Mormon Musings

Our eventual place in eternity turns on whether our knees bend or shake and what we think and do in daily life. Neal A. Maxwell  

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

 

"We want our children and their children to know that the choice in life is not between fame and obscurity, nor is the choice of life between wealth and poverty.  The choice is between good and evil, and that is a very different matter indeed.   When we finally understand this lesson, thereafter our happiness will not be determined by material things.  We may be happy without them or successful in spite of them.  Wealth and prominence do not always come from having earned them.  Our worth is not measured by renown or by what we own...Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices.  Over the years these little choices will bundle together and show clearly what we value.  The crucial test of life, I repeat, does not center in the choice between fame and obscurity, nor between wealth and poverty.  The greatest decision of life is between good and evil."  President Boyd K. Packer, October 1980 GC

Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors. But God is not interested in His children just becoming trained and obedient “pets” who will not chew on His slippers in the celestial living room. No, God wants His children to grow up spiritually and join Him in the family business.... Lucifer is this accuser. He spoke against us in the premortal existence, and he continues to denounce us in this life. He seeks to drag us down. He wants us to experience endless woe. He is the one who tells us we are not adequate, the one who tells us we are not good enough, the one who tells us there is no recovery from a mistake. He is the ultimate bully, the one who kicks us when we are down. If Lucifer were teaching a child to walk and the child stumbled, he w

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”  ―  C.S. Lewis ,  The Great Divorce

Perhaps, brothers and sisters, what we brought with us as intelligences into our creation as spirit children constitutes a “given” within which even God must work. Add to that possibility the clear reality of God’s deep commitment to our free agency—and we begin to see how essential meekness is! We need to learn so much, and yet we are free to choose (see 2 Nephi 2:27)! How crucial it is to be teachable! There “is no other way” in which God could do what He has declared it is His intent to do. No wonder He and His prophets emphasize meekness time and time again! Since God desired to have us become like Himself, He first had to make us free, to learn, to choose, and to experience; hence our humility and teachability are premiere determinants of our progress and our happiness. Agency is essential to perfectibility, and meekness is essential to the wise use of agency—and to our recovery when we have misused our agency. Let us not brush by this developmental premise. The scripture

 30 And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.  31 He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you. Helaman 14:30-31

Aristotle said, “For what it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.” Aristotle,  Nicomachean Ethics,  book 3, chapter 5.

Chemists who are familiar with analyzing matter, inform you that the globe we inhabit is composed of small particles, so small that they cannot be seen with the unaided natural eye, and that one of these small particles may be divided into millions of parts, each part so minute as to be indiscernible by the aid of the finest microscopes.  So the walk of man is made up of acts performed from day to day.  It is the aggregate of the acts which I perform through life that makes up the conduct that will be exhibited in the day of judgment, and when the books are opened, there will be the life which I have lived for me to look upon, and there also will be the acts of your lives to look upon.  Do you not know that the building up of the Kingdom of God, the gathering of Israel, is to be done by little acts?  You breathe one breath at a time; each moment is set apart to its act, and each act to its moment.  It is the moments and the little acts that make the sum of the life of man.  Let every

"Man was also in the beginning with God.  Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.  All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence." D&C 93:29-30

http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2004_06_08_Christensen.htm

The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“If I do not know the will of my Father, and what He requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in my life, or in regard to my own course, or that of my friends, my family, my children, or those that I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that my judgement will teach me, He is bound to own and honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.”  Brigham Young

"Please understand that having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and keeping His commandments are and always will be the defining test of mortality." —Quentin L. Cook, " In Tune with the Music of Faith "

All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not. The devil has no power over us only as we permit him; the moment we revolt at anything which comes from God, the devil takes power. --Joseph Smith

...men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man.  And they are free to chose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to chose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. 2 Nephi 2:27

Like it or not, therefore, reality requires that we acknowledge our responsibility for our desires.   Brothers and sisters, which do we really desire: God's plans for us or Satan's [plans for us]?    Righteous desires need to be relentless, therefore, because, said President Brigham Young "the men and women to desire to obtain seats in the Celestial Kingdom will find that they must battle every day."   Therefore, true Christian Soldiers are more than mere weekend warriors.   Elder Neal A. Maxwell