The Power of a Beautiful Quote

When moved upon by the Holy Ghost, men and women can pen thoughts that exalt the soul and stretch the mind. They may enter with some force upon the mind, carried by the same spirit that the author was moved upon who first recorded those things. This is a primary reason we have scriptures to study from. It is to bring us to God in the same Spirit that enveloped the authors of those books.

Not every verse and statement are mind expanding and exalting in this way. The words of God, man, and the devil are included in the sacred books and provide meaning, context, and instruction to us. We also have inspired writings outside of scripture.

D&C 68:4. And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.

There are sacred writings that are akin to scripture when those authors have been moved upon by the Holy Ghost. Paul told Timothy the reason for this in 2 Timothy 3:

16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17. That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

One purpose of scripture is to provide us guidance and instruction on performing good works. It is not enough to be knowledgeable about the gospel and then live in a vacuum and not apply its teachings to be anxiously engaged in good causes that further the building of Zion through ministering service.

In his wonderful collection of radio broadcasts, “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis shared this quote I love. It’s found in book 4, essay 9.

I find I must borrow yet another parable from George MacDonald. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense.

What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of— throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words.

If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

Now lets say I wanted to save this quote in Scripture Notes so I have easy access to it in the future. If I couldn’t think of any verses to go with this, I could just save it in a collection note and title and tag it and be done.

But in this case, you can go to the Topical Guide and find the topic “Godhood” which has links to a couple other topics. The topic I think best matches this quote is “Man, Potential to Become like Heavenly Father.”

I open that one and there are 81 results. Now create a collection note from this verse set. Title this something like “C.S. Lewis – God is making us into a palace” and add tags like: C.S. Lewis, Perfect, Godhood, Trials, Testing, and Obedience.

You could now study those 81 results and put comments about them into your master note and tick the topical guide box complete, or you could save the collection note and leave the box unticked so in the future you can study the verses on that topic as a separate note.

Personally, I don’t want to check off that box that I’ve studied something until I’ve actually studied it. For myself, I would create the note above with the quote, and then do a separate one to study the verses. Saving both collection notes (the one with the quote, and the one of my study of the verses) with similar tags and verses, I’ll always have access to both collection notes quite easily.

Assignment: Now find a great quote you love, and find the verses that would accompany it and save them together. You might look for a Topical Guide entry in the Study Helps, or just do a word search for verses that relate to it. Then you’ll always find that quote by those verses and that’s awesome!