Mormon Musings

If then, the gospel is simple, it seems to me it is our individual task in the Church to go to the well for the water of the gospel regularly, because the message of the scriptures will be different depending on the stage of life you and I are in. These scriptures seem to me different than they did five years ago, and ten years ago, and certainly than they did twenty years ago in the mission field. Let the scriptures sing their song to you, the very song you need to hear now, in terms of that part of the gospel that is relevant in your life, so that, in the words of the Book of Mormon Prophet, you and I “feast” upon the word of Christ regularly. It’s not enough for returned missionaries to run on the strength of the few scriptures they may know, because as true as those scriptures are, they may not focus on the building of a marriage. As powerful as Revelations 14:6 is in missionary work, it doesn’t help as young couple on the verge of divorce As significant as the scriptures in Isaiah...

Moments are the molecules that make up eternity! Years ago, President Hinckley counseled: “It is not so much the major events as the small day-to-day decisions that map the course of our living. … Our lives are, in reality, the sum total of our seemingly unimportant decisions and of our capacity to live by those decisions” (Caesar, Circus, or Christ? Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [26 Oct. 1965], 3). Elder Neal A. Maxwell , October 2000 General Conference

Recall the new star that announced the birth at Bethlehem? It was in its precise orbit long before it so shone. We are likewise placed in human orbits to illuminate. Divine correlation functions not only in the cosmos but on this planet, too. After all, the Book of Mormon plates were not buried in Belgium, only to have Joseph Smith born centuries later in distant Bombay. Elder Neal A Maxwell, October 2002 General Conference https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2002/10/encircled-in-the-arms-of-his-love?lang=eng

The Savior has used the word “always” in two settings that may have caused you to wonder. First, you promise to “always remember Him” when you partake of the sacrament. And second, He warns you to “pray always,” (3 Nephi 18:18). You may have wondered, as have I, why He used the word “always,” given the nature of mortality, as its weighs upon us. You know from experience how hard it is to think of anything consciously all the time. Even in service to God, you will not be consciously praying always. So why does the Master exhort us to “pray always”? I am not wise enough to know all of His purposes in giving us a covenant to always remember Him and in warning us to pray always lest we be overcome. But I know one. It is because He knows perfectly the powerful forces that influence us and also what it means to be human. He knows what it is like to have the cares of life press upon us. I plead with you to do with determination the simple things that will move you forward spiritually. Start w...

“Instead of concluding that the Lord has drawn us into difficulties, and compelled us to do that which is unpleasant to our feelings, and to suffer sacrifice upon sacrifice to no purpose, we shall understand that He has designed all this to prepare us to dwell in His presence, to possess His Spirit, which is right and intelligent, for nothing but purity and holiness can dwell where he is”  (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 2:303).

I resonate to so much of what President John Taylor wrote about the Prophet Joseph Smith. Elder Taylor possessed great intellect and an unusual command of the English language. He also had extensive personal contact with the Prophet. He wrote: I testify that I was acquainted with Joseph Smith for years. I have traveled with him; I have been with him in private and in public; I have associated with him in councils of all kinds; I have listened hundreds of times to his public teachings, and his advice to his friends and associates of a more private nature. I have been at his house and seen his deportment in his family. I have seen him arraigned before the tribunals of his country, and have seen him honorably acquitted, and delivered from the pernicious breath of slander, and the machinations and falsehoods of wicked and corrupt men. I was with him living, and with him when he died, when he was murdered in Carthage jail by a ruthless mob . . . with their faces painted. I was there and was...

If I were to emphasize one overarching point this morning, it would be this: I suspect that you and I are much more familiar with the nature of the redeeming power of the Atonement than we are with the enabling power of the Atonement. It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us. That is fundamental and foundational to the doctrine of Christ. But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us—not only to direct us but also to empower us. I think most of us know that when we do things wrong, when we need help to overcome the effects of sin in our lives, the Savior has paid the price and made it possible for us to be made clean through His redeeming power. Most of us clearly understand that the Atonement is for sinners. I am not so sure, however, that we know and understand that the Atonement is also for saints—for good men and women who are obedient and worthy and conscientious and who ar...