Personal Revelation

LDS Quotes on Personal Revelation

Neal A. Maxwell Headshot

“Petitioning in prayer has taught me, again and again, that the vault of heaven with all its blessings is to be opened only by a combination lock. One tumbler falls when there is faith, a second when there is personal righteousness; the third and final tumbler falls only when what is sought is, in God’s judgment – not ours – right for us. Sometimes we pound on the vault door for something we want very much and wonder why the door does not open. We would be very spoiled children if that vault door opened any more easily than it does. I can tell, looking back, that God truly loves me by inventorying the petitions He has refused to grant me. Our rejected petitions tell us much about ourselves but also much about our flawless Father. By inventorying our insights, from time to time, it will surprise us what the Lord has done in teaching us. What we have learned in the past can help us to persist in the present. By tallying the truths and keeping such before us, we can also avoid lapsed literacy in spiritual things. If we will let Him, the Holy Ghost will bring all the important insights to our remembrance.”

Elder Neal A. Maxwell  |  “Insights,” New Era, April 1978, p. 6

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Elder Jeffery R. Holland of the LDS church

“Remember the real thing. Remember how urgently you have needed help in earlier times and that you got it. The Red Sea will open to the honest seeker of revelation. The adversary does not have power to hedge up the way, to marshal Pharaoh’s forces and dog our escape right to the water’s edge, but he can’t produce the real thing. He cannot conquer if we will it otherwise. “Exerting all our powers to call upon God,” the light will again come, the darkness will again retreat, the safety will again be sure. That is lesson number one about crossing the Red Sea, your Red Seas, by the spirit of revelation.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland  |  Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence, BYUDA 3/99

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“The pattern of our lives determines our eligibility to receive the promptings of the Spirit and to hear the answers to our prayers. Again, let there be no misunderstanding. Heavenly Father does answer our prayers, but often we aren’t prepared to hear him. Some are answered immediately, but some do take longer, and that’s where we may become discouraged.”

H. Burke Peterson  |  “Prayer – Try Again,” Ensign, June 1981, p. 72

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I promise you that, with increased attendance in the temples of our God, you shall receive increased personal revelation to bless your life as you bless those who have died.”

Ezra Taft Benson  |  "The Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants"

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“As a boy … I would frequently … ask the Lord to show me some marvelous thing, in order that I might receive a testimony. But the Lord withheld marvels from me, and showed me the truth, line upon line …, until He made me to know the truth from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and until doubt and fear had been absolutely purged from me. He did not have to send an angel from the heavens to do this, nor did He have to speak with the trump of an archangel. By the whisperings of the still small voice of the spirit of the living God, He gave to me the testimony I possess. And by this principle and power He will give to all the children of men a knowledge of the truth that will stay with them, and it will make them to know the truth, as God knows it, and to do the will of the Father as Christ does it. And no amount of marvelous manifestations will ever accomplish this.”

Joseph Fielding Smith  |  Conference Report, Apr. 1900, 40–41

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“As we strive to align our attitudes and actions with righteousness, then the Holy Ghost becomes for us today what the Liahona was for Lehi and his family in their day. The very factors that caused the Liahona to work for Lehi will likewise invite the Holy Ghost into our lives. And the very factors that caused the Liahona not to work anciently will likewise cause us to withdraw ourselves from the Holy Ghost today.”

Elder David A. Bednar  |  Conference Report, April 2006

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Michelle Craig

As you use your agency to carve out time every day to draw close to God’s voice, especially in the Book of Mormon, over time His voice will become clearer and more familiar to you.

Michelle Craig  |  Spiritual Capacity

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Richard G. Scott Portrait

“It is a mistake to assume that every prayer we offer will be answered immediately…He wants us to act to gain needed experience.

“When He answers yes, it is to give us confidence.

“When He answers no, it is to prevent error.

“When He withholds an answer, it is to have us grow through faith in Him, obedience to His commandments, and a willingness to act on truth. We are expected to assume accountability by acting on a decision that is consistent with His teachings without prior confirmation. We are not to sit passively waiting or to murmur because the Lord has not spoken. We are to act.”

Richard G. Scott  |  Learning to Recognize Answers to Prayer

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“The majority of the revelations which are given to the children of God come when they are acting, not when they are relaxing in their habitations waiting for the Lord to tell them the first step they should make.”

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

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Is good conscience important? It is a prize beyond expression! And conscience is more than a local standard or the accumulation of the mores and traditions of a community or a society or a generation. Whatever else it is, it is the voice of God speaking to us, inspiring moral obligation. Washington called it “that little spark of celestial fire.” It is true that we can desensitize our conscience, as it were. In the Book of Mormon we read of a group to whom God had spoken “in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling” (1 Ne. 17:45). It is also said that there are those who have become “dead as to things pertaining unto righteousness” (Alma 5:42). As we can desensitize a conscience, so to speak, so we can prepare ourselves better to hear the voice of the Lord by stripping off what the poet called the layers of “muddy vesture and decay,” by ceasing to sin and learning to obey. There is the privilege of learning true values and living to them.

Marion D. Hanks  |  “Thank God It Can Be Done in My Time”

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