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A periodic tune-up of our personal priorities and a regular safety inspection of the direction and desired destination of our lives help insure us against major temporal, emotional, and spiritual breakdowns.
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We may unintentionally hold up our own or another's well-intended behavior as the standard to meet, rather than the Lord's gentle, steady, and compassionate guidelines and commandments.
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We cannot find the kingdom of God simply by looking for it externally, because if we do not carry it within, it will not be recognizable without.
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It is imperative to personal peace and family harmony that we recognize that even our service in the Church should never become a means of neglecting our more eternal personal and family responsibilities.
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Any divine communication from God to man is called revelation. Revelation comes in many different forms. All true revelation comes by the power of the Spirit of God. By this power, the Almighty speaks to our minds and hearts (D&C 8:2).
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We should remember the wise adage that goals or commandments, in this case are stars to guide us and not sticks with which to beat ourselves.
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Because we do not understand all the circumstances surrounding someone's suicide, the level of the person's accountability, and the penalty that the Lord, in his infinite love and wisdom, may see fit to inflict upon the person, we must avoid judgment. Regardless of those circumstances and the Lord's divinely imposed punishment, followers of Christ are to be loving and compassionate to those who are hurt by the act of suicide.
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The organization of the Church should free us to express ourselves in infinite variations within the eternal guidelines that will keep us safe from self-destruction.
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The Lord never deserts His children. Yet sometimes, like a parent teaching a toddler to walk, He steps back and holds out His arms to see if we can come to Him on our own, thus enhancing our own abilities and understanding.
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Mercy is compassion, kindness, empathy, forgiveness. While grace might be described as blessings and favor from God that we do not necessarily deserve, mercy represents not receiving what we do deserve because of the patience, love, and atonement of the Master.
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We must remember that much spiritual growth does not occur suddenly but rather through time and experience. The encouraging message of the gospel is that God does not often require us to perform sensational or extraordinary deeds but rather to try to do better today than we did yesterday. He is mindful of our desires, our determination, and our direction as well as of our deeds.
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In the scriptures the term light-mindedness means making light of sacred things or not taking seriously those eternally significant things that should be treated with reverence (D&C 84:54).
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Whatever worldly thing we may covet-zealously striving to obtain and then retain-never seems to bring an end to our desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment. . . . Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When "all we've ever wanted" is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough!
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Keeping the daily demands of life in balance is one of the great tasks of mortality. There is no peace for those whose lives are out of balance temporally or spiritually.
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Teaching our children to live a quiet, sane, and balanced life is one of the most important parental tasks of our day.
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We don't have to pretend that the sun is shining when it isn't, but we must never give up hope that it will shine again.
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...the Church is a purely volunteer organization. No member has to do anything he or she doesn't choose to do.
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The Church, with all of its programs and activities, is a resource for families and must never become a substitute for, or even a roadblock to, the eternal family unit.
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