Do not overpack the luggage you plan to take with you when you leave this world, for we simply cannot get most mortal things by celestial customs; only the eternal things are portable. – Neal A. Maxwell, “Why Not Now?” Ensign (CR) November 1974
I learned that as we sing the sacrament hymns with real intent, phrases like “How great the wisdom and the love” or “Dearly, dearly has he loved! And we must love him too” will swell our hearts with love and gratitude (see “How Great the Wisdom and the Love,” Hymns, no. 195; “There Is a […]
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded, with Paul, that neither tribulation, nor life, nor death, nor any other circumstance shall have the power to separate us from His love.6 The Savior gave His life for each one of us. He knows our joys and our sorrows. He knows my […]
Christ died not to save indiscriminately but to offer repentance. We rely “wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save”19 in the process of repentance, but acting to repent is a self-willed change. So by making repentance a condition for receiving the gift of grace, God enables us to retain responsibility for […]
Finally, to get the gospel of Jesus Christ deep in our hearts, we need to engage in it—to give our time and talents to it, to sacrifice for it.26 We all want to live a life of meaning, and this is especially true of the rising generation. They desire a cause. The gospel of Jesus […]
When Jesus called his first disciples, the scriptures record that they left their ships and nets “straightway.” They didn’t ask to join Jesus after the fishing season; they didn’t even delay their response in order to make just one more catch. They left “straightway”! (See Matt. 4:20.) Act, my brothers and sisters, for once the […]
The scriptures make the danger of delay clear. It is that we may discover that we have run out of time. The God who gives us each day as a treasure will require an accounting. We will weep, and He will weep, if we have intended to repent and to serve Him in tomorrows which […]
All of us have seen those we almost envy because they have cultivated a manner that, without even mentioning it, speaks of the beauty of the gospel they have incorporated in their behavior. We can lower our voices a few decibels. We can return good for evil. We can smile when anger might be so […]
The battle for self-discipline may leave you a bit bruised and battered but always a better person. Self-discipline is a rigorous process at best; too many of us want it to be effortless and painless. Should temporary setbacks afflict us, a very significant part of our struggle for self-discipline is the determination and the courage […]
As we learn to become inheritors of all our Father has, the gospel mentors us to look beyond what we see. To look beyond what we see, we must look at others through the eyes of our Savior. The gospel net is filled with people in all their variety. We can’t fully understand the choices […]