Remedy for Selfishness

 Our Savior, Jesus Christ, is our ultimate role model. We will be blessed if we model our lives after His teachings and self-sacrifice. Following Christ and giving ourselves in service to one another is the best remedy for the selfishness and individualism that now seem to be so common.

The Family-Centered Gospel of Jesus Christ

October 2025

General Conference

Dallin H. Oaks

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/10/58oaks?lang=eng&verse=#p

He never allowed anger to inflame His heart, nor did aggressive, offensive, or profane words escape His lips

 Jesus Christ, the greatest of all, suffered for us until He bled from every pore, yet He never allowed anger to inflame His heart, nor did aggressive, offensive, or profane words escape His lips, even amid such affliction. With perfect temperance and unmatched meekness,

Adorned with the Virtue of Temperance

October 2025

General Conference

Ulisses Soares

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/10/43soares?lang=eng&verse=#p

In intelligence and performance, He far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live!

 In the sweeping vision of the universe He gave to Abraham (see Abraham 3), the premortal Christ taught personally about His knowledge and intelligence in comparison with all of the rest of our Heavenly Father’s spirit children. He declared, “I am more intelligent than they all” (Abraham 3:19). Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum the Twelve Apostles helped us appreciate the deep significance of this stunning truth when he explained:

“He is utterly incomparable in what He is, what He knows, what He has accomplished, and what He has experienced. …

“In intelligence and performance, He far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live!”

Elder Maxwell also observed, “Yet, movingly, He calls us His friends.”

The Book of Abraham: A Most Remarkable Gift for Our Time, By Andrew C. Skinner,

Professor Emeritus of Ancient Scripture, Brigham Young University

It Turned on Jesus' Spiritual Submissiveness

The wondrous and glorious Atonement was the central act in all of human history. It was the hinge on which all else that finally matters turned. But it turned upon Jesus’ spiritual submissiveness!

May we now, in our time and turn, be “willing to submit” (Mosiah 3:19).
Neal A. Maxwell, April 1985 General Conference, "Willing to Submit"

My thoughts:  Our destiny hinges on our spiritual submissiveness.

Beautiful Teachings on the Atonement Event

The cumulative weight of all mortal sins—past, present, and future—pressed upon that perfect, sinless, and sensitive Soul! All our infirmities and sicknesses were somehow, too, a part of the awful arithmetic of the Atonement. (See Alma 7:11–12; Isa. 53:3–5; Matt. 8:17.) The anguished Jesus not only pled with the Father that the hour and cup might pass from Him, but with this relevant citation. “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.” (Mark 14:35–36.)

Had not Jesus, as Jehovah, said to Abraham, “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” (Gen. 18:14.) Had not His angel told a perplexed Mary, “For with God nothing shall be impossible”? (Luke 1:37; see also Matt. 19:28;Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.)

Jesus’ request was not theater!

In this extremity, did He, perchance, hope for a rescuing ram in the thicket? I do not know. His suffering—as it were, enormity multiplied by infinity—evoked His later soul-cry on the cross, and it was a cry of forsakenness. (See Matt. 27:46.)

Even so, Jesus maintained this sublime submissiveness, as He had in Gethsemane: “Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:39.)

While bearing our sins, our infirmities, our sicknesses, and bringing to pass the Atonement (see Alma 7:11–12), Jesus became the perfect Shepherd, making these lines of Paul’s especially relevant and reassuring: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Rom. 8:35.)

Neal A. Maxwell, April 1985 General Conference, "Willing to Submit"

That is where Church leaders stand today – holding firm to the doctrinal position of right and wrong, while extending love to all people.

The vast majority of Church members understand that there has been no doctrinal change with regard to LGBT issues.  Church doctrine is consistent with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. There is a strong tendency today for many to talk of Jesus Christ as if His teachings on love were somehow inconsistent with his teachings on divine commandments. Of course the Savior’s love was never withheld from anyone and His words on the cross exemplify that. But, He also expressed love by teaching clear doctrine and standing firmly against sin with sometimes-tough lessons for which people rejected Him. That is where Church leaders stand today – holding firm to the doctrinal position of right and wrong, while extending love to all people. Church members who believe in modern prophets and apostles understand and appreciate the intent of their leaders to guide the Church through the complexities of diverse societies and rapidly changing social circumstances.

newsroom.lds.org, Commentary, Understanding the Handbook November 13, 2015

Obedience Makes Us Progressively Stronger

Obedience makes us progressively stronger, capable of faithfully enduring tests and trials in the future. Obedience in Gethsemane prepared the Savior to obey and endure to the end on Golgotha.

For Example

The scriptures are full of examples of prophets who have learned the lessons of obedience by their own experience.
Joseph Smith was taught the consequences for yielding to the pressures of his benefactor, friend, and scribe Martin Harris. In response to Martin’s pleas, Joseph asked the Lord for permission to loan the first 116 manuscript pages of the Book of Mormon so that Martin could show them to his family, but the Lord told Joseph to say no. Martin pleaded with Joseph to ask the Lord again. After Joseph’s third request the Lord gave permission for five specific people to review the manuscript. “In a most solemn covenant Martin bound himself to this agreement. When he arrived home, and pressure was brought to bear upon him, he forgot his solemn oath and permitted others to view the manuscript, with the result that by stratagem it passed out of his hands,”15 and it was lost. As a consequence, Joseph was rebuked by the Lord and was denied permission to continue to translate the Book of Mormon. Joseph suffered and repented of his transgression of yielding to the pressures of others. After a season, Joseph was allowed to resume his translation work. Joseph learned a valuable lesson of obedience that served him the rest of his life!

