Epilogue

After All, What Can We Do?

Wait a minute!” you may ask at this point. “Don’t you worry that some people will take what you say about grace as license to goof off?”

I suppose there might be some risk in that regard. The apostle Paul certainly wrestled in his day with Saints who took his words on the liberating power of the gospel as license to sin. People who want an excuse to do little or to rationalize their worst efforts will always distort truth to suit themselves.

But I think there is a greater risk here. I’m thinking of those people on the other side of this issue, those members of the Church who are doing all they know how to do, good people who push themselves, noble souls who double and triple their efforts after an initial failure, fine and upstanding Latter-day Saints who wrestle constantly with feelings of inadequacy. I worry about them far more. I worry sometimes that if we understate the Atonement, if we see Jesus only as he forgives gross sin (instead of as the One sent to “bind up the brokenhearted”—Isaiah 61:1), we may not grasp the essential truth that our Lord can and will bring peace to the souls of those who are filled with bitterness, hostility, anger, jealousy, fear, loneliness, and feelings of inadequacy.

An entertaining and instructive story on the matter of risk was given by Evangelical Protestant minister Chuck Swindoll. In it we see many of the elements that become a part of our lives as we begin to mature spiritually. “I remember when I first earned my license to drive,” Swindoll wrote. “I was about sixteen, as I recall. I’d been driving off and on for three years (scary thought, isn’t it?). My father had been with me most of the time during my learning experiences, calmly sitting alongside me in the front seat, giving me tips, helping me know what to do. My mother usually wasn’t in on those excursions because she spent more of her time biting her nails (and screaming) than she did advising. My father was a little more easygoing. Loud noises and screeching brakes didn’t bother him nearly as much. My grandfather was the best of all. When I would drive his car, I would hit things . . . Boom! He’d say stuff like, ‘Just keep on going, Bud. I can buy more fenders, but I can’t buy more grandsons. You’re learning.’ What a great old gentleman. After three years of all that nonsense, I finally earned my license.

“I’ll never forget the day I came in, flashed my newly acquired permit, and said, ‘Dad, look!’ He goes, ‘Whoa! Look at this. You got your license. Good for you!’ Holding the keys to his car, he tossed them in my direction and smiled, ‘Tell you what, son . . . you can have the car for two hours, all on your own.’ Only four words, but how wonderful: ‘All on your own.’

“I thanked him, danced out to the garage, opened the car door, and shoved the key into the ignition. My pulse rate must have shot up to 180 as I backed out of the driveway and roared off. While cruising along ‘all on my own,’ I began to think wild stuff—like, This car can probably do a hundred miles an hour. I could go to Galveston and back twice in two hours if I averaged 100 miles an hour. I can fly down the Gulf Freeway and even run a few lights. After all, nobody’s here to say ‘Don’t!’ We’re talking dangerous, crazy thoughts! But you know what? I didn’t do any of them. I don’t believe I drove above the speed limit. In fact, I distinctly remember turning into the driveway early . . . didn’t even stay away the full two hours. Amazing, huh? I had my dad’s car all to myself with a full gas tank in a context of total privacy and freedom, but I didn’t go crazy. Why? My relationship with my dad and my granddad was so strong that I couldn’t, even though I had a license and nobody was in the car to restrain me. Over a period of time there had developed a sense of trust, a deep love relationship that held me in restraint.”¹

Trust and reliance on the Lord lead to obedience. The more we trust in him, the more he endows us with his power, his might, and his goodness. He extends to us his grace, a power that enables us to do things we could not do on our own. Our righteousness is then born of the Spirit, our works are his works, and the deeds we do have a lasting effect on our brothers and sisters and a sanctifying influence on ourselves.

A person of another Christian faith once remarked to a friend of mine: “You know, there’s a passage in the Book of Mormon that needs a little editing.”

Fascinated, my friend asked, “What passage did you have in mind?”

The passage was 2 Nephi 25:23:  “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”

“How would you change it?” my friend inquired.

“Well,” the other fellow said, “it really should read, ‘ . . . for we know that it is by grace that we are saved; after all, what can we do?’”

What can we do? To summarize the principles we have studied, consider the following suggestions:

Let the past go. If you have done all that you can to rectify misdeeds or poor judgments of former times—including visiting with priesthood leaders in the case of serious sin—then move on. If anyone had a past that should have haunted him mercilessly, it was Saul of Tarsus, the great apostle of the Gentiles we know as Paul. He had persecuted the Church as an enemy of the Christian faith. And yet when his world was turned around, he let his old life go. He essentially buried the old man of sin and rose to a newness of life in Christ.

