make The Sacred Womb A Tomb!"

We Cannot Lead Or Draw Others To Christ Unless We Stand Closer To Him Than They Do.

When We Rejoice In Beautiful Scenery, Great Art, And Great Music, It Is But The Flexing Of Instincts Acquired In Another Place And Another Time.

Truly We Work And Live On A Streetful Of Splendid People, Whom We Are To Love And Serve Even If They Are Uninterested In Us!

For Some Church Members The Book Of Mormon Remains Unread. Others Use It Occasionally As If It Were Merely A Handy Book Of Quotations. Still Others Accept And Read It But Do Not Really Explore And Ponder It. The Book Is To Be Feasted Upon, Not Nibbled (see 2 Nephi 31:20).

The More Seriously We Work On Our Own Imperfections, The Less We Are Judgemental Of The Imperfections Of Others.

Unproductive Worry - Like Parkinson's Proverbial Law - Tends To Expand To Fill The Time Available.

True Discipleship Is For Volunteers Only. Only Volunteers Will Trust The Guide Sufficiently To Follow Him In The Dangerous Ascent Which Only He Can Lead.

The Unwillingness Of Most Leaders To Set Standards, To Administer Feedback When Standards Are Not Met, To Praise Clearly When Standards Are Met, Stands In The Way Of The Development Of Excellence. The Leader Who Makes No Demands Of His Disciples Cannot Really Lead Them At All. The Sense Of New Excitement And New Challenge Generated By The Gospel Will Be Blunted By Leaders Who Shield Followers From The Full Demands Of Fellowship.

During Our Mortal Schooling In Submissiveness, We Will See The Visible Crosses That Some Carry, But Other Crosses Will Go Unseen. A Few Individuals May Appear To Have No Trials At All, Which, If It Were So, Would Be A Trial In Itself. Indeed, If, As Do Trees, Our Souls Had Rings To Measure The Years Of Greatest Personal Growth, The Wide Rings Would Likely Reflect The Years Of Greatest Moisture-but From Tears, Not Rainfall.

So Often Our Sisters Comfort Others When Their Own Needs Are Greater Than Those Being Comforted. That Quality Is Like The Generosity Of Jesus On The Cross. Empathy During Agony Is A Portion Of Divinity!

The Gross Size Of Our Talent Inventories Is Less Important Than The Net Use Of Our Talents?

Do Not Let The Future Be Held Hostage By The Past

If The Nearly One-and-a-half Million Babies Aborted In America Each Year Could, Somehow, Vote, Chameleon Candidates Would Find Fresh Reason To Be Concerned About Abortion, Whereas Now They Are Unconcerned.

Crowds Cannot Make Right What God Has Declared To Be Wrong.

Time Management Tips: One Can Make A Radar-like Sweep Of The Horizon To Identify Time And Task Challenges While These Are Still Manageable And While We Still Have A Choice. The Organizational Adage, "the More Parts, The More Trouble," Also Applies To Words. Multiplying Words May Actually Multiply The Probability Of Being Misunderstood; Economies In Expression (without Being Taciturn Or Aloof) Not Only Save Time, But Usually Are More Honest And More Clear.

The Book Of Mormon Is To Be Feasted Upon, Not Nibbled.

God Is Very Serious About Joy In The Lives Of His Children.

If The Church Were Not True, Our Enemies Would Be Bored Rather Than Threatened, And Acquiescent Rather Than Anxious. Hell Is Moved Only When Things Move Heavenward.

Mercy Can Purge The Soul Of Sin, Making Room For A Fresh Start. Truth Is Vital In Order That We Have An Unvarying Standard By Which To Determine What We Are To Be And To Do And What We Are To Rid Ourselves Of. All The Cardinal Virtues, Therefore, Carry Their Own Intrinsic As Well As Outward Reward. A Merciful Man Does Do Good To His Own Soul.

As Parenting Declines, The Need For Policing Increases. There Will Always Be A Shortage Of Police If There Is A Shortage Of Effective Parents! Likewise, There Will Not Be Enough Prisons If There Are Not Enough Good Homes.

Daily Hope Is Vital, Since The ‘winter Quarters’ Of Our Lives Are Not Immediately Adjacent To Our Promised Land Either. An Arduous Trek Still Awaits, But Hope Spurs Weary Disciples On.

God Will Facilitate, But He Will Not Force.

