As an indispensable element of Christian conduct and of salvation, nothing would seem more clear than the high premium the Savior put upon selfless service to others, said Elder Marion D. Hanks.

"Helping, giving, sacrificing are or should be as natural as growing and breathing," Elder Hanks of the Presidency of the Seventy declared Saturday morning.Elder Hanks quoted President J. Reuben Clark who said the Savior " `left as a heritage to those who should come after Him in His Church the carrying on of . . . two great things - work for the relief of the ills and suffering of humanity and the teaching of the spiritual truths which should bring us back into the presence of our Heavenly Father.'

"Jesus plainly taught that we have an indispensable, personal part in qualifying for the fulfillment of our high eternal possibilities. The Atonement . . . requires that the gift be received in the way He prescribed, and He gave us the pattern.

"As He commenced His public ministry, `Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' (Matt. 4:17.) He said to Nicodemus the Pharisee: `Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.' " (John 3:1-9.)

Elder Hanks said the Savior taught the precepts of spiritual perfection, and He practiced and applied them with perfection.

He said that what the Savior did was go " `about all Galilee, teaching . . . and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease.' " (Matt. 4:23.)

Jesus taught His followers the parable of the sheep and the goats, he related, representing the judgment to come, in which He identified those who will inherit eternal life and those who will not.

"The key difference was that those who should inherit the kingdom with Him had developed the habit of helping, had experienced the joy of giving, and the satisfaction of serving - they had responded to the needs of the hungry, thirsty, homeless, the naked, the sick and those in prison."

Elder Hanks explained that in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout His teachings, the Savior made it clear that He and the Father are concerned with "what kind of people we are."

"Jesus referred repeatedly to the old law . . . and then fitted those teachings into the higher and holier context of the law of love He had come to invoke among God's children. He was not content with the old levels of concept and conduct. He wanted those who were the salt of the earth, the light of the world, to rise to nobler heights than the old law had required.

"His teachings explain the kind of people we are expected to be, in our relationships not only with the Almighty, but with our families and others, and with ourselves."