“All of those called to the ministry…are given the gifts needed to perform the work whereunto they are called. These gifts are always the ones needed for the particular work at hand.”
“The gift of the Holy Ghost … quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands and purifies all the natural passions and affections; and adapts them, by the gift of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindred feelings, and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity. It develops beauty of person, form and features. It tends to health, vigor, animation, and social feeling. It invigorates all the faculties of the physical and intellectual man. It strengthens, and gives tone to the nerves. In short, it is, as it were, marrow to the bone, joy to the heart, light to the eyes, music to the ears, and life to the whole being”
Every individual born to earth is given a detecting capability, a divinely appointed gift to distinguish truth from error. We call it our conscience. God calls it the Spirit of Christ. When we properly use this gift, we are naturally drawn to truth and repelled from error.
“Men are not born equal. They enter this life with the talents and capacities developed in preexistence…The talent of greatest worth was that of spirituality, for it enables us to hearken to the Holy Spirit and accept that gospel which prepares us for eternal life.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985), 34
“If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will make us perfect. . . . No man ought to say, “Oh, I cannot help this; it is my nature.” He is not justified in it, for the reason that God has promised to give strength to correct these things, and to give gifts that will eradicate them. . . . He wants His Saints to be perfected in the truth. For this purpose He gives these gifts, and bestows them upon those who seek after them, in order that they may be a perfect people upon the face of the earth, notwithstanding their many weaknesses, because God has promised to give the gifts that are necessary for their perfection.”
| Millennial Star, April 23, 1894, 260–61
“There is a difference between the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Cornelius received the Holy Ghost before he was baptized, which was the convincing power of God unto him of the truth of the Gospel, but he could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost until after he was baptized. Had he not [been baptized], the Holy Ghost which convinced him of the truth of God, would have left him.”
| History of the Church, 4:555
“[The gifts of the spirit are] infinite in number and endless in their manifestations because God himself is infinite and endless, and because the needs of those who receive them are as numerous, varied, and different as there are people in the kingdom.”
| A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985)
“All of the gifts of the Spirit must be dispensed in an orderly way, according to the needs and conditions of the moment. All the affairs of the earthly kingdom must be administered as changing needs and circumstances require.”
“When there come to you things that your mind does not know, when you have a sudden thought that comes to your mind, if you will learn to give heed to these things that come from the Lord, you will learn to walk by the spirit of revelation.”
| In Conference Report of the First Mexico and Central America Area General Conference, 1972, 49.
“Mankind … must determine to travel in company with the one or the other. The reward for following the one is the fruit of the Spirit—peace. The reward for following the other is the works of the flesh—the antithesis of peace…The price of peace is victory over Satan.”
| Ensign, Oct. 1983, pp. 4, 5.
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