Our God Is A God Of Love. He Waits With Open Arms, And The Unfolding Of His Merciful Plan Of Salvation Is Not Only Therefore The Mark Of Divine Power But Also The Mark Of God's Relentless, Redeeming Love. It Is A Point Well Worth Pondering Because, Among Other Reasons, It Will Help Us To Understand Better Why God, Through The Prophets, Denounces Sin And Corruption In Such Scalding Terms. He Loves All Of Us, His Spirit Sons And Daughters, But Hates Our Vices. His Denunciation Of Those Vices May, If We Are Not Careful, Seem To Obscure The Enormous And Perfect Love He Has For Us.

Each Of Us Is An Innkeeper Who Decides If There Is Room For Jesus!

Oh, How Great The Plan Of Our God!

In Contrast To The Path Of Selfishness, There Is No Room For Road Rage On The Straight And Narrow Way.

We Should Not Assume; However, That Just Because Something Is Unexplainable By Us, It Is Unexplainable.

Good Homes Are Still The Best Source Of Good Humans.

A Father Who Finds It Difficult To Express His Love Vocally For His Children May Need, At First, To Be Humbly Obedient In Holding Family Home Evenings In Order To Help Him To Discover, Or To Increase, His Appreciation For His Children. Next Can Come To Him The Courage To Say I Love You To Each One.

How Myopic It Is To View His Ministry As All Crucifixion And No Resurrection!

Long Ago When A Child Lay In A Manger, A Special Star Appeared. It Didn't Just Show Up That Evening. It Had To Have Been Placed In Its Orbit Centuries Before In A Trajectory That Would Make It Appear At That Special Moment Of Time To Announce The Birth Of A Special Child. Just As There Is Divine Design In The Universe, So Each Of Us Has Been Placed In Our Own Orbits In This Life To Love, To Serve, To Help Light The World.

So Much Depends, Therefore, Upon Our Maintaining Gospel Perspective In The Midst Of Ordinariness, The Pressures Of Temptation, Tribulation, Deprivation, And The Cares Of The World.

I Find That Goal Setting, When Done This Way, Leads To Goal Achieving. The Chronic Failure To Achieve Goals Lowers Self-esteem. Show Me A Failure To Achieve A Goal, And Usually I Can Show You The Violation Of One Or More Of The Above Criteria. Imposed Goals, Vague Goals, And Unrealistic Goals Tend To Produce Only Partial Successes And Outright Failures.

Mother Lode Of Learning.

Our Goals Should Stretch Us Bit By Bit. So Often When We Think We Have Encountered A Ceiling, It Is Really A Psychological Or Experiential Barrier That We Have Built Ourselves. We Built It And We Can Remove It.

Our Afflictions Brothers And Sisters Often Will Not Be Extinguished, They Will Be Dwarfed And Swallowed Up In The Joy Of Christ. That’s How We Overcome, Most Of The Time. It’s Not Their Elimination, But The Placing Of Them In That Larger Context.

Though We Have Rightly Applauded Our Ancestors For Their Spiritual Achievements (and Do Not And Must Not Discount Them Now), Those Of Us Who Prevail Today Will Have Done No Small Thing. The Special Spirits Who Have Been Reserved To Live In This Time Of Challenges And Who Overcome Will One Day Be Praised For Their Stamina By Those Who Pulled Handcarts.

The Submissive Will Make It Through To That Final Scene, For The Word Of God Will Lead The Man And Woman Of Christ "in A Straight And Narrow Course Across That Everlasting Gulf Of Misery . . . And Land Their Souls . . . At The Right Hand Of God In The Kingdom, To Sit Down With Abraham, And Isaac, And With Jacob, And With All Our Holy Fathers" (helaman 3:30) "who Have Been Ever Since The World Began . . . To Go No More Out."

Personal, Spiritual Symmetry Emerges Only From The Shaping Of Prolonged Obedience. Twigs Are Bent, Not Snapped Into Shape.

It Is Extremely Important For You To Believe In Yourselves, Not Only For What You Are Now, But For What You Have The Power To Become.

Just As Doubt, Despair, And Desensitization Go Together, So Do Faith, Hope, And Charity. The Latter, However, Must Be Carefully And Constantly Nurtured, Whereas Despair, Like Dandelions, Needs So Little Encouragement To Sprout And Spread. Despair Comes So Naturally To The Natural Man!

Men And Women Of Christ Magnify Their Callings Without Magnifying Themselves.

Even If Work Were Not An Economic Necessity, It Is A Spiritual Necessity.

