Christ’s atoning power needs to be made available to God’s children. The priesthood delivers these opportunities.

F or Heavenly Father’s purposes to be accomplished, Christ’s atoning power needs to be made available to God’s children. The priesthood delivers these opportunities.

The Priesthood and the Savior’s Atoning Power

October 2017

2010–2019

Dale G. Renlund

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2017/10/the-priesthood-and-the-saviors-atoning-power?lang=eng&verse=#p

I have learned that Heavenly Father’s plan for us is fabulous,

 I have learned that Heavenly Father’s plan for us is fabulous, that what we do in this life really matters, and that the Savior’s Atonement is what makes our Father’s plan possible....Mortality is a master class in learning to choose the things of greatest eternal import. Far too many people live as though this life is all there is. However, your choices today will determine three things: where you will live throughout all eternity, the kind of body with which you will be resurrected, and those with whom you will live forever. So, think celestial.

Think Celestial!

October 2023

General Conference

Russell M. Nelson

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2023/10/51nelson?lang=eng&verse=#p

at the center of that plan is the family.

 Of course, we know that God’s will is not always accomplished “in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Mortal parenthood certainly pales in comparison to God’s ideal. He surely sees that. He must weep over all the sorrows and heartache in family relationships. And yet He has not given up on the family. And He will not, because God has a glorious plan for the eternal destiny of His children. And at the center of that plan is the family.

Jesus Christ is the Strength of Parents, Dieter F.  Uchtdorf, General Conference April 2023

The faithful who keep their covenants will have the opportunity to qualify for every promised blessing.

However, we know that in the long run, the divine purpose and plan of our loving Heavenly Father will not be changed. Personal circumstances may change, and God’s plan assures that in the long run, the faithful who keep their covenants will have the opportunity to qualify for every promised blessing.

Divine Love in the Father’s Plan

April 2022

General Conference

Dallin H. Oaks

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/04/51oaks?lang=eng&verse=#p

 Search Terms:  Wishing for marriage.  Those who do not marry.  Single Sisters, Faithful and true given blessings in the next life.  

Lucifer Was Not Volunteering to Be Our Savior

 Let it be noted that in the great premortal council, Lucifer was not volunteering to be our savior. He was not interested in suffering or dying or shedding any of his blood on our behalf. He was not seeking to become the embodiment of justice but to become a law unto himself. It is my opinion that in saying to the Father, “Give me thine honor” (Moses 4:1), Lucifer was saying, “Give me the right to rule,” intending to exercise that power capriciously. The law would be whatever he said it was at any given moment. In that way, no one could be an independent actor. Lucifer would be supreme, and no one else could advance.

Why We Need Jesus Christ

December 2020

2020

D. Todd Christofferson

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2020/12/why-we-need-jesus-christ?lang=eng&verse=#p

Along with the bright colors of happiness and joy, the darker-colored threads of trial and tragedy are woven deeply into the fabric of our Father’s plan.

We each understand that difficulties are part of life, but when they come to us personally, they can take our breath away. Without being alarmed, we need to be ready. The Apostle Peter said, “Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.” Along with the bright colors of happiness and joy, the darker-colored threads of trial and tragedy are woven deeply into the fabric of our Father’s plan. These struggles, although difficult, often become our greatest teachers.

“We will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25; see also Doctrine and Covenants 101:4–5).

Wounded

October 2018

General Conference

Neil L. Andersen

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/wounded?lang=eng&verse=#p

“Even if we have strong faith, many mountains will not be moved. … If all opposition were curtailed, if all maladies were removed, then the primary purposes of the Father’s plan would be frustrated.”

“Even if we have strong faith, many mountains will not be moved. … If all opposition were curtailed, if all maladies were removed, then the primary purposes of the Father’s plan would be frustrated.”

David A. Bednar
Accepting the Lord's Will and Timing
Ensign August 2016

Any attempt to erase divine requirements for eternal life and eternal families would be like trying to establish Satan’s plan that “all would be saved.”

