Like many of you, I find it extremely difficult to maintain virtue in my thoughts, desires, and actions in a world where the shoddy, the secondary and the seductive are paraded before us at every turn. Sodom and Gomorrah were void of virtue, while the Saints within the city of Enoch had allowed virtue to garnish their thoughts unceasingly, thereby growing in gospel confidence (Doctrine and Covenants 121:45) to the point where they were translated, taken from the earth into the bosom of God (Moses 7:69). Virtuous people look to scripture, holy prophets, and wise and sagacious leaders for their direction, paying no heed whatsoever to the teasings and taunts of those who have taken up residence in the great and spacious building. Jesus said simply, "I receive not honor from men" (John 5:41), and virtuous young people have learned to care precious little for the flattery of prominent persons. A virtuous woman has chosen to live in a manner that is consistent with what she has been taught and what she feels deep within her soul.
My thoughts are not your thoughts treasure up virtue full#
A virtuous man avoids duplicity, knowing full well that "a double minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8). Virtue implies moral excellence - honor, integrity, courage, valor, valiance, inner purity, industry, diligence. Virtue is far more than moral cleanliness and chastity, although these are important manifestations. Our world is in desperate need of a greater measure of virtue. Before the Lord of hosts returns in glory to assume leadership of the planet, rampant evil and perversion in Babylon will stand in stark contrast to the consummate righteousness and single-mindedness of Zion, the society of the pure in heart (Doctrine and Covenants 97:21). Nephi was shown in vision a time, presumably yet future to our day, when the whore of all the earth, the great and abominable church, would sit "upon many waters and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people." Nephi also "beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth" (1 Nephi 14:11-12).
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