The Laughter Of The World Is Merely Loneliness Pathetically Trying To Reassure Itself.

Comparatively, We Are So Much Quicker To Return Favors And To Pay Our Debts To Mortals - And We Should Be Responsive And Grateful. But What Of Him Who Gave Us Mortal Life Itself, Who Will Ere Long Give Us All Immortality, And Who Proffers To The Faithful The Greatest Gift Of All, Eternal Life? We Are Poor Bookkeepers, Indeed!

If We Are Serious About Our Discipleship, Jesus Will Eventually Request Each Of Us To Do Those Very Things Which Are Most Difficult For Us To Do.

Just As Meekness Is In All Our Virtues, So Is Pride In All Our Sins. Whatever Its Momentary And Alluring Guise, Pride Is The Enemy, "the First Of The Sins." One Reason To Be Particularly On Guard Against Pride Is That "the Devilish Strategy Of Pride Is That It Attacks Us, Not In Our Weakest Points, But In Our Strongest. It Is Preeminently The Sin Of The Noble Mind." Not Only Of The Noble Mind, But Also Of The Semi-righteous.

Patience Is Tied Very Closely To Faith In Our Heavenly Father. Actually, When We Are Unduly Impatient, We Are Suggesting That We Know What Is Best—better Than Does God. Or, At Least, We Are Asserting That Our Timetable Is Better Than His. We Can Grow In Faith Only If We Are Willing To Wait Patiently For God's Purposes And Patterns To Unfold In Our Lives, On His Timetable.

By Seeing Life's Experiences On Through To The End, On Our Small Scale We Can Finally Say, As Jesus Did On The Cross, "it Is Finished". We Too Can Then Have "finished [our] Preparations," Having Done The Particular Work God Gave Each Of Us To Do.

In A 'wheat And Tares' World, How Unusually Blessed Faithful Members Are To Have The Precious And Constant Gift Of The Holy Ghost With Reminders Of What Is Right And Of The Covenants We Have Made. 'for Behold, ... The Holy Ghost ... Will Show Unto You All Things What Ye Should Do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever The Decibels Of Decadence, These Need Not Overwhelm The Still, Small Voice! Some Of The Best Sermons We Will Ever Hear Will Be Thus Prompted From The Pulpit Of Memory—to An Audience Of One!

Man Can Learn Self-discipline Without Becoming Ascetic; He Can Be Wise Without Waiting To Be Old; He Can Be Influential Without Waiting For Status. Man Can Sharpen His Ability To Distinguish Between Matters Of Principle And Matters Of Preference, But Only If We Have A Wise Interplay Between Time And Truth, Between Minutes And Morality.

Listen To These Wounds Of Pain Put In The Form Of Questions To Me By A Young Woman Who Had Had Two Abortions: "i Wonder About The Spirits Of Those I Had Aborted, If They Were There, If They Were Hurt? I Was Under Three Months Each Time, But A Mother Feels Life Before She Feels Movement." "i Wonder If They Are Lost And Alone?" "i Wonder If They Will Ever Have A Body?" "i Wonder If I Will Ever Have A Chance Again To Bring Those Spirits Back As Mine?" Alas, Brothers And Sisters, "wickedness Never Was Happiness" (alma 41:10).

A Few Little Flowers Will Spring Up Briefly In The Dry Gulley Through Which Torrents Of Water Pass Occasionally. But It Is Steady Streams That Bring Thick And Needed Crops. In The Agriculture Of The Soul That Has To Do With Nurturing Attributes, Flash Floods Are No Substitute For Regular Irrigation.

We Can Be Of So Much Service To Others In Many Thou-shalt Ways. Of Course, The Problem Is That Rendering Such Service Takes Time, And We Are All So Busy. Some Situations May Call For Service That Somehow Seems To Be Beneath Us. Besides, We Have Other Things To Do. The Thou Shalts Are So Convenient To Put Off. Who Will Notice The Procrastination Anyway? After All, We Are Not Robbing A Bank. Or Are There Forms Of Withholding That Constitute Stealing?

Procrastination

In Racing Marathons, One Does Not See The Dropouts Make Fun Of Those Who Continue; Failed Runners Actually Cheer On Those Who Continue The Race, Wishing They Were Still In It. Not So With The Marathon Of Discipleship In Which Some Dropouts Then Make Fun Of The Spiritual Enterprise Of Which They Were So Recently A Part!

