Grace

During the Saturday evening session of general conference, the Utah Valley Institute Choir sang “Amazing Grace” as the final number. Here's another one of our favorite performances of the beloved hymn.

Bring your weirdness, your loud laugh, your jokes, your questions, your shyness, your doubts, your fidget spinners, your insecurities—come because you belong.

To be at peace with our efforts, we must learn to stop seeing our lives through a self-centric lens and start looking through a Savior-centric lens.

The Apostle Paul has some profound advice on how to prove our sincerity to the cause of Christ.

Laurel C. Day shares her experiences with God’s grace as the only way to bridge the gap between who we are and who we want to become.

“This parable makes a lot more sense when it’s about chickens,” I told Greg. “Now let’s put it back into the words of Jesus.”

It is the Lord who first enters this story. But He isn’t the one who finishes it.

Sin begins from the original assumption of guilt and concludes that suffering is deserved. Grace begins from the original reality of suffering and concludes that redemption is needed.

For the month of August, the LDS Living Book Club will be reading “Original Grace” by Adam S. Miller

For the month of April, the LDS Living Book Club will be reading “Grace to Become” by Emily Belle Freeman.

Why live a covenant life when most of the world tells you that believing in Christ is sufficient?

When we understand the relationship between Christ's grace and our own good works, religion can positively influence our lives.

The following excerpt originally ran on LDS Living in April 2017. Changed through His Grace is now available as a Pocket Gospel Classic.

Everyone has a story, a need, a lack, a place of inadequacy. I know the details of mine, and you know the details of yours. And the Lord? He knows about every story, and every dark place, and every hope and heartache and happily ever after.

A newlywed couple was discussing comfort food. The bride said, “My family loves Shepherd’s Pie.” The groom had never heard of that. He said, “One of my family’s favorites is Hamburger Bean Casserole.” The wife scrunched up her nose and responded, “I don’t think I would like that.” Little did they know that they were using different names for the exact same dish. How sad it would be if the couple began to argue about whose family’s comfort food was best!

A common distortion of the doctrine of grace is the view that the Savior extends his grace to us only after we've done all we possibly can do. It would follow then that since no one ever really does all they possibly, theoretically could have done, no one can ever really be worthy of grace either. The false logic runs like this:

While sitting in a sacrament meeting a few months ago, Sister Kathy Christofferson had an experience many members of the Church can relate to. It was fast and testimony meeting, and while many stood to share remarkable miracles and observations at the pulpit, Sister Christofferson racked her brain for something extraordinary to share—but nothing came to mind.

At the opening of the 2019 BYU Women's Conference, Sister Reyna I. Aburto, second counselor in the general Relief Society presidency, stood to quote Ether 12:16, “and even all they who wrought miracles wrought them by faith.”

One might appropriately wonder how the Atonement can be effective in the lives of mortals. Even though we seek to be worthy and to repent of our sins, in the end we are all, in one way or another, unprofitable servants (see Mosiah 2:21). Given our weakness and our recurring failings, how are we able to receive the many blessings of the Atonement in our lives? How are we able to receive of its cleansing powers, or peace, or succor, or freedom? How does the perfection and exaltation of an imperfect being come about?

"What I was left with was absolute fear and terror—a loneliness on a level I didn't know existed. I didn't even feel like a human being anymore," Kelly shares of her heartbreaking story of addiction—an addiction that eventually drove her to become a prostitute.

The concept of grace can be hard to understand. Just the word itself can have many different meanings—it can be a title, it can mean a prayer, it can denote style, refinement, or civility. It can mean different things in different religions.

I didn’t change my Facebook profile picture for eight years.

My sister-in-law Cheryl Harward Wilcox came to value the sacrament much more as she helped care for her mother, Melva, until she passed away at age 92. Melva was in the hospital in Payson, Utah, when it was decided that there was nothing more that could be done except to keep her as comfortable as possible until she passed on. As preparations were being made to transport her back to her home, two brethren from a local ward came into the room and asked Cheryl if her mother would like the sacrament. At first, Cheryl told them, “No, thank you.” Her mom could hardly swallow. Then Cheryl said, “On second thought, let me ask her.” Cheryl leaned close to her mother’s ear and said, “There are two priesthood holders here. Would you like to try to take the sacrament?”

What happens when you can no longer feel your Heavenly Parents or Savior near? When you can't feel the Spirit? When you can't find the answer to the questions troubling soul?

We don’t always count grace among the most common of Christmas gifts, but it may be one of the greatest gifts we have been given. Grace is often misunderstood and perhaps underutilized by Latter-day Saints. We are used to hearing our Christian friends and neighbors frequently speak of grace, but we may not understand what it means to us as Latter-day Saints.

