If you know you're not the body, then you will probably have deeper, more spiritual goals in life. This will make you see the desires of your senses as something to control, not succumb to. Because you'll see your material desires as distinct from your true desires, you'll make an attempt to curb your material desires so they don't get in your way.

Jagad Guru Chris Butler - Science of Identity Foundation

The person who obtains meekness and lowliness of heart and who enjoys the company of the Holy Ghost will have no desire to offend or hurt others, nor will he feel affected by any offenses received from others. He will treat his spouse and children with love and respect and will have good relationships with everyone he associates with. In occupying positions of leadership in the Church, he will apply the same principles as he does in the home, showing that there is no difference between the person he is when within the walls of his own home and the person he is in his relationship with the members of the Church.

Principles like faith, repentance, love, forgiveness, and prayer, lived in the process I just described, become the best vaccine to combat the disease of sin, which can manifest itself in families in different ways, such as immorality, pride, envy, contention, abuse, and other practices that affect family relationships and that result in pain, deception, and the breakup of family ties.

The decision to incorporate them into our lives and the opportunity to begin the process whenever it may be necessary depends solely on our agency. It is a simple process that is within the reach of all. It is based on the fundamental principles of the gospel that have been and continue to be applied successfully by all those who put their trust in the Lord.

No wonder we sometimes shrink. A little voice may say, "I'd rather not do that. I'm not sure I can carry it through." But this is the very nub of our stumbling block. Until we covenant, which is more than a casual New Year's Resolution, He cannot bless us to keep our covenants. Without exception, the Lord appends a divine blessing to every covenant we make, guarantees a response from on high, and gives a promise and blessing. In the church our duties expand into privileges, and our privileges expand into higher duties. The most inclusive attendant blessing of the sacrament is His Spirit. And His Spirit, like He, himself, is not sent into the world to condemn the world, but to lift us. He is not committed to putting us down. The gifts and the fruits of the Spirit engulf all our deepest needs, whatever our present desires: insight, flashes of guidance, energy, all the virtues that center in Christ, and through them, all the fire that purifies our feelings and our aspirations. Yes, we come to the sacrament to renew covenants but we also come to be renewed—to be renewed with a divine infusion and then we increase in our strength to honor our covenants with Him and with each other.

How can we measure our progress? The scriptures suggest various ways. I will mention only two.

After King Benjamin’s great sermon, many of his hearers cried out that the Spirit of the Lord “has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2). If we are losing our desire to do evil, we are progressing toward our heavenly goal.

The Apostle Paul said that persons who have received the Spirit of God “have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). I understand this to mean that persons who are proceeding toward the needed conversion are beginning to see things as our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, see them. They are hearing His voice instead of the voice of the world, and they are doing things in His way instead of by the ways of the world.

The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses much more than avoiding, overcoming, and being cleansed from sin and the bad influences in our lives; it also essentially entails doing good, being good, and becoming better. Repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness are spiritually necessary, and we must always do so. But remission of sin is not the only or even the ultimate purpose of the gospel. To have our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit such that “we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2), as did King Benjamin’s people, is the covenant responsibility we have accepted. This mighty change is not simply the result of working harder or developing greater individual discipline. Rather, it is the consequence of a fundamental change in our desires, our motives, and our natures made possible through the Atonement of Christ the Lord. Our spiritual purpose is to overcome both sin and the desire to sin, both the taint and the tyranny of sin.

Prophets throughout the ages have emphasized the dual requirements of (1) avoiding and overcoming bad and (2) doing good and becoming better.

Let me suggest that hands are made clean through the process of putting off the natural man and by overcoming sin and the evil influences in our lives through the Savior’s Atonement. Hearts are purified as we receive His strengthening power to do good and become better. All of our worthy desires and good works, as necessary as they are, can never produce clean hands and a pure heart. It is the Atonement of Jesus Christ that provides both a cleansing and redeeming power that helps us to overcome sin and a sanctifying and strengthening power that helps us to become better than we ever could by relying only upon our own strength. The infinite Atonement is for both the sinner and for the saint in each of us.

The gospel of Jesus Christ encompasses much more than avoiding, overcoming, and being cleansed from sin and the bad influences in our lives; it also essentially entails doing good, being good, and becoming better. Repenting of our sins and seeking forgiveness are spiritually necessary, and we must always do so. But remission of sin is not the only or even the ultimate purpose of the gospel. To have our hearts changed by the Holy Spirit such that “we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually” (Mosiah 5:2), as did King Benjamin’s people, is the covenant responsibility we have accepted. This mighty change is not simply the result of working harder or developing greater individual discipline. Rather, it is the consequence of a fundamental change in our desires, our motives, and our natures made possible through the Atonement of Christ the Lord. Our spiritual purpose is to overcome both sin and the desire to sin, both the taint and the tyranny of sin.

Our sense of belonging to one another—best represented by the bonds of kinship—foreshadows our belonging in the eternal family of God. Our willingness to discipline our desires enough to honor commitments to loved ones prepares us to belong to him who is our Father. As we thus learn to “belong,” we can experience for ourselves the meaning of those searching lines about belonging from “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”:

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love he sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

Another verse of the hymn reads:

I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Belonging can be forever, because love can be forever.

Was Carolyn Hemenway Harman, the mother who buried three husbands, reared two families, and was Relief Society president for eighteen years “liberated”? Many people in today’s society would say no—imagine yielding one’s life in perpetual service to husbands, children, and neighbors whose needs consumed her very life! They might have said to her, “Aunt Carrie, get out from under all that. You’re entitled to a little happiness of your own. It’s time somebody waited on you for a change. Don’t let them do this to you. You don’t belong to them.”

But Aunt Carrie knew better; for the King of Love was her Shepherd. She loved and served him by loving and serving those to whom she fully and freely belonged. She was theirs, and they were hers—forever! In thus belonging, she who gave her life, a day at a time, to serving other people for the Master’s sake also found her life and her liberation; for she came to know the truth, and the truth made her free. May we be wise enough to emulate her.

James E. Talmage has said the more powerful the experience, the more private. Steven Covey has said that we all have private battles and public battles. Pornography is corruptive because it takes our private time, our times of greatest opportunity and fills that time with waste and it does destroy. I wonder what we feed our minds with? I wonder what we do with that time? If we have poor images, wrongful desires, we should ask Christ to alleviate from us these things in order that we may conquer such things.

"O my son … let the justice of God, and his mercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in humility". (alma 42:30)

Look carefully at the phrase “full sway in your heart.” If the Atonement of Christ has “full sway in your heart,” it means that faith in Christ and in the eternal doctrines of justice, mercy, and grace rule your heart and govern your deepest desires and commitments fully, completely. If the Atonement of Christ has “full sway in your heart,” then you may truly “follow the Son, with full purpose of heart.”...

Brothers and sisters, think for a moment about your own life. Think about the paths you have walked. Have you felt the power of the Atonement in your life? Do the doctrines of justice, mercy, and grace rule your heart? Do you follow the Savior with full purpose of heart?

I want to talk today about what it means for the Atonement of Jesus Christ to have “full sway in your heart.” As I speak, let your life, your hopes, your desires, and your challenges be in your mind. I hope you will be actively engaged, responding to the questions I will pose and reflecting on the doctrines and principles we will discuss. I pray the Holy Ghost will teach you what you need to do now to follow the Lord Jesus Christ with full purpose of heart.