We Can Learn That At The Center Of Our Agency Is Our Freedom To Form A Healthy Attitude Toward Whatever Circumstances We Are Placed In! Those, For Instance, Who Stretch Themselves In Service- Though Laced With Limiting Diseases-are Often The Healthiest Among Us! The Spirit Can Drive The Flesh Beyond Where The Body First Agrees To Go!

As You Submit Your Wills To God, You Are Giving Him The Only Thing You Can Actually Give Him That Is Really Yours To Give. Don't Wait Too Long To Find The Altar Or To Begin To Place The Gift Of Your Wills Upon It! No Need To Wait For A Receipt; The Lord Has His Own Special Ways Of Acknowledging.

We Must Endure The Contempt Of Others Without Reciprocating That Contempt.

I Testify That He Is Utterly Incomparable In What He Is, What He Knows, What He Has Accomplished And What He Has Experienced. Yet, Movingly, He Calls Us His Friends

Don't Fear, Just Live Right.

One Day The Faithful Will Have It All!

So It Is That Real, Personal Sacrifice Never Was Placing An Animal On The Altar. Instead, It Is A Willingness To Put The Animal In Us Upon The Altar And Letting It Be Consumed! Such Is The 'sacrifice Unto The Lord... Of A Broken Heart And A Contrite Spirit,' (d&c 59:8), A Prerequisite To Taking Up The Cross, While Giving 'away All [our] Sins' In Order To 'know God' (alma 22:18) For The Denial Of Self Precedes The Full Acceptance Of Him.

Ultimate Hope Constitutes The Anchor Of The Soul.

Most Of Our Suffering Comes From Sin And Stupidity; It Is, Nevertheless, Very Real, And Growth Can Occur With Real Repentance. But The Highest Source Of Suffering Appears To Be Reserved For The Innocent Who Undergo Divine Tutorial Training.

A Friend Of Mine Who Passed Through A Most Severe Trial, When I Discussed It With Him, He Said Simply, If It’s Fair, It Isn’t A Trial.

A Narcissist Society, In Which Each Person Is Busy Looking Out For Number One, Can Build Neither Brotherhood Nor Community. Aren't We Glad In This Easter Season And In All Seasons That Jesus Did Not Selfishly Look Out For Number One? No Wonder We Have Been Told, 'thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me,' And This Includes Self-worship! (ex. 20:3; Emphasis Added). One Way Or Another, The Grossly Selfish Will Finally Be Shattered, Whimpering, Against The Jagged, Concrete Consequences Of Their Selfishness.

Conscience Warns Us Not To Sink Our Cleats Too Deeply In Mortal Turf, Which Is So Dangerously Artificial.

God Does Not Begin By Asking Us About Our Ability, But Only About Our Availability, And If We Then Prove Our Dependability, He Will Increase Our Capability.

Some Mothers In Today's World Feel "cumbered" By Home Duties And Are Thus Attracted By Other More "romantic" Challenges. Such Women Could Make The Same Error Of Perspective That Martha Made. The Woman, For Instance, Who Deserts The Cradle In Order To Help Defend Civilization Against The Barbarians May Well Later Meet, Among The Barbarians, Her Own Neglected Child.

How Could There Be Refining Fires Without Our Enduring Some Heat?

. . . Just As God Cannot Look Upon Sin With The Least Degree Of Allowance, As We Become More Like Him, Neither Can We. The Best People Have A Heightened Awareness Of What Little Of The Worst Is Still In Them! Indeed, The Divine Discontent, The Justifiable Spiritual Restlessness That We Feel, Is A Natural Follow-on Feeling In The Disciple Who Has Taken The Lord's Counsel To "make You A New Heart And A New Spirit." (ezekiel 18:31.)

Obviously, Family Values Mirror Our Personal Priorities. Given The Gravity Of Current Conditions, Would Parents Be Willing To Give Up Just One Outside Thing, Giving That Time And Talent Instead To The Family.

Promptings For Us To Do Good Come From The Holy Ghost. These Promptings Nudge Us Further Along The Straight And Narrow Path Of Discipleship. The Natural Man Doesn't Automatically Think Of Doing Good. It Isn't Natural. How Many People Worry About The Car Behind Them Or The Person Below Them? The Natural Man Just Doesn't Do It. For Us, However, These Promptings Enlarge Our Awareness Of Other People's Needs And Then Prod Us To Act Accordingly.

