"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker uses the story of the prodigal son to illustrate that even a spark of desire can lead to repentance and change, as the son desired to return to his father.
Even a spark of desire can begin change. The prodigal son, sunk in despair, nevertheless desired and "came to himself," determining that "I will arise and go to my father" Luke 15:17"“18
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker discusses the importance of desire in shaping our moral agency and individuality, emphasizing that our desires become real determinants of our actions and consequences.
Brothers and sisters, 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.
Exemplifying this happy reality are the doctrinal teachings concerning desire, which relates so directly to our moral agency and our individuality. Whether in their conception or expression, our desires profoundly affect the use of our moral agency. Desires thus become real determina ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker explains that God judges us according to our works and the desires of our hearts, and that He takes into account our desires, performance, and the difficulties of our circumstances.
Therefore, what we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity. "For I [said the Lord] will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts" D&C 137:9 see also Jer. 17:10 Alma said, "I know that [God] granteth unto men according to their desire, "¦ I know that he allotteth unto men "¦ according to their wills" Alma 29:4 To reach this equitable end, God"™s canopy of mercy is stretched out, including ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker contrasts God's merciful plan for our joy and glory with Satan's desire for all to be miserable, and emphasizes the importance of understanding doctrines related to desire to avoid the consequences of wrong desires.
However, in contrast to God"™s merciful plan for our joy and glory, Satan "[desires] that all men might be miserable like unto himself" 2 Ne. 2:27
Mostly, brothers and sisters, we become the victims of our own wrong desires. Moreover, we live in an age when many simply refuse to feel responsible for themselves. Thus, a crystal-clear understanding of the doctrines pertaining to desire is so vital because of the spreading effluent oozing out of so many unjustified excuses by so many. This is l ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker tells of the Nephite multitude who, in the presence of the resurrected Jesus, were filled with desire during humble and intensive prayer, demonstrating that righteous desires accompany spiritually significant events.
Whenever spiritually significant things are under way, righteous desires are present. Meek desire characterized those awaiting baptism at the waters of Mormon. With their baptismal commitments spelled out specifically, "they "¦ exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts" Mosiah 18:11 The Nephite multitude, enraptured by the presence of the resurrected Jesus, knelt in humble and intensive prayer, yet "they did not multiply many words, for it was given unto them what they should pray, and they ... (continued)
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker shares a quote from William R. May about the state of sloth, where the soul has lost its capacity for desire, equating it with spiritual death and contrasting it with the vitality of desiring God.
The absence of any keen desire"”merely being lukewarm"”causes a terrible flattening (see Rev. 3:15 William R. May explained such sloth: "The soul in this state is beyond mere sadness and melancholy. It has removed itself from the rise and fall of feelings; the very root of its feelings in desire is dead. "¦ To be a man is to desire. The good man desires God and other things in God. The sinful man desires things in the place of God, but he is still recognizably human, inasmuch as he has know ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker emphasizes the role of our desires in determining the strength of temptations and the importance of educating and training our desires through understanding and loving gospel truths.
What we are speaking about is so much more than merely deflecting temptations for which we somehow do not feel responsible. Remember, brothers and sisters, it is our own desires which determine the sizing and the attractiveness of various temptations. We set our thermostats as to temptations.
Thus educating and training our desires clearly requires understanding the truths of the gospel, yet even more is involved. President Brigham Young confirmed, saying, "It is evident that many who understand ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker discusses the need to diminish and dissolve wrong desires, such as envy and self-pity, and to strengthen weak desires, like the desire to be a better family member.
Some of our present desires, therefore, need to be diminished and then finally dissolved. For instance, the biblical counsel "let not thine heart envy sinners" is directed squarely at those with a sad unsettlement of soul Prov. 23:17 Once again, we must be honest with ourselves about the consequences of our desires, which follow as the night, the day. Similarly faced with life"™s so-called "bad breaks," the natural man desires to wallow in self-pity; therefore this desire must go too.
But ... (continued)
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker explains that God is ready to help us improve, but we must reach out and desire to improve, even in difficult relationships, likening it to trying to pat a porcupine.
Our merciful and long-suffering Lord is ever ready to help. His "arm is lengthened out all the day long" 2 Ne. 28:32 and even if His arm goes ungrasped, it was unarguably there! In the same redemptive reaching out, our desiring to improve our human relationships usually requires some long-suffering. Sometimes reaching out is like trying to pat a porcupine. Even so, the accumulated quill marks are evidence that our hands of fellowship have been stretched out, too!
Forgiveness
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker reflects on the role of parents in shaping the desires of their children, acknowledging that even with the best efforts, some children may choose a different path, as seen with Adam and Eve, and Lehi and Sariah.
Unquestionably, parents have such a profound role in assisting in the educating of our desires, especially when parents combine explanation and exemplification! Even so, given our responsibilities for our own desires, we should not be surprised that Adam and Eve, such superb parents who conscientiously taught all things to their children [see Moses 5:12] still lost some of them! Lehi and Sariah made the same effort, doing so "with all the feeling of a tender parent" 1 Ne. 8:37 Yet they experie ... (continued)
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"According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts"
Elder Neal A. Maxwell
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker concludes by emphasizing that the process of perfecting our desires and overcoming sin takes time, and that we must initiate the desire for change, with God's help.
