“It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.”
| How Will You Measure Your Life?
Obedience
LDS Quotes on Obedience
The most important of all the commandments of God is that one that you’re having the most difficulty keeping. Today is the day for you to work…until you’ve been able to conquer that weakness. Then you start on the next one that’s most difficult for you to keep.
| Church News, May 5, 1973, p. 3
“Warn them that they will encounter people who pick which commandments they will keep and ignore others that they choose to break. I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery.”
Now, do not get me wrong. I am not here to say that if you pay an honest tithing you will realize your dream of a fine house, a Rolls Royce, and a condominium in Hawaii. The Lord will open the windows of heaven according to our need, and not according to our greed. If we are paying tithing to get rich, we are doing it for the wrong reason. The basic purpose for tithing is to provide the Church with the means needed to carry on His work. The blessing to the giver is an ancillary return, and that blessing may not be always in the form of financial or material benefit.
| Tithing:An Opportunity to Prove Our Faithfulness
“For various reasons, marriage and children are not immediately available to all. Perhaps no offer of marriage is forthcoming. Perhaps even after marriage there is an inability to have children. Or perhaps there is no present attraction to the opposite gender. Whatever the reason, God’s richest blessings will eventually be available to all of His children if they are clean and faithful.”
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
There are those within the Church who are disturbed when changes are made with which they disagree or when changes they propose are not made. They point to these as evidence that the leaders are not inspired. They write and speak to convince others that the doctrines and decisions of the Brethren are not given through inspiration.
Two things characterize them: they are always irritated by the word obedience, and always they question revelation. It has always been so. Helaman described those who “began to disbelieve in the spirit of prophecy and in the spirit of revelation; and the judgments of God did stare them in the face” (Helaman 4:23). “They were left in their own strength” (4:13), and “the Spirit of the Lord did no more preserve them; yea, it had withdrawn from them” (4:24). Changes in organization or procedures are a testimony that revelation is ongoing. While doctrines remain fixed, the methods or procedures do not.
| Ensign, November 1989, p. 15
“You will listen best when you feel, “Father, thy will, not mine, be done.” You will have a feeling of “I want what you want.” Then, the still small voice will seem as if it pierces you…You will act after you have listened because when you hear his voice by the Spirit you will always feel that you are impelled to do something. You mustn’t be surprised if the instruction seems accompanied with what you feel as a rebuke.You might prefer that God simply tell you how well you are doing. But he loves you, wants you to be with him, and knows you must have a mighty change in your heart, through faith on the Lord Jesus Christ, humble repentance, and the making and keeping of sacred covenants.”
| “To Draw Closer to God,” Ensign, May 1991, 67.
“The peace of Christ does not come by seeking the superficial things of life, neither does it come except as it springs from the individual’s heart.” He said further that this peace is “conditioned upon obedience to the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. … No man is at peace with himself or his God who is untrue to his better self, who transgresses the law of what is right either in dealing with himself by indulging in passion, in appetite, yielding to temptations against his accusing conscience, or in dealing with his fellowmen, being untrue to their trust. Peace does not come to the transgressor of law; peace comes by obedience to law, and it is that message which Jesus would have us proclaim among men.”
| Conference Report, Oct. 1938, p. 133.
“A few of the basic attributes needed to become a lifelong learner are courage, faithful desire, humility, patience, curiosity, and a willingness to communicate and share the knowledge that we gain…. Lifelong learning is essential to the vitality of the human mind, body, and soul. It enhances self-worth and self-actuation. Lifelong learning is invigorating mentally and is a great defense against aging, depression, and self-doubt.”
| "The Journey of Lifelong Learning," in Brigham Young University 2008-2009 Speeches [2009], 2, 8-9