All Crosses Are Easier To Carry When We Keep Moving.

Coming Unto The Lord Is Not A Negotiation, But A Surrender.

Ironically, Brothers And Sisters, The Natural Man Who Is So Very Selfish In So Many Ordinary Ways Is Strangely Unselfish In That He Reaches For Too Few Of The Things That Bring Real Joy. He Settles For A Mess Of Pottage Instead Of Eternal Joy.

Sometimes The Best People... Have The Worst Experiences... Because They Are Ready To Learn

Never Give Up What You Want Most For What You Want Today.

At The Center Of Our Agency Is Our Freedom To Form A Healthy Attitude Toward Whatever Circumstances We Are Placed In!

At Times God's Best Pupils Experience The Most Rigorous And Continuous Courses. Eventually Those Who Prove To Be Men Of Christ Will Thereby Become Distinguished Alumni Of Life's School Of Affliction, Graduating With Honors.

Endurance Involves Much More Than Putting Up With A Situation; Patient Endurance Is More Than Pacing Up And Down Within The Cell Of Circumstance. True Enduring Represents Not Merely The Passage Of Time, . . . But The Passage Of Soul.

We Should Certainly Count Our Blessings, But We Should Also Make Our Blessings Count.

God’s Grace Will Cover Us Like A Cloak-enough To Provide For Survival But Too Thin To Keep Out All The Cold.

The Prompting That Goes Unresponded To May Not Be Repeated. Writing Down What We Have Been Prompted With Is Vital. A Special Thought Can Be Lost Later In The Day Through The Rough And Tumble Of Life. God Should Not, And May Not, Choose To Repeat The Prompting If We Assign What Is Given Such A Low Priority As To Put It Aside.

In Gospel Grammar, Death Is Not An Exclamation Point, Merely A Comma.

Exclamation Points

We Can Tell Much By What We Have Already Willing Discarded Along The Pathway Of Discipleship. It Is The Only Pathway Where Littering Is Permissible, Even Encouraged. In The Early Stages, The Debris Left Behind Includes The Grosser Sins Of Commission. Later Debris Differs; Things Begin To Be Discarded Which Have Caused The Misuse Or Underuse Of Our Time And Talent.

We Cannot Repent For Someone Else. But We Can Forgive Someone Else, Refusing To Hold Hostage Those Whom The Lord Seeks To Set Free!

In One Degree Or Another We All Struggle With Selfishness. Since It Is So Common, Why Worry About Selfishness Anyway? Because Selfishness Is Really Self-destruction In Slow Motion.

Joshua Didn't Say Choose You Next Year Whom You Will Serve; He Spoke Of "this Day," While There Is Still Daylight And Before The Darkness Becomes More And More Normal.

Meekness, The Subtraction Of Self, Reduces The Multiplication Of Words.

In The Economy Of Heaven, God Does Not Send Thunder If A Still, Small Voice Is Enough, Or A Prophet If A Priest Can Do The Job.

Power Is Most Safe With Those Who Are Not In Love With It!

We Tend To Think Of Consecration Only As Yielding Up, When Divinely Directed, Our Material Possessions. But Ultimate Consecration Is The Yielding Up Of Oneself To God. Heart, Soul, And Mind Were The Encompassing Words Of Christ In Describing The First Commandment, Which Is Constantly, Not Periodically, Operative (see Matt. 22:37). If Kept, Then Our Performances Will, In Turn, Be Fully Consecrated For The Lasting Welfare Of Our Souls (see 2 Ne. 32:9).

Ultimate Hope And Daily Grumpiness Are Not Reconcilable.

Eventually, There Will Not Be Enough Prisons If There Are Not Enough Good Homes.

If Another Person Only Had In His Storehouse Of Deserved Self-esteem What You Had Put There, What Would He Have To Draw Upon And To Sustain Him?

We Can Be Walking Witnesses And Standing Sermons To Which Objective Onlookers Can Say A Quiet Amen.

Consecration Thus Constitutes The Only Unconditional Surrender Which Is Also A Total Victory!

I Assume, Gladly, That In The Allocation To America Of Remarkable Leaders Like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, And Abraham Lincoln, The Lord Was Just As Careful. After All, If You've Got Only One Abraham Lincoln, You'd Better Put Him In That Point In History When He's Most Needed-much As Some Of Us Might Like To Have Him Now.

