Strengthen Yourself First

 Strengthen Yourself First

“He positively and promptly closed the discussion, and commanded: ‘Get thee hence, Satan,’ meaning, likely, ‘Get out of my sight—get out of my presence—I will not listen—I will have nothing to do with you.’ Then, we read, ‘the devil leaveth him.’ [Matthew 4:10–11.]

“This is our proper pattern, if we would prevent sin rather than be faced with the much more difficult task of curing it. As I study the story of the Redeemer and his temptations, I am certain he spent his energies fortifying himself against temptation rather than battling with it to conquer it.”

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball (2006), 108.

Attitude About Going to Church

 

The Need for a Church

By President Dallin H. Oaks

First Counselor in the First Presidency

Some say that attending church meetings is not helping them. Some say, “I didn’t learn anything today” or “No one was friendly to me” or “I was offended.” Personal disappointments should never keep us from the doctrine of Christ, who taught us to serve, not to be served.⁷ With this in mind, another member described the focus of his Church attendance:

“Years ago, I changed my attitude about going to church. No longer do I go to church for my sake, but to think of others. I make a point of saying hello to people who sit alone, to welcome visitors, … to volunteer for an assignment. …

“In short, I go to church each week with the intent of being active, not passive, and making a positive difference in people’s lives.”⁸

President Spencer W. Kimball taught that “we do not go to Sabbath meetings to be entertained or even solely to be instructed. We go to worship the Lord. It is an individual responsibility. … If the service is a failure to you, you have failed. No one can worship for you; you must do your own waiting upon the Lord.”⁹

Church attendance can open our hearts and sanctify our souls.

Integrity

 

Integrity: A Christlike Attribute

By Elder Jack N. Gerard

Of the Seventy

Integrity means we do not lower our standards or behavior to impress or to be accepted by others....

President Spencer W. Kimball taught, “Integrity” is our “willingness and ability to live by our beliefs and commitments.”

A life of integrity requires us to first and foremost be true to God....

Exercising integrity in our choices is an outward expression of an inner commitment to follow the Savior Jesus Christ....

Saying we have integrity is insufficient if our actions are inconsistent with our words...

Acting with integrity builds faith and trust and reassures others that we seek only to do the will of the Lord.

Through Another Person...

 " God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other." Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, Oct. 1985).

Journals

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) described that process of inspired writing: “Those who keep a book of remembrance are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives. Journals are a way of counting our blessings and of leaving an inventory of these blessings for our posterity.”

Spencer W. Kimball, “Listen to the Prophets,” Ensign, May 1978, 77.

Journal

"Get a notebook ... a journal that will last through all time, and maybe the angels may quote from it for eternity. Begin today and write in it your goings and comings, your deepest thoughts, your achievements and your failures, your associations, and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. Remember the Savior chastised those who failed to record important events."

Spencer W. Kimball

Oil to Our Lamps

"Attendance at sacrament meetings adds oil to our lamps, drop by drop over the years. Fasting, family prayer, home teaching, control of bodily appetites, preaching the gospel, studying the scriptures -- each act of dedication and obedience is a drop added to our store. Deeds of kindness, payment of offerings and tithes, chaste thoughts and actions, marriage in the covenant for eternity - these too, contribute importantly to the oi with which we can at midnight refuel our exhausted lamps."

Spencer W. Kimball

Quick to Forgive

Quick to Forgive

Photograph of Spencer W. Kimball by Eldon K. Linschoten

“Marriage partners must be quick to forgive. If we will sue for peace, taking the initiative in settling differences—if we forgive and forget with all our hearts … if we forgive all real or fancied offenses before we ask forgiveness for our own sins—if we pay our own debts, large or small, before we press our debtors—if we manage to clear our own eyes of the blinding beams before we magnify the motes in the eyes of others—what a glorious world this would be! Divorce would be reduced to a minimum; courts would be freed from disgusting routines; family life would be heavenly; the building of the kingdom would go forward at an accelerated pace; and the peace which passeth understanding would bring to us all a joy and happiness which has hardly ‘entered into the heart of man.’”

The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball (1982), 242.

Feed Your Marriage

“The tender flower would wither and die without food and water. And so love, also, cannot be expected to last forever unless it is continually fed with portions of love, the manifestation of esteem and admiration, the expressions of gratitude, and the consideration of unselfishness.”

Spencer W. Kimball, “Marriage and Divorce,” 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year (1977), 150.

Record the Story of Your Life

 “What could you do better for your children and your children’s children than to record the story of your life, your triumphs over adversity, your recovery after a fall, your progress when all seemed black, your rejoicing when you had finally achieved?”

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), “President Kimball Speaks Out on Personal Journals,” Ensign, Dec. 1980, 61.

Articulate to Jennifer

Turn On Your Light

By Sharon Eubank

First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency

Let me quote a little of what President Kimball said:

“Finally, my dear sisters, may I suggest to you something that has not been said before or at least in quite this way. Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world … will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.

“Among the real heroines in the world who will come into the Church are women who are more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish. These real heroines have true humility, which places a higher value on integrity than on visibility. …

“… It will be … female exemplars of the Church [who] will be a significant force in both the numerical and the spiritual growth of the Church in the last days.”3

....Being articulate means to clearly express how you feel about something and why.

