Think on Christ | Ezra Taft Benson | 1983

BYU Speeches
BYU Speeches
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Published 2020-05-29
Our characters are defined by our thoughts, which become actions, then habits. "What would Jesus do?" is a thought that can safely guide us home.

This speech was given on October 11, 1983.

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"The Lord loves you and has favored you with a royal birthright.

We have just completed another glorious conference of the Church. We are all thankful to the Lord for the blessing of strength given to President Kimball and President Romney which enabled them to be present in two sessions of conference. We are thankful for the inspiration and counsel given by the General Authorities who spoke. I hope you will take occasion to review the wisdom and counsel of their messages.

The Product of My Thoughts
To introduce my theme today, I want to tell you, in his own words, of a life-changing experience that happened to President George Albert Smith when he was a boy. His own words are as follows:

As a child, thirteen years of age, I went to school at the Brigham Young Academy. . . . I cannot remember much of what was said during the year that I was there, but there is one thing that I will probably never forget. . . . Dr. [Karl G.] Maeser one day stood up and said:

“Not only will you be held accountable for the things you do, but you will be held responsible for the very thoughts you think.” Being a boy, not in the habit of controlling my thoughts very much, it was quite a puzzle to me what I was to do, and it worried me. In fact, it stuck to me just like a burr. About a week or ten days after that it suddenly came to me what he meant. I could see the philosophy of it then. All at once there came to me this interpretation of what he had said: Why of course you will be held accountable for your thoughts, because when your life is completed in mortality, it will be the sum of your thoughts. That one suggestion has been a great blessing to me all my life, and it has enabled me upon many occasions to avoid thinking improperly, because I realize that I will be, when my life’s labor is complete, the product of my thoughts. [Sharing the Gospel with Others (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1948), pp. 62–63]

Thoughts lead to acts, acts lead to habits, habits lead to character—and our character will determine our eternal destiny.

King Benjamin understood this. In the next-to-last verse of his great discourse recorded in the Book of Mormon, he states:

And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are diverse ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. [Mosiah 4:29]

Then in the last verse he counsels that we must watch ourselves and our thoughts (see Mosiah 4:30)

When Christ appeared in America following His resurrection, He stated:

Behold, it is written by them of old time, that thou shalt not commit adultery;

But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.

Behold, I give unto you a commandment, that ye suffer none of these things to enter into your heart. [3 Nephi 12:27–29]

“Enter into your heart”—why, of course, for, as the scripture states: “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

So critical is it that we understand the necessity of controlling our thoughts that President Spencer W. Kimball devoted a whole chapter to it in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness. The chapter caption “As a Man Thinketh” is the title of a book by James Allen, which President Kimball recommended. He quoted from this book three times. One quotation stated:

A man does not come to the almshouse or the jail by the tyranny of fate or circumstance, but by the pathway of groveling thoughts and base desires. Nor does a pure-minded man fall suddenly into crime by stress of mere external force; the criminal thought had long been secretly fostered in the heart, and the hour of opportunity revealed its gathered power. Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, p. 105]

President Kimball also quotes President David O. McKay, who said:

The thought in your mind at this moment is contributing, however infinitesimally, almost imperceptibly to the shaping of your soul, even to the lineaments of your countenance. . . . even passing and idle thoughts leave their impression. [Ibid.]"
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