The Scriptures Offer Us So Many Doctrinal Diamonds. And When The Light Of The Spirit Plays Upon Their Several Facets, They Sparkle With Celestial Sense And Illuminate The Path We Are To Follow.

Repentance Is A Rescuing, Not A Dour, Doctrine.

Real Disciples Absorb The Fiery Darts Of The Adversary By Holding Aloft The Quenching Shield Of Faith With One Hand, While Holding To The Iron Rod With The Other (see Eph. 6:16; 1 Ne. 15:24; D&c 27:17). There Should Be No Mistaking; It Will Take Both Hands!

Love Is Never Wasted, Even If It Is Not Reciprocated.

Meanwhile, Spiritual Submissiveness Brings About The Wiser Use Of Our Time, Talents, And Gifts As Compared With Our Laboring Diligently But Conditionally To Establish Our Own Righteousness Instead Of The Lord's (d&c 1:16). After All, Lucifer Was Willing To Work Very Hard, But Conditionally In His Own Way And For His Own Purposes.

Some Find It Easier To Bend Their Knees Than Their Minds. Exciting Exploration Is Preferred To Plodding Implementation; Speculation Seems More Fun Than Consecration, And So Is Trying To Soften The Hard Doctrines Instead Of Submitting To Them. Worse Still, By Not Obeying, These . . . Lack Real Knowing. Lacking Real Knowing, They Cannot Defend Their Faith And May Become Critics Instead Of Defenders!

Life Is An 'open-book' Exam, But The Problem Is That Most Of The Students Don't Have The 'book', Or Refuse To Open It-a Fact That Ought To Spur Us On As Church Members To Share The Gospel More Widely So That Life Would Be Meaningful For More People.

The Good Life Is The Best Preparation For Bad Times.

It Is Understandable How Some People Could Give Way To This Kind Of Pervasive Pessimism, But We Speak Of A Gospel Which Brings Good Tidings Of Great Joy And This Must Be Reflected In Our Lives, If We Are To Be Believable Especially As We Suggest To Others That There Is, In Fact, Not Only A Better Way, But Also The Way. Scriptures That Speak Of Man As A Being Who "might Have Joy" Have More Impact When Falling From The Lips Or Pens Of Men And Women Whose Lives Give Fresh Evidence Of The Validity Of That Scripture.

Patient Endurance Permits Us To Cling To Our Faith In The Lord And Our Faith In His Timing When We Are Being Tossed About By The Surf Of Circumstance. Even When A Seeming Undertow Grasps Us, Somehow, In The Tumbling, We Are Being Carried Forward, Though Battered And Bruised.

The Great Challenge Is To Refuse To Let The Bad Things That Happen To Us Do Bad Things To Us. That Is The Crucial Difference Between Adversity And Tragedy.

We May Never Become Accustomed To Untrue And Unjust Criticism Of Us But We Ought Not To Be Immobilized By It.

Unjust Criticism

These Really Are Our Days, And We Can Prevail And Overcome, Even In The Midst Of Trends That Are Very Disturbing. If We Are Faithful The Day Will Come When Those Deserving Pioneers And Ancestors, Whom We Rightly Praise For Having Overcome The Adversities In The Wilderness Trek, Will Praise Today’s Faithful For Having Made Their Way Successfully Through A Desert Of Despair And For Having Passed Through A Cultural Wilderness, While Still Keeping The Faith.

You Rock A Sobbing Child Without Wondering If Today's World Is Passing You By, Because You Know You Hold Tomorrow Tightly In Your Arms.

A Vague Goal Is No Goal At All. The Ten Commandments Wouldn't Be Very Impressive, For Instance, If They Weren't Specific, But Simply Were Couched In A Phraseology Such As 'thou Shalt Not Be A Bad Person.

Ten Commandments

When One Comes To Know God And His Son Jesus Christ Through The Scriptures, The Spirit, And Personal Revelation, It Is Impossible To Feel Anything Other Than Overwhelmed By The Attributes So Perfectly Developed In Them And So Tentatively And Superficially Developed In Oneself. Even So, We Are Told To Strive To Become Like Them.

The Overwhelming Joy Of Conversion Or A New Calling Is Often Followed By Feelings Of Being Overwhelmed With Duties And Doctrines. The First Joyous Feelings Are Real And Give One Much-needed Initial Momentum. But The Genuine Exhilaration Is Soon Followed By The Need To Perspire And To Pedal.

No Love Is Ever Wasted. Its Worth Does Not Lie In Reciprocity.

