2025 Beacons of Light
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Called to Serve as Disciples of Jesus Christ
In the journey of discipleship we lose our old selves. The natural man and the natural woman are “put off,” and then we find ourselves having become more saintly. We see such saintliness all about us in the Church—quiet, good women and men, not particularly status-full, who are becoming saintly. This is what should be happening in the lives of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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Lord, Increase Our Faith
I am struck, brothers and sisters, by the apostolic request “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:5). As I study that expression, I find it occurred after the Twelve had already seen Jesus heal Peter’s mother-in-law, a leper, a paralytic, a withered hand, and the centurion’s servant. They had observed Jesus cast out devils, raise from the dead a widow’s son and Jairus’s daughter, still the tempest, cast out a legion of devils, feed the five thousand miraculously, and be transfigured on the Mount. Yet they still asked, “Lord, increase our faith”! That request tells us something about the nature of faith.
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“Behold, the Enemy Is Combined”
Only reform and self-restraint, institutional and individual, can finally rescue society! Only a sufficient number of sin-resistant souls can change the marketplace. As Church members, we should be part of that sin-resistant counterculture. Instead, too many members are sliding down the slope, though perhaps at a slower pace.
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Repentance
Since we have been told clearly by Jesus what manner of men and women we ought to become—even as He is (see 3 Nephi 27:27)—how can we do so, except each of us employs repentance as the regular means of personal progression? Personal repentance is part of taking up the cross daily. (See Luke 9:23.) Without it, clearly there could be no “perfecting of the Saints” (Ephesians 4:12).
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Teaching by the Spirit: The Language of Revelation
You cannot light a fire in another soul unless it is burning in your own soul. You teachers, the testimony that you bear, the spirit with which you teach and with which you lead, is one of the most important assets that you can have, as you help to strengthen those who need so much, wherein you have so much to give.
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"In Him All Things Hold Together"
I wish to talk about your unfinished journey. It is the journey of journeys and will be described quite differently this Easter night. It is an arduous journey. The trek awaits—whether one is rich or poor, short or tall, thin or fat, black or white or brown, old or young, shy or bold, married or single, a prodigal or an ever faithful.
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Become Like God and Jesus Christ
From the Maxwell Children: Elder Maxwell “was present in the upper room of the temple that early June day in 1978 when all the General Authorities gathered to receive the revelation and decision from President Spencer W. Kimball making it possible for all worthy male members to be ordained to the priesthood.” Elder Maxwell recounted, “I wept with joy that day. The handkerchief I wiped my tears with I took home and told my wife not to wash it.
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“Murmur Not”
With all of you, I express my admiration to these wonderful men who are being released and whose status is being adjusted. They were exemplary at the time of their calls; they are even more so today. They are portable sermons for us all. My sermon was essentially prepared in June. It is for myself as well as for the members of the Church.
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Great Answers to the Great Question
The Book of Mormon provides resounding and great answers to what Amulek designated as “the great question”—namely, is there really a redeeming Christ? (Alma 34:5–6). The Book of Mormon with clarity and with evidence says, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Moreover, in its recurring theme, the book even declares that “all things which have been given of God from the beginning of the world, unto man, are the typifying of [Christ]” (2 Nephi 11:4).
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Try the Virtue of the Word of God
I thank each of you for your attendance here, for the lovely invocation and the splendid music we had, and for that introduction. I’m pleased to be with you today, my sisters. Your Tolkien theme, “deep roots are not reached by the frost,” might well have had added to it, “nor are they scorched by the sun.” Jesus described the realities of that scorching sun when he talked in these terms, “and some fell upon the stony places where they had not much Earth and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of Earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away” (Matthew 13:5–6).
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Patience
I have chosen to speak today about a very pedestrian principle: patience. I hope that I do not empty the Marriott Center by that selection. Perhaps the topic was selfishly selected because of my clear and continuing need to develop further this very important attribute. But my interest in patience is not solely personal, for the necessity of having this intriguing attribute is cited several times in the scriptures, including once by King Benjamin who, when clustering the attributes of sainthood, named patience as a charter member of that cluster (Mosiah 3:19; see also Alma 7:23).
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Meeting the Challenges of Today
Often, when speaking to student leaders in higher education, I have used the analogy that—in a university—the faculty, staff, and administration are like the natives, and the students are like the tourists. In many ways, a recurring devotional speaker is more like one of the natives.
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Insights from My Life
Elder Maxwell seldom spoke autobiographically because he did not like to draw attention to himself, but members of his family encouraged him to share some personal experiences and lessons he learned from them.
Elder Maxwell was in the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy when he delivered this devotional address at Brigham Young University on October 26, 1976.
Elder Maxwell was in the Presidency of the First Quorum of the Seventy when he delivered this devotional address at Brigham Young University on October 26, 1976.
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Notwithstanding My Weakness
First, my brothers and sisters, my gratitude to the prophet and his counselors for this call. To them, to Elder Richards and the members of the First Quorum of the Seventy, I pledge that my little footnote on the page of the quorum’s history will read clearly that I wore out my life in helping to spread Jesus’ gospel and helping to regulate His church.
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Why Not Now?
My brothers and sisters, I would like to speak of and to a particular group of important individuals. These are they who fully intend, someday, to begin to believe and/or to be active in the Church. But not yet! These are not bad individuals but good individuals who simply do not know how much better they could be.
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Elder Maxwell Addresses Introduction
A few years ago, J. Spencer Fluhman, then-director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, and Elder Maxwell’s children (Cory Maxwell, Becky Maxwell Ahlander, Nancy Maxwell Anderson, and Jane Maxwell Sanders) collaborated on a volume of talks by Elder Maxwell that would allow Elder Maxwell’s words to echo through future generations. Considering over a hundred talks in a variety of settings, the family chose twenty-four talks they felt were the most incisive and enduring statements of gospel principles and of Elder Maxwell’s testimony.
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