Even as we unite to abandon all attitudes and practices of prejudice, we should remember that it is not prejudice for the Church to insist on certain rules in furtherance of the Lord’s requirement of worthiness to enter a temple. The Lord has declared that obedience to covenants and commandments is an essential requirement to enjoy sacred blessings. Any attempt to erase divine requirements for eternal life and eternal families would be like trying to establish Satan’s plan that “all would be saved.” In our premortal lives, we mortals already rejected Satan’s plan. We chose the plan of our Heavenly Father, which provides the freedom to choose and keep the eternal covenants and commandments that apply equally to all. The equality of God is not equal outcomes for all, but equal opportunity for all.

President Oaks Remarks at Worldwide Priesthood CelebrationBy Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, An address given at the "Be One" celebration marking the 40th anniversary celebration of the revelation on the priesthood, at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, June 1, 2018.

Premortality Was Not Altogether Pleasant and Agreeable

Trials and tribulations have been the experience of the Latter-day Saints. God so designed that it should be. I daresay that in the [premortal] spirit world, when it was proposed to us to come into this probation, and pass through the experience that we are now receiving, it was not altogether pleasant and agreeable; the prospects were not so delightful in all respects as might have been desired. Yet there is no doubt that we saw and understood clearly there that, in order to accomplish our exaltation and glory, this was a necessary experience; and however disagreeable it might have appeared to us, we were willing to conform to the will of God, and consequently we are here.

Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow [2012], 110

Repentance is His Plan

Repentance is God’s ever-accessible gift that allows and enables us to go from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm. Repentance isn’t His backup plan in the event we might fail. Repentance is His plan, knowing that we will. This is the gospel of repentance, and as President Russell M. Nelson has observed, it will be “a lifetime curriculum.”

In this lifetime curriculum of repentance, the sacrament is the Lord’s designated way of providing continual access to His forgiveness. If we partake with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, He proffers us weekly pardon as we progress from failure to failure along the covenant path. For “notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them.”

Until Seventy Times Seven, April 2018,General Conference, Lynn G. Robbins

The Joy We Feel Has Little to Do With the Circumstances of Our Lives and Everything to Do with Focus of Our Lives

My dear brothers and sisters, the joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.

When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation, which President Thomas S. Monson just taught us, and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives. Joy comes from and because of Him. He is the source of all joy. We feel it at Christmastime when we sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”9 And we can feel it all year round. For Latter-day Saints, Jesus Christ is joy!

Joy and Spiritual Survival, Russell M. Nelson, October 2016 General Conference

Marriage Between A Man and A Woman Is As Much A Part of the Plan of Happiness as the Fall and the Atonement

The social science case for marriage and for families headed by a married man and woman is compelling. And so “we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.”  But our claims for the role of marriage and family rest not on social science but on the truth that they are God’s creation. It is He who in the beginning created Adam and Eve in His image, male and female, and joined them as husband and wife to become “one flesh” and to multiply and replenish the earth. Each individual carries the divine image, but it is in the matrimonial union of male and female as one that we attain perhaps the most complete meaning of our having been made in the image of God—male and female. Neither we nor any other mortal can alter this divine order of matrimony. It is not a human invention. Such marriage is indeed “from above, from God” and is as much a part of the plan of happiness as the Fall and the Atonement.

April 2015 General Conference,Why Marriage, Why Family, Elder D. Todd Christofferson

Four Things Needed for the Success of the Plan of Salvation

At least four things are needed for the success of this divine plan:

First was the Creation of the earth as our dwelling place. Whatever the details of the creation process, we know that it was not accidental but that it was directed by God the Father and implemented by Jesus Christ—“all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Second is the condition of mortality. Adam and Eve acted for all who had chosen to participate in the Father’s great plan of happiness. Their Fall created the conditions needed for our physical birth and for mortal experience and learning outside the presence of God. With the Fall came an awareness of good and evil and the God-given power to choose. Finally, the Fall brought about physical death needed to make our time in mortality temporary so that we would not live forever in our sins.