A New Calling Can Beckon Us Away From Comfortable Routine And From Competencies Already Acquired.

If We Are Not Serving Jesus, And If He Is Not In Our Thoughts And Hearts, Then The Things Of The World Will Draw Us Instead To Them! Moreover, The Things Of The World Need Not Be Sinister In Order To Be Diverting And Consuming.

What We Insistently Desire, Over Time, Is What We Become.

Sir Thomas More Was A Victim Of Injustice And Irony. Generously And Meekly, Just As He Was About To Be Martyred, He Said: Paul . . . Was Present, And Consented To The Death Of St. Stephen, And Kept Their Clothes That Stoned Him To Death, And Yet Be They [stephen And Paul] Now Both Twain Holy Saints In Heaven, And Shall Continue There Friends For Ever, So I Verily Trust And . . . Pray, That Though Your Lordships Have Now Here In Earth Been Judges To My Condemnation, We May Yet Hereafter In Heaven Merrily All Meet Together, To Our Everlasting Salvation.

Thus Worshiping, Serving, Studying, Praying, Each In Its Own Way Squeezes Selfishness Out Of Us; Pushes Aside Our Preoccupations With The Things Of The World.

Time Management Tips: The Perpetual Processing Of The Same Temptation Is Both Dangerous And Time-wasting. Cycling And Recycling The Same Temptation (instead Of Rejecting Such Blandishment Out Of Hand) Is Not Only To Risk One's Soul, Again And Again, But Is To Bring On Fatigue, So That The Adversary May Be Able To Do Indirectly What We Will Not Let Him Do Directly. A Lack Of Decisiveness In Dealing With Temptation Ties Up Our Thought Processes And Prevents Us From Doing Good With The Time Allotted To Us.

A Society Which Permits Anything Will Eventually Lose Everything.

To Think Of Enduring To The End As ‘hanging In There,’ Doing One’s Duty Relentlessly, Is Not Inaccurate. Yet Enduring To The End Is More Than Outlasting And Surviving, Though It Includes Those Qualities. We Are Called Upon, As Was The Prophet Joseph, To ‘endure It Well,’ Gracefully, Not Grudgingly. (d&c 121:8.) We Are Also Told That We Must ‘endure In Faith.’ (d&c 101:35.) These Dimensions Of Enduring Are Important To Note. Likewise, We Are Asked To Endure ‘valiantly.’ (d&c 121:29.)

Enduring To The End

God's Anger Is Kindled Not Because We Have Harmed Him But Because We Have Harmed Ourselves.

Those Who Do Too Much For Their Children Will Soon Find They Can Do Nothing With Their Children. So Many Children Have Been So Much Done For They Are Almost Done In.

To One Degree Or Another We All Struggle With Selfishness. Since It Is So Common, Why Worry About Selfishness Anyway? Because Selfishness Is Really Self-destruction In Slow Motion. No Wonder The Prophet Joseph Smith Urged, "let Every Selfish Feeling Be Not Only Buried, But Annihilated" (teachings Of The Prophet Joseph Smith, P. 178). Hence Annihilation - Not Moderation - Is The Destination! . . . Meekness Is The Real Cure, For It Does Not Merely Mask Selfishness But Dissolves It!

A Basic Cause Of Murmuring Is That Too Many Of Us Seem To Expect That Life Will Flow Ever Smoothly, Featuring An Unbroken Chain Of Green Lights With Empty Parking Places Just In Front Of Our Destinations!.

Beware Not To Get Caught Up In The Thick Of Thin Things.

Of All The Errors One Could Make, God's Gospel Plan Is The Wrong Thing To Be Wrong About.

Those Who Turn Against The Church Do So To Play To Their Own Private Gallery, But When, One Day, The Applause Has Died Down And The Cheering Has Stopped, They Will Face A Smaller Audience, The Judgment Bar Of God.

Discouragement Is Not The Absence Of Adequacy But The Absence Of Courage.

Though We Live In A Failing World, We Have Not Been Sent Here To Fail.

Looking For Honest Ways To Lift One Another Would . . . Be More Beneficial To Our Own Self-esteem, For We Would See More Good In Ourselves. We Would Cease To Be So Critical Of Our Weaknesses And Would Find Ways To Allow Our Weaknesses To Become Strengths With God's Help.

The Harrowing Of The Soul Can Be Like The Harrowing Of The Soil; To Increase The Yield, Things Are Turned Upside Down.

