Sunday, February 26, 2006

Church Publications (HTML): "%u201CIf you will that I give unto you a place in the celestial world, you must prepare yourselves by doing the things which I have commanded you and required of you.%u201D (D&C 78:7.)

It is our privilege to consecrate our time, talents, and means to build up his kingdom. We are called upon to sacrifice, in one degree or another, for the furtherance of his work. Obedience is essential to salvation; so, also, is service; and so, also, are consecration and sacrifice.

It is our privilege to raise the warning voice to our neighbors and to go on missions and offer the truths of salvation to our Father%u2019s other children everywhere. We can respond to calls to serve as bishops, as Relief Society presidents, as home teachers, and in any of hundreds of positions of responsibility in our various church organizations. We can labor on welfare projects, engage in genealogical research, perform vicarious ordinances in the temples.

We can pay an honest tithing and contribute to our fast offering, welfare, budget, building, and missionary funds. We can bequeath portions of our assets and devise portions of our properties to the Church when we pass on to other spheres.

We can consecrate a portion of our time to systematic study, to becoming gospel scholars, to treasuring up the revealed truths which guide us in paths of truth and righteousness.

And the fact that faithful members of the Church do all these things is one of the great evidences of the divinity of the work. Where else do the generality of the members of any church pay a full tithing? Where is there a people whose congregations have one and two and three percent of their number out in volunteer, self-supporting missionary work at all times? Where does any people as a whole build temples or operate welfare projects as we do? And where is there so much unpaid teaching and church administration?"

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