Paul taught: “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14; emphasis added). Too many of us are prone to hang on to our old sins by refusing to forgive ourselves. Once godly sorrow and appropriate repentance have taken place, we need to trust that our Heavenly Father—who knows all things, including our standing before him—is wiser than we are and knows what is best for our souls. As John the Beloved wrote: “For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20; emphasis added).

Simplify our lives and focus more on essentials.  We will not enjoy the quiet and soft impressions of the Spirit if we live in the midst of noise. We cannot become an instrument of the Savior’s peace if we are so busy and so involved that we have neither time nor energy to be about our Father’s business of lifting and loving and serving our brothers and sisters.

In the same spirit, I believe it is vital that we teach and testify of fundamental doctrines—especially the doctrine of Christ—and focus our attention on the sacred truths that lead to faith and conversion and conviction. We need to take more walks and spend more time pondering and prayerfully reflecting upon the things of eternity. It has been in those quiet settings that I have sensed more completely my relationship to God, his love for me and mine, and the course in life he would have me pursue.

When the Protestant theologian Karl Barth visited the University of Chicago, a questioner asked, “Dr. Barth, what is the most profound truth you have learned in your studies?” He quickly responded, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”² A simple truth with profound implications!

Learn to be patient. God is in the process of working on us. He isn’t finished yet, and so we must fight the tendency to lose heart when we fall short. Paul reminded the Saints in his day that “now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11). We should be “confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

All that we need to know, experience, and overcome will not take place in this life. “It is not all to be comprehended in this world,” Joseph Smith taught. “It will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.”³ I am comforted by the words of C. S. Lewis: “On the one hand, we must never imagine that our own unaided efforts can be relied on to carry us even through the next twenty-four hours as ‘decent’ people. If He does not support us, not one of us is safe from some gross sin. On the other hand, no possible degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded of the greatest saints is beyond what He is determined to produce in every one of us in the end. The job will not be completed in this life: but He means to get us as far as possible before death.”⁴

Learn to “wait on the Lord.” To wait on the Lord is closely related to having hope in the Lord. Waiting on and hoping in the Lord are scriptural words that focus not on frail and faltering mortals but rather on a sovereign and all-loving God, who fulfills his promises to the people of promise in his own time. Hope is more than worldly wishing. It is expectation, anticipation, assurance. We wait on the Lord because we have hope in him. “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Galatians 5:5). Thus, we wait on the Lord, not in the sense that we sit and wring our hands and glance at our clocks frantically but rather in that we exercise patience in his providential hand, knowing full well, by the power of the Holy Ghost, that the Father of Lights will soon transform a darkened world, all in preparation for the personal ministry of the Light of the World (1 Corinthians 1:4–8).

To be impatient with God is to lose sight of the truth—and thus require regular reminders—that our Heavenly Father loves us, is mindful of our present problems and daily dilemmas, and has a plan, both cosmic and individual, for our happiness here and our eternal reward hereafter.

To wait on the Lord is to exercise a lively hope that the God who is in his heaven is also working upon and through his people on earth. As it was anciently, so it is in our day: the spiritual regeneration required of individuals and whole societies that results in the establishment of Zion takes place “in process of time” (Moses 7:21).

In encouraging us to “put on the whole armour of God” (Ephesians 6:11), Paul mentioned the various parts of the Christian soldier’s attire: the girdle or belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness that come from the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:11, 13–17). One final piece of armor is vital: the helmet of salvation, or, more particularly, the helmet of “the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). Hope in Christ, assurance that we will through divine assistance overcome the obstacles of life by faith and thus pass the tests of mortality—this hope is central to our arsenal against evil. It produces a quiet confidence in believers, such that we feel welcome and empowered to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16; compare Moses 7:59).

Peter counseled the people of the covenant: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:6–7; emphasis added). The Master’s supernal promise is: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30). Our burdens become light as we turn them over to him, whether that burden is a financial setback, a wandering child, or some personal struggle. Our crosses become so much lighter as we surrender them to him who died on the cross. The Crucified One offers the blessed assurance that he will “ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, even that you cannot feel them upon your backs” (Mosiah 24:14).