Each of us needs to be better at articulating the reasons for our faith. How do you feel about Jesus Christ? Why do you stay in the Church? Why do you believe the Book of Mormon is scripture? Where do you get your peace? Why does it matter that the prophet has something to say in 2017? How do you know he is a real prophet? Use your voice and your power to articulate what you know and feel—on social media, in quiet conversations with your friends, when you’re chatting with your grandchildren. Tell them why you believe, what it feels like, if you ever doubted, how you got through it, and what Jesus Christ means to you. 

There is an energy that comes from happiness and optimism that doesn’t just bless us—it builds everyone around us. Any small thing you do to light real happiness in others shows that you are already carrying the torch that President Kimball lit.

• JUNE 2016
• THE WHAT AND WHY AND HOW OF BEARING A TESTIMONY

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The What and Why and How of Bearing a Testimony

By President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985)

Twelfth President of the Church

From “President Kimball Speaks Out on Testimony,” New Era, Aug. 1981, 4–7; capitalization standardized.

Testimony meetings are some of the best meetings in the ward in the whole month, if you have the Spirit. If you are bored at a testimony meeting, there is something the matter with you, and not the other people. You can get up and bear your testimony and you think it is the best meeting in the month; but if you sit there and count the grammatical errors and laugh at the man who can’t speak very well, you’ll be bored, and on that board you’ll slip right out of the kingdom. …

Don’t you ever worry about triteness in testimony.

A testimony is not an exhortation; a testimony is not a sermon (none of you are there to exhort the rest); it is not a travelogue. You are there to bear your own witness. It is amazing what you can say in 60 seconds by way of testimony, or 120, or 240, or whatever time you are given, if you confine yourselves to testimony. We’d like to know how you feel. Do you love the work, really? Are you happy in your work? Do you love the Lord? Are you glad that you are a member of the Church?

You bear your testimony. And one minute is long enough to bear it.

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A Prophet Testifies

A Prophet Testifies

“[The Book of Mormon] is the word of God. It is a powerful second witness of Christ. And, certainly, all true believers who love the Redeemer will welcome additional evidence of his divinity.

“This inspiring book was never tampered with by unauthorized translators or biased theologians but comes to the world pure and directly from the historians and abridgers. The book is not on trial—its readers are.”

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball (1982), 133.

Idols

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught that idols can include credentials, degrees, property, homes, furnishings, and other material objects. He said that when we elevate these otherwise worthy objectives in a way that diminishes our worship of the Lord and weakens our efforts to establish His righteousness and perform the work of salvation among Father in Heaven’s children, we have created idols.

See Spencer W. Kimball, “The False Gods We Worship,”Ensign, June 1976, 2–6.

Refusing to Have Children

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) said, “It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so.”

Spencer W. Kimball, “Fortify Your Homes against Evil,” Ensign, May 1979, 6.

The Sabbath is a Holy Day

 “The Sabbath is . . . a day for consistent attendance at meetings for the worship of the Lord, drinking at the fountain of knowledge and instruction, enjoying the family, and finding uplift in music and song.

“The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things . . . To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, writing letters to missionaries taking a nap, reading wholesome material, and attending all the meetings.”

Spencer W. Kimball 

Sister Scriptorians

President Spencer W. Kimball asked us to become “sister scriptorians.” He said: “Become scholars of the scriptures—not to put others down, but to lift them up! After all, who has any greater need to ‘treasure up’ the truths of the gospel (on which they may call in their moments of need) than do women and mothers who do so much nurturing and teaching?”

Spencer W. Kimball, in Daughters in My Kingdom, 50. 

Inheriting our Kingdom

 “An older couple retired from the world of work and also, in effect, from the Church. They purchased a pickup truck and camper and . . . set out to see the world. . . . They had no time for the temple, were too busy for genealogical research and for missionary service. He lost contact with his high priests quorum and was not home enough to work on his personal history. Their experience and leadership were sorely needed in their branch, but . . . they were not available. . . .

“If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit.”

President Spencer W. Kimball, “Worship the True and Living God,” Ensign, June 2013, 11.

A Poor Exchange

“One man I know of was called to a position of service in the Church, but he felt that he couldn’t accept because his investments required more . . . of his time than he could spare for the Lord’s work. He left the service of the Lord in search of Mammon, and he is a millionaire today.

“But I recently learned an interesting fact: If a man owns a million dollars worth of gold . . . , he possesses approximately one 27-billionth of all the gold that is present in the earth’s thin crust alone. This is an amount so small in proportion as to be inconceivable to the mind of man. But there is more to this: The Lord who created and has power over all the earth created many other earths as well, even “worlds without number” (Moses 1:33); and when this man received the oath and covenant of the priesthood (see D&C 84:33-34), he received a promise from the Lord of “all that my Father hath” (D&C 84: 38). To set aside all these great promises in favor of a chest of gold and a sense of carnal security is a mistake in perspective of colossal proportions. To think that he has settled for so little is a saddening and pitiful prospect indeed; the souls of men are for more precious than this.”

President Spencer W. Kimball, “Worship the True and Living God,” Ensign, June 2013, 10-11.

Rediscovering the Scriptures

“I am convinced that each of us, at some time in our lives, must discover the scriptures for ourselves—and not just discover them once, but rediscover them again and again.”

President Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball (2006), 62.