the cost (and rewards) of discipleship (Brigham Young)

There is a class of persons that persecution will not drive from the Church of Christ, but prosperity will; and again, there is another class that prosperity will not drive, but persecution will. The Lord must and will have a company of Saints who will follow him to the cross, if it be necessary; and these he will crown. They are the ones who will wear a celestial crown and have dominion, rule, and government. These are they who will receive honour of the Father, with glory, exaltation, and eternal lives. They shall reign over kingdoms, and have power to be Gods, even the sons of God.

Those other classes will take different stations and possess inferior glories, according to their works in the flesh. That class who will altogether serve the world and disregard the cause of truth will become servants to the sons of God and be in servitude throughout eternity.

What shall we do? I say, Cleave to “Mormonism,” work with all our might for the Lord, and love him better than any other earthly or heavenly object. And if he requires us to sacrifice our houses, our horses, our cattle, our wives, and our children, let them remain upon the altar; but let us follow him to salvation and eternal life.

Brigham Young

6:322

to live for our religion

As I said when I arose, I do not feel like preaching; but I would simply ask you, as a part of Father’s family, Does our courage increase? Does our valor increase, so that we can live for the truth—for our religion? It is a common thing with the world for them to be complimented for their bravery. And this matter of dying for the truth —dying for a man’s opinions—is a common thing. Men have died for their opinions when those opinions were erroneous; but if it is truth that men die for, it is all the better. But it occurs to me that it is better for us to live our religion, and let the dying take care of itself; for I find that it is a very easy matter for an individual to die. Men can with much less faith and less trouble of life place themselves in a position to get killed than to so purify themselves, their actions, and by regulating themselves by the truth and actually to live their religion in the legitimate spirit of the Gospel.

Amasa Lyman

5:81

living the Gospel; doing what we know to be right

Have you performed the tasks given you? Have you done the work and kept abreast with your instructions? Or have you indulged a wish to get some new thing—something far-fetched, which can have no effect other than to allure your minds from the truths that worthily demand your sincere attention and observance? It sometimes happens that a scholar at school, anxious to advance, takes a lesson to-day in one branch of science, and to-morrow in another, and the third day in another, and so on, until, in his own estimation, he comes out a polished and refined student, a professor and a sage,—when, in fact, he understands nothing that he has read, and is only cherishing a deception that he has practiced upon himself.

Is this the case with us? Have we thoroughly learned the lessons that have been given us, and reduced them to practice? There is nothing better calculated to imprint upon the mind any science or theory than to reduce it to practice and really act upon it. Then we see its force and bearing; and while engaged in the practical part, it stamps indelibly upon our minds, never to be forgotten, the principles we have imbibed.

If we have practiced upon the lessons and teachings we have received, we know that they will stand by us; but if we have merely heard them, and not entered into the practical duties thereof, they will die in our memory, never having been incorporated in our organization, and we become like the man beholding his natural face in the glass, and straightway goeth away and forgetteth what manner of man he is.

I might explain to you all about the art of printing; yet, with all the knowledge that my explanation could give you respecting this important art, who of you that is not a compositor can take my sermon and go into an office and set it up? “Practice makes perfect.” If we learn righteous principles and practice them, they have power to change our natures in conformity with themselves. They become a part and parcel of ourselves, bringing us into an alliance with them that knows no separation. Hence we become a righteous people; and, if we continue, we not only strive, but shall be able to enter in.

Each of you can recollect acting upon certain things taught you in the days of your childhood. They are as fresh in your recollection now as they were in the day you acted upon them. Therefore, let us ever act upon true and righteous principles, and they will remain with us, and we shall become righteous in our natures; and if we never act upon an evil principle, we shall forget all the evil we ever knew, and God will forget it also; and our natures will never be evil inclined.

Orson Hyde

5:68

to be happy continually, religion is a practical matter, daily discipleship

My religion has become convenient to me, from the fact that I have found it adapted to every day use. The happiness that it imparts—I do not care what part of man’s existence or being you may talk about, or apply it to—the happiness it imparts it can impart every day. The bliss that can happify one hour of a man’s being as a Saint, from a knowledge of the truth, and from the influence that truth will exert over him, will, upon the same principle, happify every hour of his life. That light of truth that will enable him at one time to testify of the truth of the work of God, of the manifestation of His hand and His power in the establishment of His kingdom, and the revelation of the Gospel to man in the last days, will shine upon his path unceasingly, if he is constantly and unceasingly faithful.

This leads me to be happy continually; for it does away with a great many of the probabilities of a man’s doing wrong, or being decoyed from the path of rectitude and virtue, and after having preached salvation to others, himself becoming a castaway, because the light that would save them once will save them all the time. They have only to be diligent, faithful, true, and obedient to the requisitions of the truth, to secure its presence with them continually.

This has led me to entertain vastly different notions and ideas of salvation from those I once entertained, whether of my own or that of the Saints universally. It has resolved itself in my mind into very simple truth, and yet a very extended and important one. I find that all the notions I used to entertain, years ago, about salvation and its greatness are comprised in knowing the right and then doing it,—not in matters that are foreign from ourselves and from what we have to do, but in the every day occurrences that fill up the history of our lives here.

There is no way that I know of or have ever heard of, believed, or entertained any conception of, that will enable you any better to love God than to love man who is made in the image and likeness of God. Do you want to honour Him? Then honour man that is made in the likeness of God. “But,” says one, “some men are not good:” then honour those that are good, who are his ministers, in whom he is represented on the earth. We cannot go away to his far off dwelling-place to pay our respects and obeisance to him there—to present our offerings before Him, or to tell how much we love Him. What can we do? We can find here, in close proximity with ourselves, the individual in whom we can learn His will, receive the declaration of His truth, the order of His institutions and requirements. They are in our midst. This led one in ancient times to say, “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and He has commanded us that we should love one another.”

This makes our religion wholly a practical matter. Let people who can live by theorizing, theorize away until doomsday; and, if we will be saved, we want practical virtue—practical truth exemplified in our actions, in our words, and thoughts; we want to live together as a holy people—as a people who fear and honour God. How? By getting down on our knees and saying our prayers, by singing graciously and putting on a long face, by going to meeting on the Sabbath, or by wearing an amiable smile, that when contemplating it you would not think we ever frowned in the world? Is this the way we are to honour God and live right? No; it is something else besides this. To pray is good, to smile is good, to be pleasant is good; but to be holy and acceptable in the sight of God is to be good all the time, in all places, under all circumstances, and with all people.

We want to learn to get along comfortably with the little duties of life that we meet with every day—that make up the labour of every day. We want to learn to do those things right. You want to learn to be as holy at home by your firesides as you are when you go to church. You want to feel well, to enjoy the Spirit of God in every condition and relation of life.

Amasa Lyman

5:34