Robert L. Millet > Quotes

“Jesus Christ is not a cosmic errand boy. I mean no disrespect or irreverence in so saying, but I do intend to convey the idea that while he loves us deeply and dearly, Christ the Lord is not perched on the edge of heaven, anxiously anticipating our next wish. When we speak of God being good to us, we generally mean that he is kind to us. In the words of the inimitable C. S. Lewis, "What would really satisfy us would be a god who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much a father in heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves,' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all.'" You know and I know that our Lord is much, much more than that.

One writer observed: "When we so emphasize Christ's benefits that he becomes nothing more than what his significance is 'for me' we are in danger. . . . Evangelism that says 'come on, it's good for you'; discipleship that concentrates on the benefits package; sermons that 'use' Jesus as the means to a better life or marriage or job or attitude--these all turn Jesus into an expression of that nice god who always meets my spiritual needs. And this is why I am increasingly hesitant to speak of Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. As Ken Woodward put it in a 1994 essay, 'Now I think we all need to be converted--over and over again, but having a personal Savior has always struck me as, well, elitist, like having a personal tailor. I'm satisfied to have the same Lord and Savior as everyone else.' Jesus is not a personal Savior who only seeks to meet my needs. He is the risen, crucified Lord of all creation who seeks to guide me back into the truth." . . .

His infinity does not preclude either his immediacy or his intimacy. One man stated that "I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone." . . .

Christ is not "my buddy." There is a natural tendency, and it is a dangerous one, to seek to bring Jesus down to our level in an effort to draw closer to him. This is a problem among people both in and outside the LDS faith. Of course we should seek with all our hearts to draw near to him. Of course we should strive to set aside all barriers that would prevent us from closer fellowship with him. And of course we should pray and labor and serve in an effort to close the gap between what we are and what we should be. But drawing close to the Lord is serious business; we nudge our way into intimacy at the peril of our souls. . . .

Another gospel irony is that the way to get close to the Lord is not by attempting in any way to shrink the distance between us, to emphasize more of his humanity than his divinity, or to speak to him or of him in casual, colloquial language. . . .

Those who have come to know the Lord best--the prophets or covenant spokesmen--are also those who speak of him in reverent tones, who, like Isaiah, find themselves crying out, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). Coming into the presence of the Almighty is no light thing; we feel to respond soberly to God's command to Moses: "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained, "Those who truly love the Lord and who worship the Father in the name of the Son by the power of the Spirit, according to the approved patterns, maintain a reverential barrier between themselves and all the members of the Godhead.”
― Robert L. Millet

“Valor represents bravery and strength of character, boldness, and fortitude - all qualities that prepare a person to act responsibly in times of need, of challenge, or of danger.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will make little difference what you have chosen instead.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“Today's television sitcoms...the father is typically depicted as a clumsy buffoon, an inane and even unnecessary appendage. In creating that caricature, producers and directors have done irreparable damage to the God-ordained image of what may be one of the most significant roles and offices in eternity - that of a father, that of a real man.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“Jesus was overcome by the experience and wept. Only one who has looked deeply into the eyes of little children can grasp why. Only one who has sensed how near little children are to the heavens, how close to the angels, how innocent and worthy of our respect, admiration, and awe can know why the Purest of the Pure wept as he associated with the purest among the Nephites.”
― Robert L. Millet, Talking with God: Divine Conversations that Transform Daily Life

“People matter more than things.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“Life is a mission and not a career.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“Much is said in our expanding world about the need to celebrate diversity. Of course we are a diverse community; that is how a society like ours is constituted. But our strength is not to be found in our diversity; our power to influence the world for good will not come through our diversity. Some seem to act as though the Lord has said, "Be diverse, and if ye are not diverse, ye are not mine." No, we are to strive to achieve unity in spite of our diversity. "We are seeking to establish a oneness," Elder John Taylor observed, "under the guidance and direction of the Almighty. . . . If there is any principle for which we contend with greater tenacity than another, it is this oneness. . . . To the world this principle is a gross error, for amongst them it is every man for himself; every man follows his own ideas, his own religion, his own morals, and the course in everything that suits his own notions. But the Lord dictates differently. We are under His guidance, and we should seek to be one with him and with all the authorities of His Church and kingdom on the earth in all the affairs of life. . . . This is what we are after, and when we have attained to this ourselves, we want to teach the nations of the earth the same pure principles that have emanated from the Great Eloheim. We want Zion to rise and shine that the glory of God may be manifest in her midst. . . . We never intend to stop until this point is attained through the teaching and guidance of the Lord and our obedience to His laws. Then, when men say unto us, 'you are not like us,' we reply, 'we know it; we do not want to be. We want to be like the Lord, we want to secure His favor and approbation and to live under His smile, and to acknowledge, as ancient Israel did on a certain occasion, "The Lord is our God, our judge, and our king, and He shall reign over us.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“If you cannot undo what you have done, you are trapped. It is easy to understand how helpless and hopeless you then feel and why you might want to give up. . . . Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal, fixing that which you broke and you cannot fix is the very purpose of the atonement of Christ.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“Modern man has yielded to the harsh, the crude, the vulgar, the profane, the immoral.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“Latter-day Saints have often been critical of those who emphasize salvation by grace alone, while we have often been criticised for a type of works-righteousness. The gospel is in fact a gospel covenant—a two-way promise. The Lord agrees to do for us what we could never do for ourselves—to forgive our sins, to lift our burdens, to renew our souls and re-create our nature, to raise us from the dead, and to qualify us for glory hereafter. At the same time, we promise to do what we can do: come unto Christ by covenant, commit our lives to him as Lord and Master, receive the appropriate ordinances (sacraments), love and serve one another, and do all in our power to put off the natural man and deny ourselves of un-godliness. We know, without question, that the power to save us, to change us, to renew our souls, is in Christ. True faith, however, always manifests itself in faithfulness. "When faith springs up in the heart," Brigham Young taught, "good works will, and good works will increase that pure faith within them.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“This strength, this enlivening influence, this spiritual change does not come to us just because we work harder or longer hours. It comes as a result of working smarter, working in conjunction with the Lord God Omnipotent. President Brigham Young testified, "My faith is, when we have done all we can, then the Lord is under obligation, and will not disappoint the faithful; He will perform the rest.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“I should be just as concerned about what I consume on Monday morning as I am on Saturday night. My vows, meaning my covenants, made at baptism and in the holy temple, should and must guide me throughout the entire week.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“Love is commitment. Love is covenant. Love is consistent devotion. Love is loyalty. Love is lifelong service. Love is attending tenderly to an aged spouse when that spouse can no longer visibly reciprocate that love. Love is forgiveness. Love is learning not to take offense. Love is assuming the best. Love is untiring dedication. Love is of God. Indeed, God is love”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of God