In case you haven't heard the exciting news, the prophet and apostles are now using Instagram to share Christ's lightand reach members of the Church in new ways.

In case you haven't heard the exciting news, the prophet and apostles are now using Instagram to share Christ's lightand reach members of the Church in new ways.

These 3 false doctrines can become like a spiritual sickness that cause us to see ourselves in unhelpful ways.

I had an unexpected spiritual lesson taught to me after we implemented a new chore/allowance system with our kids. We had recently moved and wanted to get organized. It also coincided with the start of school (with one of our kids starting kindergarten). Don’t all the parenting gurus talk about making sure you disrupt as many routines at once? (No, no they don’t. What were we thinking?!?)

We need not be guilty of serious sin in order to need, to appreciate, and to take advantage of a second chance. In fact, sometimes we may find ourselves hoping for a second chance that has nothing to do with sin at all. How many times have we made innocent mistakes—not out of rebellion but just out of ignorance or poor judgment—and wished we could try again? How often has a misunderstanding led to a strained relationship, and we wished we could go back in time to do things differently?

In response to our humility about our weakness, God offers to “make weak things become strong” unto us (Ether 12:27). There must be ways for weak things to become strong other than through noticeable improvement in our ability. . . .

As a psychologist, I have had experience and training regarding the concept of self-esteem. Self-esteem is commonly defined as having respect for one’s capacities and for oneself, including a feeling of confidence. Low self-esteem is a very common occurrence among individuals. How can we increase the amount of respect we have for ourselves?

When our lovely twenty-one-year-old daughter was hit by a truck, my husband and I and three of our children were in Brazil serving a mission. All the children living in the United States flew immediately to the Indiana hospital where Georgia lay fighting for her life. Those living in our home, understandably, left the house in great disarray as they rushed to find a plane. Dear neighbors spoke to one another about the situation, and the next morning, as the family was in Indiana trying to cope with Georgia’s passing, twenty-five covenant-keeping sisters gathered at our home in Salt Lake City.

Cheating, lying, fraud, and greed. Scott Fulmer has seen the worst of humanity while working as a private investigator, yet the phrase “There but for the grace of God, go I” has supported him throughout his 30-year career.

When Cole experienced crippling anxiety on his mission that kept him from sleeping, he began to pray and search for answers. During this time, he began to realize, "Sometimes, it's okay to accept what God gives you and to be humble enough to learn what He is trying to teach you."

The gospel isn’t a celebration of God’s power to work with flawless people. The gospel is a celebration of God’s willingness to work today, in our world, in our lives, with people who clearly aren’t. To demand that church leaders, past and present, show us only a mask of angelic pseudo-perfection is to deny the gospel’s most basic claim: that God’s grace works through our weakness.

This article is republished with permission from Book of Mormon Central. For more inspiring and instructive content on the Book of Mormon visit Book of Mormon Central, subscribe to our mailing list, see our YouTube videos, and follow us on Facebook.

After wondering what was the use of living, a Mormon NFL player took 180 pain pills. When he woke up later in the hospital realizing he was still alive, he said a desperate prayer to his Heavenly Father. "I started to feel the love of Heavenly Father and the joy that I had never felt before," Stanley says in a new Mormon Channel video. "From then on, my relationship with Heavenly Father was constant. I knew that I needed Him. The only way for me to find peace was in a power greater than myself."

The following is an excerpt from Weakness Is Not Sin: The Liberating Distinction That Awakens Our Strengths by Wendy Ulrich.

The following is an excerpt from Brad Wilcox's book, Changed Through His Grace:

We know that the relationship between grace and works is important for us to understand, and one way we can learn more about them is by understanding the difference between salvation and exaltation.

While the concept of grace is often associated with a description of God’s attributes, grace also encompasses divine strength given by a loving Heavenly Father to assist us as we strive to become like Him. The following is an excerpt from Brad Wilcox’s book, Changed through His Grace.

While I was serving as the Scout Master in our ward, our troop was creating a movie to earn the Cinematography merit badge. We needed to film one of the scenes with a luxury car. One of my neighbors had two beautiful Ferraris, so I arranged with him to film the scene at his home.

There are so many things I love about our Church culture—our outgoingness, our willingness to serve, our focus on the Savior and others, and the fact that no matter where I go, I instantly have a community I'm a part of.

My best friend in jr. high was a born-again Christian. We would often share some of the unique doctrines that made our churches different. I explained the Godhead to her once and she said, “Oh yeah! We believe they’re three separate beings too! It wouldn’t make sense any other way.” The next day she came to school to confess that she’d talked to her mom and she had been wrong. Her church actually believed in the Holy Trinity, meaning God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are all one being.