It all takes time. Said the Prophet Joseph: "The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; and like the ancients, arrives at that point of faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker and is caught up to dwell with Him [see Moses 7:21] But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, ... (continued)
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"After All We Can Do"
Elder Harold B. Lee
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker recalls a remark by the late president Charles A. Callis about the importance of teaching the awfulness of sin and the terror that follows unrepented sinning.
Years of experience since that time and interviews with those who have unfortunately taken that short, broad highway, have convinced me that because of their suffering, those who have or are living lives of unrepented sinning would have given all that they possessed if someone could have warned them and could have told them of the awfulness of the sins from which they now suffer.
Forgiveness
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"After All We Can Do"
Elder Harold B. Lee
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker describes a picture of the shortest designated highway in Utah, which leads to the state penitentiary, and uses it as a metaphor for the short and broad way to destruction in life.
Several days ago my attention was attracted to a picture in one of the local newspapers. The picture shows two men with a shovel setting a highway sign. Within the block "U," which is the official designation of the Utah state highway department, is the figure 187, and then a sign underneath the block "U," which reads: "The shortest designated highway in the state." Then I read the cutlines underneath and the accompanying article which described this short highway as being only one-quarter of a ... (continued)
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"After All We Can Do"
Elder Harold B. Lee
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
President Calvin Coolidge, known for his brevity, answered his wife's questions about a church sermon on sin with concise responses, indicating his agreement with the preacher's stance against sin.
The story is told of the late President Calvin Coolidge who was a master of few words in his expressions. He came home from his church meeting one morning, and his wife asked, "What did the preacher talk about this morning?" His reply was, "Sin." She again asked "What did the minister say about it?" His reply was, "The minister was agin' it." And so are all preachers of righteousness, they are against this thing called sin.
Forgiveness
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"After All We Can Do"
Elder Harold B. Lee
- Of the Council of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
A young woman who was struggling with her faith after a sudden sorrow had a dream about driving on a road under construction, which symbolized the importance of heeding warning signs to avoid spiritual pitfalls.
Now consider, for illustration, the various sins; the breaking of the Word of Wisdom, unchastity, dishonesty, etc., and then think of what is said here: "Temptation begins with doubt as to the truth of the prohibition. "Has God said?" [is always the question of him who doubts and is tempted to sin.] "It is continued by a contemplation of the pleasure that may be derived from doing that which has been prohibited. It ends with a sense of shame and degradation and dread of the presence of God. Suc ... (continued)
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"After Much Tribulation Come the Blessings"
Elder Adney Y. Komatsu
- Of the First Quorum of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
A mission president in Japan meets with a young widow whose air force pilot husband died in combat over Vietnam, and she seeks assurance about her future.
Thirteen years ago, as a mission president in Japan, I received a call from a young serviceman"™s wife who needed to see me. Her husband, an air force pilot, had just been shot down and had died in combat over Vietnam. As she was ushered into my office, I saw her hugging a large picture. We sat down to talk and she showed me the picture of her husband, a handsome pilot with his helmet in his hands, standing proudly beside his jet fighter plane.
She sobbingly said how much she loved him and cou ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"After Much Tribulation Come the Blessings"
Elder Adney Y. Komatsu
- Of the First Quorum of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
A funeral service in Tonga for a faithful Church member demonstrates the peace and knowledge of the plan of salvation held by his widow.
Recently I attended a funeral service for a faithful member of the Church on the remote island of Vava"™u in Tonga. This good brother had been loved by the people of his village, and he had the respect of nonmembers as well as Church members.
As the funeral procession left his home and proceeded to the grave site, the whole village followed and finally gathered on a knoll overlooking a peaceful bay. The people clustered around the grave site while the bishop and those participating stood facin ... (continued)
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"After Much Tribulation Come the Blessings"
Elder Adney Y. Komatsu
- Of the First Quorum of the Seventy
📅 0
📖 general conference
A district president in Japan faces a decision between a company promotion and serving as a stake president, ultimately choosing to serve the Lord.
May I share another experience with you? A few years ago in Japan, a stake was being organized from a mission district. In the course of an interview, the district president stated that he would shortly be moving to another city where he had accepted a promotion with his company to become the manager of their largest branch. But the Lord wanted this man to serve as the new stake president. He was called before the General Authority who inquired whether his superiors would reconsider the promotio ... (continued)
Forgiveness
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"Always Remember Him"
Elder Henry B. Eyring
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker recalls a car ride with two young lady missionaries in Brazil, where they asked him how to become more humble, and he felt he failed to provide a satisfactory answer at the time.
Many years ago, I went on assignment to Brazil. As part of the trip, I was to travel by car from São Paulo to a conference in a city about two hours distant. A member of the Quorum of the Twelve was going to preside at that conference. I hoped to ride in the car with him so that I might learn. But he suggested that I make the trip in another car with missionaries. He said, "Teach them while you travel." So, when I climbed into the front seat of the car, I learned that two young lady mis ... (continued)
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"Always Remember Him"
Elder Henry B. Eyring
- Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
📅 0
📖 general conference
The speaker reflects on what he would now tell the missionaries about humility, drawing from scriptural examples of Jesus Christ's humility and obedience to the Father's will.
First, I would have realized that they already had the first lesson in their hearts. The fact that they even asked meant that they had gone beyond being overwhelmed by their doubts about themselves to hope that if they would just submit, if they could just learn what to do, they could be better. If I had the chance again, I would have told them that. And then I would have given them just this one bit of counsel, counsel about what to do. I would have said just this: "Always remember him"Moro. ... (continued)
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