“You and I are called to be holy, to stand as lights in a darkened world, and yet we live in the world. We do not attend church every day of the week, nor do many of us associate only with persons of our own faith or moral persuasion. We have been called to come out of the world in the sense that we are to forsake the ways and whims and voices and values of the world and the worldly. Of his chosen Twelve, Jesus prayed: “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:14–15; emphasis added). There is”
― Robert L. Millet, Getting at the Truth: Responding to Difficult Questions about LDS Beliefs

“The Lord needs us. He needs us to be knowledgeable, dependable, and competent disciples. We need to know not only that the gospel is true but we need to know the gospel, better than we do right now. We need to be in the right place at the right time. We will thereby become the right person.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“Hope in Christ always flows from faith in Christ and represents anticipation, expectation, and assurance that through our acceptance of the terms and conditions of the gospel covenant, we will gain everlasting life, eternal life, God's life.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“To have faith in Christ is to rely wholly upon him—to lean upon him in times of crisis, to draw strength from him in times of weakness, to receive peace from him in moments of tragedy, to repose oneself in his person and his powers.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“So often we read through the scriptures—day in and day out, week after week and month after month, from start to finish—and seldom take the time to step back, ponder and reflect on the larger themes and doctrinal refrains that work their way through the scriptures and the history of the Church.”
― Robert L. Millet, Living in the Millennium

“President Howard W. Hunter explained that “the gospel of Jesus Christ, which gospel we teach and the ordinances of which we perform, is a global faith with an all-embracing message. It is neither confined nor partial nor subject to history or fashion.”
― Robert L. Millet, Getting at the Truth: Responding to Difficult Questions about LDS Beliefs

“I believe the message in the hymn “Rise Up, O Men of God” (Hymns, no. 324) is a plea, a call, a divine invitation for us to rise above the telestial tinsel of our time; to deny ourselves of ungodliness and clothe ourselves in the mantle of holiness; to reach and stretch and grasp for that spiritual direction and sacred empowerment promised to the Lord’s agents, to those charged to act in the name of our Principal, Jesus Christ; and to point the way to salvation and deliverance and peace in a world that finds itself enshrouded in darkness, a world that yearns for spiritual leadership.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“A testimony is a precious gift of the Spirit, a sign that we have in fact been born again (1 John 5:1). It is a transition from darkness to light, from an aimless and wandering maneuver to a determined, Spirit-guided pursuit. We have put off skepticism and put on a believing heart. We have died as pertaining to cynicism and come alive as pertaining to gospel gladness and optimism. We have put to death the old man of doubt and quickened the new man of assurance and certitude.”
― Robert L. Millet, Holding Fast: Dealing with Doubt in the Latter Days

“Faith in Christ brings peace. Faith in Christ brings rest. Faith in Christ brings contentment and true fulfillment.”
― Robert L. Millet

“If we are serious about climbing to higher ground, we will be found in church every Sunday—attending all of our meetings, partaking of the sacrament, participating in Sunday School, and contributing to the spirit found in Relief Society, Primary, and priesthood meetings.”
― Robert L. Millet

“That Light “enlightens every man that comes into the world, and . . . strives with the children of men, and will continue to strive with them, until it brings them to a knowledge of the truth and the possession of the greater light and testimony of the Holy Ghost.”15”
― Robert L. Millet, The Holy Spirit: His Identity, Mission, and Ministry

“Members of the Church often ask: What comes first—Church or family? The correct answer is Neither. God comes first. He will then direct us, through His Spirit, toward what comes second on that particular occasion.”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of God

“To have faith in Christ is to trust him.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“Lehi’s message, given some six centuries before the coming of the Messiah, seems very applicable to our day and time: “O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound. . . . Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent. . . . Arise from the dust, my sons, and be men, and be determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things, that ye may not come down into captivity. . . . Awake, my sons; put on the armor of righteousness” (2 Nephi 1:13, 14, 21, 23; emphasis...”
― Robert L. Millet, Men of Valor: The Powerful Impact of a Righteous Man

“To have faith in Christ is to believe in him, and, as Stephen Robinson pointed out beautiful in his book Believing Christ (Deseret Book, 1992), it is to believe what the Lord says.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ

“Of course Jesus Christ, the One who makes all the difference in our salvation, will make up the difference at the time of judgment, at least for those who have come to trust in and rely upon him. But too often I fear that Latter-day Saints think that we are expected to do our 85 or 90 percent and leave the remainder, a small percentage, for Jesus to handle. That is incorrect and misleading, inasmuch as it causes us to overstate our own role in salvation and grossly understate the role of him who has bought us with his blood.”
― Robert L. Millet, Coming to Know Christ