I wish I could help everyone to understand this one simple fact: we believe in God because of things we know with our heart and mind, not because of things we do not know. Our spiritual experiences are sometimes too sacred to explain in worldly terms, but that doesn't mean they are not real.

No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love God! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we think and do. What we think and do determines who we are - and who we will become.

This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God.

Throughout our lives, God's grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves.

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior's Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly.

Satan tries to counterfeit the work of God, and by doing this, he may deceive many. To make us lose hope, feel miserable like himself, and believe that we are beyond forgiveness, Satan might even misuse words from the scriptures that emphasize the justice of God in order to imply that there is no mercy.

When I study and ponder moral agency and its eternal consequences, I realize that we are truly spirit children of God and therefore should act accordingly.

I suppose the Church would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and His doctrine is pure. But He works through us - His imperfect children - and imperfect people make mistakes.

I count Joseph Smith among those whose testimony of Christ helped me to develop my own testimony of the Savior. Before I recognized the tutoring of the Spirit testifying to me that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, my youthful heart felt that he was a friend of God and would therefore, quite naturally, also be a friend of mine.

The Book of Mormon is a second witness of Jesus Christ and a manifestation of the truthfulness of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I love the Prophet Joseph. I love President Gordon B. Hinckley, who is the prophet of God and holds all the keys of the kingdom at this time, keys which prophets have held in uninterrupted succession since Joseph Smith.

God our Heavenly Father knows us by name. Jesus Christ lives; He is the Messiah. He loves us. The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real; it brings immortality to all and opens the door to eternal life.

I am grateful that early in my life I was blessed with a simple faith that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that he saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, in a vision. He translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God. That testimony has been confirmed to me over and over again.

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray.

God wants to use us as He used His own Son

Have I allowed my personal human life to become a 'Bethlehem' for the Son of God?

The marvel of the Redemptive Reality of God is that the worst and the vilest can never get to the bottom of His Love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but to "to reveal His Son in me

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilitie s on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is.

Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God.

We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins.

The touchstone of the Holy Spirit’s work in us is the answer to our Lord’s question: “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?” Our Lord makes human destiny depend on that one thing, Who men say He is, because the revelation of Who Jesus is is only given by the Holy Spirit.

The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His life in you? Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, 'Follow Me.'

There is no need to be longwinded as a pastor, but there is a difference between being longwinded and preaching for a long time. Preachers should be conscious of time because God does everything in decency and order; nonetheless, God's word is not on the clock!

God is being taken out of schools; children are not being raised in church learning the word; many parents are living lives unto themselves, exalting substance rather than Jesus Christ, and those looking for answers are going to church and finding the word is not being preached. There are consequences to these decisions.