Third is redemption from the Fall. We see the role of death in our Heavenly Father’s plan, but that plan would become void without some way to overcome death in the end, both physical and spiritual. Thus, a Redeemer, the Only Begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, suffered and died to atone for Adam and Eve’s transgression, thereby providing resurrection and immortality for all. And since none of us will have been perfectly and consistently obedient to the gospel law, His Atonement also redeems us from our own sins on condition of repentance. With the Savior’s atoning grace providing forgiveness of sins and sanctification of the soul, we can spiritually be born again and reconciled to God. Our spiritual death—our separation from God—will end.

Fourth, and finally, is the setting for our physical birth and subsequent spiritual rebirth into the kingdom of God. For His work to succeed to “[exalt us] with himself,” God ordained that men and women should marry and give birth to children, thereby creating, in partnership with God, the physical bodies that are key to the test of mortality and essential to eternal glory with Him. He also ordained that parents should establish families and rear their children in light and truth, leading them to a hope in Christ...A family built on the marriage of a man and woman supplies the best setting for God’s plan to thrive—the setting for the birth of children, who come in purity and innocence from God, and the environment for the learning and preparation they will need for a successful mortal life and eternal life in the world to come. A critical mass of families built on such marriages is vital for societies to survive and flourish. That is why communities and nations generally have encouraged and protected marriage and the family as privileged institutions. It has never been just about the love and happiness of adults.

April 2015 General Conference,Why Marriage, Why Family, Elder D. Todd Christofferson

There Are Spiritual and Physical Laws to Obey If We Are to Be Happy

“The spirit and the body are the soul of man” (D&C 88:15), and there are spiritual and physical laws to obey if we are to be happy. There are eternal laws, including laws relating to this power to give life, “irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated” (D&C 130:20). These are spiritual laws which define the moral standard for mankind (see Joseph Smith Translation, Romans 7:14–15 [in the Bible appendix];2 Nephi 2:5; D&C 29:34; 134:6). There are covenants which bind, seal, and safeguard and give promise of eternal blessings.
General Conference APRIL 2015, The Plan of Happiness,  President Boyd K. Packer

The Power of Procreation Is Not An Incidental Part of the Plan; It Is the Plan of Happiness; It is the Key to Happiness

The commandment to multiply and replenish the earth has never been rescinded. It is essential to the plan of redemption and is the source of human happiness. Through the righteous exercise of this power, we may come close to our Father in Heaven and experience a fulness of joy, even godhood. The power of procreation is not an incidental part of the plan; it is the plan of happiness; it is the key to happiness.

General Conference APRIL 2015, The Plan of Happiness,  President Boyd K. Packer

Opposition Is Not a Flaw in the Plan of Salvation; Rather an Indispensable Element

Mortality is meant to be difficult and that “opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11) is not a flaw in the plan of salvation. Opposition, rather, is the indispensable element of mortality and strengthens our will and refines our choices. The vicissitudes of life help us fashion an eternal relationship with God—and engrave His image upon our countenance as we yield our hearts to Him (see Alma 5:19).

 October 2013 Wilt Thou Be Made Whole? - Elder Timothy J. Dyches

Satan's Plan

[Satan] insisted that with his plan none would be lost, but he seemed not to recognize—or perhaps not to care—that in addition, none would be any wiser, any stronger, any more compassionate, or any more grateful if his plan were followed.

Thomas S. Monson, “The Three Rs of Choice,” Ensign, Nov 2010, 67–70

We Can Do It the Lord's Way or Go at It Alone!

We can choose to follow Heavenly Father’s eternal plan of salvation (see Jarom 1:2; Alma 42:5; Moses 6:62) and redemption (see Jacob 6:8; Alma 12:25;42:11), or we can try to find our own way.

Author: Ann M. Dibb

Title: Hold On

Where: Ensign, Nov 2009, 79–81