Grace

“Christ’s arrangement with us is similar to a mom providing music lessons for her child. Mom pays the piano teacher. How many know what I am talking about? Because Mom pays the debt in full, she can turn to her child and ask for something. What is it? Practice! Does the child’s practice pay the piano teacher? No. Does the child’s practice repay Mom for paying the piano teacher? No. Practicing is how the child shows appreciation for Mom’s incredible gift. It is how he takes advantage of the amazing opportunity Mom is giving him to live his life at a higher level. Mom’s joy is found not in getting repaid but in seeing her gift used—seeing her child improve. And so she continues to call for practice, practice, practice.”

Brad Wilcox  |  His Grace is Sufficient

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“Jesus doesn’t make up the difference. Jesus makes all the difference. Grace is not about filling gaps. It is about filling us.”

Brad Wilcox  |  His Grace is Sufficient

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“We don’t have to work our way into grace; we have to stop working so hard to pretend we aren’t already in it”

Adam S. Miller  |  Future Mormon

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“‘Grace shall be as your day’—what an interesting phrase. We have all sung it hundreds of times, but have we stopped to consider what it means? “Grace shall be as your day”: grace shall be like a day. As dark as night may become, we can always count on the sun coming up. As dark as our trials, sins, and mistakes may appear, we can always have confidence in the grace of Jesus Christ. Do we earn a sunrise? No. Do we have to be worthy of a chance to begin again? No. We just have to accept these blessings and take advantage of them. As sure as each brand-new day, grace—the enabling power of Jesus Christ—is constant. Faithful pioneers knew they were not alone. The task ahead of them was never as great as the power behind them.”

Brad Wilcox  |  His Grace is Sufficient

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“At first glance at this scripture, we might think that grace is offered to us only chronologically after we have completed doing all we can do, but this is demonstrably false…“I understand the preposition ‘after’ in 2 Nephi 25:23 to be a preposition of separation rather than a preposition of time. It denotes logical separateness rather than temporal sequence. We are saved by grace ‘apart from all we can do,’ or ‘all we can do notwithstanding,’ or even ‘regardless of all we can do.’ Another acceptable paraphrase of the sense of the verse might read, ‘We are still saved by grace, after all is said and done’”

Stephen E. Robinson  |  Believing Christ

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“Why would we suppress God’s grace? Because it scares us. What God gives is beyond our control, much of it is difficult to receive, and a lot of it fails to line up with what we thought we wanted. More, because we’re incapable of receiving, all at once, everything that God wants to give, God can only give a few things at a time. And because God can only give a few things at a time, all of God’s giving also arrives as the passing away of what was previously given. That is, all of God’s giving arrives as a kind of taking.”

Adam S. Miller  |  Future Mormon

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Neal A. Maxwell Headshot

“Now may I speak . . . to those buffeted by false insecurity, who, though laboring devotedly in the Kingdom, have recurring feelings of falling forever short. . . This feeling of inadequacy is . . . normal. There is no way the Church can honestly describe where we must yet go and what we must yet do without creating a sense of immense distance. . . .This is a gospel of grand expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell  |  “Notwithstanding My Weakness,” Ensign, November 1976

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Joseph Smith Portrait

“The Lord gave us power in proportion to the work to be done, and strength according to the race set before us, and grace and help as our needs required.”

Joseph Smith  |  History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

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“Grace doesn’t grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn’t God’s way of jury rigging a broken law. It’s the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely–from top to bottom, from beginning to end–by grace.”

Adam S. Miller  |  Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans

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“Grace is original. Grace is what comes first, and it is sin that then comes in response. Or creating is what comes first, and it is the fall that then comes in response. Sin at root, is a rejection of what God by way of creation, has given as a grace.”

Adam S. Miller  |  Future Mormon

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Neal A. Maxwell Headshot

“This is a gospel of great expectations, but God’s grace is sufficient for each of us if we remember that there are no instant Christians.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell

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The Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground:

murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.

Philip Yancey  |  The Jesus I Never Knew

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Thomas S. Monson

“Your Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.”

Thomas S. Monson

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Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“On Easter Sunday we celebrate the most long-awaited and glorious event in the history of the world. It is the day that changed everything. On that day, my life changed. Your life changed. The destiny of all God’s children changed. When I think of what the Savior did for us leading up to that first Easter Sunday, I want to lift up my voice and shout praises to the Most High God and His Son, Jesus Christ! The gates of heaven are unlocked! The windows of heaven are opened! Today and forevermore, God’s grace is available to all.”

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf  |  The Gift of Grace (April 2015

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Man unquestionably has impressive powers … But after all our obedience and good works, we cannot be saved from the effects of our sins without the grace extended by the atonement of Jesus Christ … Man cannot earn his own salvation.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

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“President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke of [the Atonement’s] relationship to other events in world history: “When all is said and done, when all of history is examined, when the deepest depths of the human mind have been explored, there is nothing so wonderful, so majestic, so tremendous as this act of grace.”

Tad R. Callister  |  The Infinite Atonement

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“One of the most common of all sins among worldly people is relying on and then boasting in the arm of flesh. This is a most serious evil. It is a sin born of pride, a sin that creates a frame of mind which keeps men from turning to the Lord and accepting his saving grace. When a man knowingly or unknowingly engages in self-exultation because of his riches, his political power, his worldly learning, his physical prowess, his business ability, or even his works of righteousness, he is not in tune with the Spirit of the Lord. We would all do well to take a lesson from the Savior, who repeatedly acknowledged and gave credit to the Father in all things. Indeed, that precedent was set in the premortal council when Jesus Christ pledged the fruits of all he might himself accomplish to go to the Father: “And the glory be thine forever.” (Moses 4:2)

Marvin J. Ashton  |  “Neither Boast of Faith Nor of Mighty Works,” Ensign, May 1990, p. 65

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Elder Jeffery R. Holland of the LDS church

Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven–we can’t “earn” it. Thus, the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sorrow and sin and death but also salvation from our own persistent self-criticism.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland  |  Be Ye Therefore Perfect--Eventually

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“I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me.”

Marilynne Robinson

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Image of Elizabeth Smart

“I also believe in faith. Faith in a loving and kind heavenly Father who will always care about me. Faith that my worth will never be diminished. Faith that God knows how I feel and that I can depend on him to help me through it all. I believe that God not only suffered for me, but that He will make everything up to me in His own time and His own way. That gives me the peace I need to feel like justice will win out in the end.”

Elizabeth Smart  |  My Story: Elizabeth Smart

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