Many Of Those Engaged In A Lemming-like March To The Sea Are Proud Of Their Individualism.

Stubborn Selfishness Leads Otherwise Good People To Fight Over Herds, Patches Of Sand, And Strippings Of Milk. All This Results From What The Lord Calls Coveting "the Drop," While Neglecting The "more Weighty Matters." (d&c 117:8) Myopic Selfishness Magnifies A Mess Of Pottage And Makes Thirty Pieces Of Silver Look Like A Treasure Trove. In Our Intense Acquisitiveness, We Forget Him Who Once Said, "what Is Property Unto Me?"

The Cavity Which Suffering Carves Into Our Souls Will One Day Also Be The Receptacle Of Joy.

When We Are Unduly Impatient With An Omniscient God's Timing, We Really Are Suggesting That We Know What's Best. Strange Isn't It-we Who Wear Wrist Watches Seek To Counsel Him Who Oversees Cosmic Clocks And Calendars.

If We Entertain Temptations, Soon They Begin Entertaining Us!

Sometimes We Are So Busy Being The Hammer Or The Anvil, That We Forget Who Really Needs The Shaping.

The Lord Knows Our Bearing Capacity, Both As To Coping And To Comprehending, And He Will Not Give Us More To Bear Than We Can Manage At The Moment, Though To Us It May Seem Otherwise. Just As No Temptations Will Come To Us From Which We Cannot Escape Or Which We Cannot Bear, We Will Not Be Given More Trials Than We Can Sustain.

There Is Also The Very Real Possibility That, In The Justice Of God, One Of The Reasons He Uses The Weak And The Foolish Of The World Is So That No Argument Could Be Made Later That Certain People Were Advantaged In Some Unfair Way By That Which Was Unearned-either In The Premortal Life Or Here. Hence It Seems Prudent For Us To Realize That Just Because One Is Set Apart Or Ordained To A Certain Calling Or Assignment He Or She Must Not Expect To Be Set Apart From The Stresses Of Life. There Appear To Be No Immunities.

Perfect Love Is Perfectly Patient.

A Good Friend, Who Knows Whereof He Speaks, Has Observed Of Trials, ‘if It’s Fair, It Is Not A True Trial!’ That Is, Without The Added Presence Of Some Inexplicableness And Some Irony And Injustice, The Experience May Not Stretch Us Or Lift Us Sufficiently. The Crucifixion Of Christ Was Clearly The Greatest Injustice In Human History, But The Savior Bore Up Under It With Majesty And Indescribable Valor.

Crucifixion Of Christ

Real Hope Is Much More Than Wishful Musing. It Stiffens, Not Slackens, The Spiritual Spine.

A Patient Willingness To Defer Dividends Is A Hallmark Of Individual Maturity.

We Are So Busy Constantly Checking Our Own Temperatures, We Fail To Notice The Burning Fevers Of Others.

Without Making A Fetish Of Goal Setting, And Without Letting "lists" Of Tasks We Desire To Do Dominate Us, Some Recording Of Goals Is Wise Not Only For The Self-reminder These Constitute, But Also For The Satisfaction Of Crossing Things Off.

Though We Have Rightly Applauded Our Ancestors For Their Spiritual Achievements ... Those Of Us Who Prevail Today Will Have Done No Small Thing.

The "new" In Us Is Bound To Notice The "old" That Remains.

In A Very Real Sense, All We Need To Know Is That God Knows All.

All Of Us Must Walk The Same Strait And Narrow Path, Know The Same Kind Of Experiences As Those We Would Seek To Lead And To Serve. There Is Not One Strait And Narrow Path For The Officers-the Chosen-and Another For The Enlisted Men. We Are All To Experience Life "according To The Flesh"; There Is No Other Way, For It Is The Way To Immortality And Eternal Life. Given The Resplendent Riches Of The Promised Kingdom, Why Would Anyone Wish To Walk Another Path Than The One That Leads Us Back To Our Gracious And Merciful Father In Heaven?

Your Task Is To Conquer Yourselves, Not Ships, Lands And Castles. This Battle Is The One In Which You Especially Are To 'come Off Conqueror.' It Is Fought Every Day. In Fact, It Is A Continuing Process Which Commenced A Long, Long Time Ago.

The Issue For Us Is Trusting God Enough To Trust Also His Timing. If We Can Truly Believe He Has Our Welfare At Heart, May We Not Let His Plans Unfold As He Thinks Best?

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