“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”
| Future Mormon
Work
LDS Quotes on Work
Nikolai Berdyaev taught the same principle:
“A false interpretation of ‘good works’ leads to a complete perversion of Christianity. ‘Good works’ are regarded not as an expression of love for God and man, not as a manifestation of the gracious source that gives life to others, but as a means of salvation and justification for oneself, as a way of realizing the abstract idea of the Good and receiving a reward in the future life. ‘Good works,’ done not for the good of others, but for the good of one’s own soul, are not good at all. Where there is no love, there is no goodness. Love does not require or expect any reward, it is reward in itself, it is a ray of paradise illuminating and transfiguring reality.”
“Work is always a spiritual necessity even if, for some, work is not an economic necessity.”
| “Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel”
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
“In the game of life a second effort is often required. The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sound of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we realize that we have it. It is achieved in individuals not by flights to the moon or Mars, but by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye. Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life . . . you make it.”
| “Faces and Attitudes,” New Era, September 1977
What is faith? Faith is absolute confidence in that which is in absolute conformity to the will of heaven. When we combine that confidence with absolute action on our part, we have faith.
| “Improving our Prayers,” Ensign, March 2004, p. 27
“I can’t imagine pain greater than stepping across the veil and realizing I had not done what I came here to do – or realizing that I had given up my life to little or nothing, only then to find that it was gone.”
| No Doubt About It
“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’”
| Believing Christ
“Prepare to do work of real worth for your fellowmen. This is one of the fundamental reasons for enrollment at this institution of higher learning. The critical difference between your just hoping for good things for mankind and your being able to do good things for mankind is education.”
| "Reflections and Resolution", Speeches: Brigham Young University, Jan. 7, 2004, p. 65
It’s the job that’s never started that takes longest to finish.