I would hope that we would not lose the real objective of our cherished opportunities to serve. That objective, that eternal goal, is the same spoken of by the Lord and found in the Pearl of Great Price: "For behold, this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." May we ever remember that the mantle of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not a cloak of comfort but rather a robe of responsibility. Our duty, in addition to saving ourselves, is to guide others to the celestial kingdom of God.
How you speak and the words you use tell much about the image you choose to portray. Use language to build and uplift those around you. Profane, vulgar, or crude language and inappropriate or off-color jokes are offensive to the Lord. Never misuse the name of God or Jesus Christ. The Lord said, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Ex. 20:7).
Take Jesus for your king, and by baptism swear allegiance to him; take him for your prophet, and hear him; take him for your priest, to make atonement for you.
We can understand that the Fathers of the Church in the East wanted Apocalypse left out of the New Testament. But like Judas among the disciples, it was inevitable that it should be included. The Apocalypse is the feet of clay to the grand Christian image. And down crashes the image, on the weakness of these very feet. There is Jesus--but there is also John the Divine. There is Christian love--and there is Christian envy. The former would "save" the world--the latter will never be satisfied till it has destroyed the world. They are two sides of the same medal.
This perfection is the restoration of man to the state of holiness from which he fell, by creating him anew in Christ Jesus, and restoring to him that image and likeness of God which he has lost.
With all the strength of my soul, I testify that God lives, that His
Beloved Son is the firstfruits of the Resurrection, that the gospel of
Jesus Christ is that penetrating light that makes of every hopeless
dawn a joyful morning.
Oh, from what heights of blessing it is possible for a man to fall! To what depths of sin a man can descend, even with all that spiritual background! The higher the pinnacle of blessing, authority, and publicity he has attained by grace, the deeper and more staggering can be his collapse. There is never a day in any man's life but that he is dependent upon the grace of God for power and the blood of Jesus for cleansing.
Jesus and Shakespeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,--is not that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit.
I was like you are. I thought Jesus came and died on the cross. Jesus' being here was about his death and dying on the cross but it really was about him coming to show us how to do it. To show us the Christ-consciousness that he had and that conciousness abides in all of us. That's what I got. That's what I got.
One thing I gained in my life is just the need for more Jesus in my life. You never come to a place in your walk with Jesus where you feel like you've had enough. That's a dangerous feeling to have.
Difficulties and obstacles are God's challenges to faith. When hindrances confront us in the path of duty, we are to recognize them as vessels for faith to fill with the fullness and all-sufficiency of Jesus.
The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk.
We're not going to survive in this world, temporally or spiritually, without increased faith in the Lord-and I don't mean a positive mental attitude-I mean downright solid faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the one thing that gives vitality and power to otherwise rather weak individuals.
Buddha called himself 'The Enlightened One' and Jesus called himself 'The Son of God'. To me the term 'World-Teacher' is of as little importance as 'The Son of God' or 'The Enlightened One'.