Man unquestionably has impressive powers... But after all our obedience and good works, we cannot be saved from the effects of our sins without the grace extended by the atonement of Jesus Christ... Man cannot earn his own salvation.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the inability of individuals to achieve salvation through their own efforts alone and the necessity of divine grace.
Dallin H. Oaks expresses the idea that while humans possess great abilities and strengths, their actions and good deeds are insufficient to secure their salvation. It highlights the belief that salvation is a divine gift that comes through the atonement of Jesus Christ, rather than a result of human merit, underscoring a theological perspective on grace and redemption.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of humility and reliance on divine grace.
Tolerance obviously requires a non-contentious manner of relating toward one another’s differences. But tolerance does not require abandoning one’s standards or one’s opinions on political or public policy choices. Tolerance is a way of reacting to diversity, not a command to insulate it from examination.
I testify of our Savior, Jesus Christ, whose teachings and example we seek to follow. He invites all of us who are heavy laden to come unto Him, to learn of Him, to follow Him, and thus to find rest to our souls.
The most powerful teaching of children is by the example of their parents.
We should refrain from anything that seems to be a final judgment of any person...the Lord alone has the capacity to judge...And, in all of this we must remember the command to forgive.
In order to ask with real intent or to act with full purpose of heart, we must always make an accompanying commitment.
My single young friends, we counsel you to channel your associations with the opposite sex into dating patterns that have the potential to mature into marriage, not hanging-out patterns that only have the prospect to mature into team sports like touch football. Marriage is not a group activity—at least not until the children come along in goodly numbers
Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
We should teach general ethics to both men and women, but sexual relationships themselves must not be policed. Sex, like the city streets, would be risk-free only in totalitarian regimes.
If you look at 'The Have and the Have Nots,' I didn't want to write a show where everyone is great and wonderful and perfect. I wanted to write it so that you're not really sure who the haves are. You look at Hanna, and you see that she doesn't have much, but she has great faith.
It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in Nature and in the world of though. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
Childlessness doesn't make people selfish; selfishness makes people selfish.
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