Mormon Musings

Preach short sermons, make short prayers, and deliver your sermons with a prayerful heart. Joseph Smith

If you wish to go where God is, you must be like God, or possess the principles which God possesses, for if we are not drawing toward God in principle, we are going away from him and drawing toward the devil. Joseph Smith

God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect; and the nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater are his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin ; and like the ancients, arrives at the point in faith where he is wrapped in the power and glory of his Maker and is caught up to dwell with him. But we consider that this is a station to which no man ever arrived in a moment; he must have been instructed in the government and laws of that kingdom by proper degrees until his mind is capable in some measure of comprehending. Joseph Smith

When a man is born down with trouble when he is perplexed with care and difficulty if he can meet a smile instead of an argument or a murmur...if he can meet with mildness, it will calm down his soul and soothe his feelings; when the mind is going to despair, it needs a solace of affection and kindness. Joseph Smith

If you live up to your privilege, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates. Joseph Smith

I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them, after suffering all they have for the work of God, will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all. Joseph Smith

We are accustomed to saying that the Atonement took place in Gethsemane and on Calvary. In a literal sense this is true, since it was in the last hours of his life that Christ took upon himself the full burden and weight of the sins of the world. But the trial of Jesus in Gethsemane and on the cross would not have been possible and could not have occurred had it not been preceded by a lifetime of sinless virtue, accomplished in the face of the most vehement spiritual opposition. From his temptation in the wilderness to his rejection in Nazareth to the illegal trial before the Sanhedrin, Christ paid the price of a perfect life, walking in holy sinlessness despite adversity, physical suffering, deep sorrows, and the snares of ruthless and determined adversaries, both seen and unseen. “He suffered temptations but gave no heed unto them” (D& C 20: 22). All this he did with the knowledge that one misstep would mean creation’s doom! For had he sinned even in the smallest point or slighte