Think Celestial!
Your choices will determine where you will live throughout eternity, the kind of body with which you will be resurrected, and those with whom you will live forever.
My dear brothers and sisters, I am deeply grateful to speak with you today. At my age, each new day brings wonderful as well as challenging surprises.
Three weeks ago, I injured the muscles of my back. So, while I have delivered more than 100 general conference addresses standing, today I thought I would do so sitting. I pray that the Spirit will carry my message into your hearts today.
I recently celebrated my 99th birthday and thus commenced my 100th year of living. I am often asked the secret to living so long. A better question would be “What have I learned in nearly a century of living?”
Time today does not allow me to answer that question fully, but may I share one of the most crucial lessons I have learned.
I have learned that Heavenly Father’s plan for us is fabulous, that what we do in this life really matters, and that the Savior’s Atonement is what makes our Father’s plan possible.1
As I have wrestled with the intense pain caused by my recent injury, I have felt even deeper appreciation for Jesus Christ and the incomprehensible gift of His Atonement. Think of it! The Savior suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind”2 so that He can comfort us, heal us, rescue us in times of need.3 Jesus Christ described His experience in Gethsemane and on Calvary: “Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore.”4 My injury has caused me to reflect again and again on “the greatness of the Holy One of Israel.”5 During my healing, the Lord has manifested His divine power in peaceful and unmistakable ways.
Because of Jesus Christ’s infinite Atonement, our Heavenly Father’s plan is a perfect plan! An understanding of God’s fabulous plan takes the mystery out of life and the uncertainty out of our future. It allows each of us to choose how we will live here on earth and where we will live forever. The baseless notion that we should “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us”6 is one of the most absurd lies in the universe.
Here is the great news of God’s plan: the very things that will make your mortal life the best it can be are exactly the same things that will make your life throughout all eternity the best it can be! Today, to assist you to qualify for the rich blessings Heavenly Father has for you, I invite you to adopt the practice of “thinking celestial”!7 Thinking celestial means being spiritually minded. We learn from the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob that “to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.”8 ~For President Nelson’s complete remarks now, click. . . .‘Think Celestial!’.