“IF YE LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS” By Elder Robert D. HalesOf the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles - April 2014

What Would Jesus Do?

We are at a time in the history of the world and the growth of the Church when we must think more of holy things and act more like the Savior would expect his disciples to act. We should at every opportunity ask ourselves, “What would Jesus do?” and then act more courageously upon the answer. 

 October 1994 "Follow The Son Of God"  Howard W. Hunter

What Was Gentle In the Lowlands of Initial Loyalty Becomes Deeply Strenuous and Very Demanding at the Summit of True Discipleship

Obviously as the path of discipleship ascends, that trail gets ever more narrow until we come to that knee-buckling pinnacle... “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”¹³ What was gentle in the lowlands of initial loyalty becomes deeply strenuous and very demanding at the summit of true discipleship. Clearly anyone who thinks Jesus taught no-fault theology did not read the fine print in the contract! No, in matters of discipleship the Church is not a fast-food outlet; we can’t always have it “our way.” Some day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ and that salvation can only come His way. ¹⁴

Jeffrey R. Holland, "An Ensign To The Nations",General Conference  April 2011

He invites us to take upon us His name and His nature.

“To be, or not to be” is actually a very good question.¹ The Savior posed the question in a far more profound way, making it a vital doctrinal question for each of us: “What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27; emphasis added). The first-person present tense of the verb be is I Am. He invites us to take upon us His name and His nature.

Lynn G. Robbins, "What Manner Of Men And Women Ought Ye To Be?",General Conference  April 2011 

Too Hurried to Serve

Let me illustrate this with a story from the Church News:
“A group of religion instructors [were] taking a summer course on the life of the Savior and focusing particularly on the parables.
“When the final exam time came, … the students arrived at the classroom to find a note that the exam would be given in another building across campus. Moreover, the note said, it must be finished within the two-hour time period that was starting almost at that moment.
“The students hurried across campus. On the way they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her new bike. An old man hobbled painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand, spilling books from a stack he was trying to manage with the other. On a bench by the union building sat a shabbily dressed, bearded man [in obvious distress].
“Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced they had all flunked the final exam.
“The only true test of whether they understood the Savior’s life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need.
“Their weeks of study at the feet of a capable professor had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done.” 8 In their haste to finish the technicalities of the course, however, they failed to recognize the application represented by the three scenes that had been deliberately staged. They learned the letter but not the spirit. Their neglect of the little girl and the two men showed that the profound message of the course had not entered into their inward parts.

James E. Faust, “‘Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart’,” Ensign, May 1998, 17

Christ Was Born Into Mortality Not Only to Die for Us But To Live Like Us.

Sometimes we forget that Christ was born into mortality not only to die for us but also to live like us. He experienced his infancy, childhood, teenage years, and adulthood so that he might more fully understand the challenges associated with life spent in a world that is not our home.

Christ and the new covenant: the Messianic message of the Book of Mormon, Jeffrey R. Holland, Deseret Book Co., 1997, p.90

Spirit Over Flesh, Discipline Over Tempation, Devotion Over Inclination

Christ's final triumph and ultimate assumption of godly powers on the right hand of his Father came not because he had a divine parent and not because he was given heavenly authority from the beginning, but ultimately because he was, in his own mortal probation, perfectly obedient, perfectly submissive, perfectly loyal to the principle that the spiritual in his life must rule over the physical...spirit over flesh; discipline over temptation; devotion over inclination; "the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father."

Christ and the new covenant: the Messianic message of the Book of Mormon, Jeffrey R. Holland, Deseret Book Co., 1997, p.193

An Enormous Sense of Responsibility--Jesus Knows What That Is Like

I believe that it is instructive to try to imagine what the Atonement required of both the Father and His willing Son. Three of the challenges the Savior faced were:

First, an enormous sense of responsibility, for He realized that except it be done perfectly, not one of His Father’s children could return to Him. They would be forever banished from His presence since there would be no way to repent for broken laws and no unclean thing can exist in the presence of God. His Father’s plan would have failed, and each spirit child would have been under the eternal control and torment of Satan.

Richard G. Scott, "He Lives! All Glory to His Name!", Ensign, May 2010, 75–78

When My Body Begs for Rest, I Give to Myself This Rallying Cry: Remember Him!

When I find myself drawn away from my priesthood duties by other interests and when my body begs for rest, I give to myself this rallying cry: “Remember Him.” The Lord is our perfect example of diligence in priesthood service. He is our captain. He called us. He goes before us. He chose us to follow Him and to bring others with us.

Henry B. Eyring, "Act in All Diligence", Ensign, May 2010, 60–63

The More We Know of Jesus..The More We Will Want to Be Like Him

The more we know of Jesus, the more we will love Him. The more we know of Jesus, the more we will trust Him. The more we know of Jesus, the more we will want to be like Him and to be with Him by becoming the manner of men and women that He wishes us to be. 

Author: Neal A. Maxwell Title: Plow in Hope Where: Ensign, May 2001, 59

See also:  http://quotestokeep.blogspot.com/2022/08/process-of-emulating-jesus.html