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Ironically, brothers and sisters, the natural man who is so very selfish in so many ordinary ways is strangely unselfish in that he reaches for too few of the things that bring real joy. He settles for a mess of pottage instead of eternal joy.

Neal A. Maxwell

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Neal A. Maxwell
Age: 78 †
Born: 1926
Born: July 6
Died: 2004
Died: July 21
Priest
Theologian
Salt Lake City
Utah
Neal Ash Maxwell
Real
Eternal
Strangely
Way
Brother
Reaches
Things
Instead
Sisters
Men
Joy
Settling
Bring
Brothers
Pottage
Ways
Selfish
Settles
Natural
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Ironically
Many
Ordinary
Unselfish

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Perfect love is perfectly patient.
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Men and Women of Christ magnify their callings without magnifying themselves.
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It is possible to know when, at least basically, we please God. In fact, Joseph Smith taught that one of the conditions of genuine faith is to have an actual knowledge that the course of life which [one] is pursuing is according to [God's] will.
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Meanwhile, spiritual submissiveness brings about the wiser use of our time, talents, and gifts as compared with our laboring diligently but conditionally to establish our own righteousness instead of the Lord's (D&C 1:16). After all, Lucifer was willing to work very hard, but conditionally in his own way and for his own purposes.
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Though we live in a failing world, we have not been sent here to fail.
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The mortal experience . . . is not like a college course which we can passively audit. Instead, we are taking life's course for credit and there are no summers off - not even semester breaks.
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The acceptance of the reality that we are in the Lord's loving hands is only a recognition that we have never really been anywhere else.
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For some Church members the Book of Mormon remains unread. Others use it occasionally as if it were merely a handy book of quotations. Still others accept and read it but do not really explore and ponder it. The book is to be feasted upon, not nibbled (see 2 Nephi 31:20).
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Those few members who desert the cause are abandoning an oasis to search for water in the desert.
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Life is an 'open-book' exam, but the problem is that most of the students don't have the 'book', or refuse to open it-a fact that ought to spur us on as Church members to share the gospel more widely so that life would be meaningful for more people.
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Coming unto the Lord is not a negotiation, but a surrender.
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I assume, gladly, that in the allocation to America of remarkable leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, the Lord was just as careful. After all, if you've got only one Abraham Lincoln, you'd better put him in that point in history when he's most needed-much as some of us might like to have him now.
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I thank the Father that His Only Begotten Son did not say in defiant protest at Calvary, My body is my own! I stand in admiration of women today who resist the fashion of abortion, by refusing to make the sacred womb a tomb!
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The Lord knows our bearing capacity, both as to coping and to comprehending, and He will not give us more to bear than we can manage at the moment, though to us it may seem otherwise. Just as no temptations will come to us from which we cannot escape or which we cannot bear, we will not be given more trials than we can sustain.
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The authority of example and considerations of character, unlike pudding, are not whipped up in an instant.
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In Gospel grammar, death is not an exclamation point, merely a comma.
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