Be careful about your choice of friends. In today’s technological society, we may spend more time with nonhuman companions than we do with our peers. While we may be very careful about our human companions, sometimes we give little thought to the other companions that we allow to influence us. Media of any kind can be a very powerful social influencer. We have all been given three precious gifts for our mortal experience. These include our body, our agency, and our time. If Satan can entice us to use our time in unfocused or unproductive or, even worse, nonvirtuous pursuits and then deceive us into believing that if we do this in private our actions don’t affect anyone, he is victorious. “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we [must] seek after these things” (Articles of Faith 1:13).

Seek the companionship of virtuous friends, not virtual friends. Remember, “virtue loveth virtue [and] light cleaveth unto light” (D&C 88:40). This is a relationship scripture. In your pursuit of friendships and an eternal marriage partner, you cannot just make a list of all the qualities you are looking for in another or in an eternal companion. You must be your list at all times and in all things and in all places.

“Of course, the war in heaven over free agency is now being waged here on earth, and there are those today who are saying ‘Look, don't get involved in the fight for freedom. Just live the gospel.’ That counsel is dangerous, self-contradictory, unsound…Now, part of the reason we may not have sufficient priesthood bearers to save the Constitution let alone to shake the powers of hell, is because unlike Moroni, I fear, our souls do not joy in keeping our country free, and we are not firm in the faith of Christ nor have we sworn with an oath to defend our rights and the liberty of our country. Moroni raised a title of liberty and wrote upon it these words: ‘In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.’ Why didn't he write upon it: ‘Just live your religion; there's no need to concern yourselves about your freedom, your peace, your wives, or your children’? The reason he didn't do this was because all these things were a part of his religion, as they are of our religion today. Should we counsel people, ‘Just live your religion. There's no need to get involved in the fight for freedom’? No, we should not, because our stand for freedom is a most basic part of our religion; this stand helped get us to this earth, and our reaction to freedom in this life will have eternal consequences. Man has many duties, but he has no excuse that can compensate for his loss of liberty.”

So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the “sacrifice unto the Lord … of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving “away all [our] sins” in order to “know God” (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.

In striving for ultimate submission, our wills constitute all we really have to give God anyway. The usual gifts and their derivatives we give to him could be stamped justfiably "Return to Sender," with a capital S. Even when God receives this one gift in return, the fully faithful will receive "all that [He] hath: D&C 84:38. What an exchange rate!

the men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day

It is up to us. God will facilitate, but He will not force........a loving God will work with us, but the initiating particle of desire which ignites the spark of resolve must be our own!

Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life (see Matt. 10:39).

"As we yield our will to His, God will tutor us in the successful use of our moral agency. We will find freedom to be, to feel, and to do."

A knowledge of good and evil is the third element of agency. The first is choice, which is obtained by having two or more options. The second is freedom, which is obtained by having different results from the options. Agency is having choice with freedom as is provided by different results, and then having a knowledge of those results.

Some people perceive laws to be restrictive. However, laws do not restrict. They simply designate what is good and evil; what is permitted and not permitted; what is legal and illegal; what is possible and impossible. Laws attach consequences to decisions. Without laws, different decisions could not result in different consquences, resulting in no freedom. If a man insists that some laws restrict him, then he must also admit that other laws enable him. All things that are invented or created are accomplished only because laws make them possible. All things are goverrned and accomplished by laws, whether physical, social, or spiritual. Freedom, therefore, cannot be a place or condition without law. The fact is laws do not limit freedom. Laws actualy make possible the condition of freedom. It is law that makes us free: "I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed; and the law also maketh you free".