Perfection

LDS Quotes on Perfection

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“Patience means staying with something until the end. It means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings. It means reining in anger and holding back the unkind word. It means resisting evil, even when it appears to be making others rich. Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being “willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father.” Ultimately, patience means being “firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord”every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so. In the words of John the Revelator, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and . . . faith [in] Jesus.” Patience is a process of perfection. The Savior Himself said that in your patience you possess your souls. Or, to use another translation of the Greek text, in your patience you win mastery of your souls. Patience means to abide in faith, knowing that sometimes it is in the waiting rather than in the receiving that we grow the most. This was true in the time of the Savior. It is true in our time as well, for we are commanded in these latter days to “continue in patience until ye are perfected.”

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf  |  Continue in Patience, April 2010 General Conference

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That Jesus attained eternal perfection following his resurrection is confirmed in the Book of Mormon. It records the visit of the resurrected Lord to the people of ancient America. There he repeated the important injunction previously cited [to be perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect], but with one very significant addition. He said, “I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” This time he listed himself along with his Father as a perfected personage. Previously, he had not. Resurrection is requisite for eternal perfection. . . . Eternal perfection is reserved for those who overcome all things and inherit the fulness of the Father in his heavenly mansions. Perfection consists in gaining eternal life – the kind of life that God lives.

Russell M. Nelson  |  Ensign, November 1994, p. 87

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“Do not expect to become perfect at once. If you do, you will be disappointed. Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today. The temptations that perhaps partially overcome us today, let them not overcome us so far tomorrow. Thus continue to be a little better day by day; and do not let your life wear away without accomplishing good to others as well as to ourselves.”

Lorenzo Snow  |  Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, p. 103

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“I know that those who use the cliche about the gospel being more “true” than the Church want the term gospel to mean a perfect system of revealed commandments based in principles that infallibly express the natural laws of the universe. But even revelation is, in fact, merely the best understanding the Lord can give us of those things. And, as God himself has clearly insisted, that understanding is far from perfect. He re­minds us, in the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants, “Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known” (D&C 1:24-25). This is a remarkably complete and sobering inventory of the problems involved in putting God’s knowledge of the universe into human language and then having it understood. It should make us careful about claiming too much for “the gospel,” which is not the perfect principles or natural laws themselves—or God’s perfect knowledge of those things—but is merely the closest approximation that in­spired but limited mortals can receive.”

Eugene English  |  Why the Church Is As True As the Gospel

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“The miracle of the Atonement can make up for imperfections in our performance.”

Elder Gary E. Stevenson

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Spencer W. Kimball Portrait

“Our vision is completely obscured when we have no mirror to hold up to our own faults and look only for the foibles of others. When we follow the instructions of the Lord, we are kept so busy perfecting ourselves that we come to realize that the faults of others are small in comparison.”

Spencer W. Kimball  |  The Miracle of Forgiveness

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“We have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing God means to make us.”

CS Lewis  |  Mere Christianity

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It’s impossible to live a perfect life. Only one man was able to live perfectly while dwelling on this telestial planet. That was Jesus Christ. Although we may not be perfect, brothers and sisters, we can be worthy: worthy to partake of the sacrament, worthy of temple blessings, and worthy to receive personal revelation.

Becky Craven  |  Careful versus Casual

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“I do not expect that any of us will ever become in mortality quite so perfect as God is perfect; but in the spheres in which we are called to act, and according to the capacity and breadth of intelligence that we possess, in our sphere and in the exercise of the talent, the ability and intelligence that God has given to us, we may become as perfect in our sphere as God is perfect in His higher and more exalted sphere. I believe that.”

Joseph Fielding Smith  |  Conference Report, April 1915, p. 140

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“Sometime in the eternities to come, we will see that our trials were calculated to cause us to turn to our Heavenly Father for strength and support. Any affliction or suffering we are called upon to bear may be directed to give us experience, refinement, and perfection.”

Delbert L. Stapley  |  "The Blessings of Righteous Obedience", Ensign, Nov. 1977

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