As we mature spiritually, we learn to keep trying but to do so with a greater measure of trust and confidence. C. S. Lewis pointed out that “handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying. To trust Him means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus, if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way.”⁵

“To come out of the world,” President Stephen L Richards observed, “one must forsake the philosophy of the world, and to come into Zion one must adopt the philosophy of Zion. In my own thinking I have reduced the process to a very simple formula: Forsake the philosophy of self-sufficiency, which is the philosophy of the world, and adopt the philosophy of faith, which is the philosophy of Christ. Substitute faith for self-assurance.”⁶

Do your best. Give life your best shot. Elder James E. Talmage encouraged the Latter-day Saints to “be mindful of the fact that whether it be the gift of a man or a nation, the best, if offered willingly and with pure intent, is always excellent in the sight of God, however poor by other comparison that best may be.”⁷ Similarly, President Gordon B. Hinckley counseled the people of the covenant to “do the best that you can. That’s all we ask of you. Do the best that you can. The Lord doesn’t expect you to do more than that.”⁸

We need to be clear and straightforward in the expression of our faith and in devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. President Gordon B. Hinckley taught the Saints: “With all of our doing, with all of our leading, with all of our teaching, the most important thing we can do for those whom we lead is to cultivate in their hearts a living, vital, vibrant testimony and knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the world, the Author of our salvation, He who atoned for the sins of the world and opened the way of salvation and eternal life. I would hope that in all we do we would somehow constantly nourish the testimony of our people concerning the Savior. I am satisfied, I know it’s so, that whenever a man has a true witness in his heart of the living reality of the Lord Jesus Christ all else will come together as it should.”⁹

I testify that there is a God in heaven, our Eternal Father. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and, by the power of his Spirit, omnipresent. He knows us as his children, and he loves us.

Our Father has revealed, through the scriptures and the prophets, a divine plan, a system of salvation by which men and women can come to know their God and understand the purposes of life.

The fall of Adam and Eve, which was a central part of God’s plan, brought dramatic changes to earth and to humankind. Without divine assistance, mortals would be forever subject to physical death and eternal separation from God and things of righteousness.

To answer the effects of the Fall, Jesus Christ came to earth to teach the gospel and lead all humankind to the truth. He offered himself as a willing sacrifice, a substitutionary atonement, on our behalf, extended immortality to all of God’s children, and made eternal life available to those who come unto Christ by covenant.

Because we are fallen creatures, we cannot merit anything of ourselves. We cannot lift the burdens of our own sins, nor can we save our own souls. No one, save Jesus only, has traveled life’s paths without sin. Therefore our only hope is to lean upon and trust in the Person who did keep God’s law perfectly. Having faith in Jesus is our only chance.

The grace of God is more than just a final boost into celestial glory, although we will certainly be in need of such help. His grace is his unmerited favor, the unearned divine assistance, the enabling power that we receive from day to day, the power that equips us to do what we could never do on our own.

Although salvation is free and is the greatest of all the gifts of God, there is something we must do—we must receive the gift. True faith always produces faithfulness.

God and man are at work together in the salvation of the human soul. The real question is not whether we are saved by grace or by works. The real questions are these: In whom do I trust? On whom do I rely? In his poem Invictus, William Ernest Henley spoke of man being the “master of his fate” and the “captain of his soul.” Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote a resounding response:

Art thou in truth? Then what of him
  Who bought thee with his blood?
Who plunged into devouring seas
  And snatched thee from the flood?
Who bore for all our fallen race
  What none but him could bear,
The God who died that man might live,
  And endless glory share?
Of what avail thy vaunted strength,
  Apart from his vast might?
Pray that his Light may pierce the gloom,
  That thou mayest see aright.
Men are as bubbles on the wave,
  As leaves upon the tree.
Thou, captain of thy soul, forsooth!
  Who gave that place to thee?
Free will is thine—free agency,
  To wield for right or wrong;
But thou must answer unto him
  To whom all souls belong.
Bend to the dust that head “unbowed,”
  Small part of Life’s great whole!
And see in him, and him alone,
  The Captain of thy soul.¹⁰

Jesus Christ is the Light and the Life of the world (John 8:12; Mosiah 16:9; 3 Nephi 11:10–11). In him and in him alone is to be found the abundant life (John 10:10). In him and in him alone is to be found a fulness of joy (D&C 101:36). He is the Mediator, Intercessor, and Redeemer. In him is the power that may be extended to fallen men and women to become the sons and daughters of God, the means whereby we may resume, through appropriate reconciliation, our status in the royal family of God (John 1:11–12; D&C 34:1–4). If our gaze is upon the Savior, we need look nowhere else. If our trust is in him and his word, we need pay little heed to the discordant voices all about us. The invitation and challenge are ever before us: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not” (D&C 6:36). I pray that each of us will “seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever. Amen” (Ether 12:41).

Notes

^1.     1.   Swindoll, Grace Awakening, 47–48; emphasis in original.

^2.     2.   Cited in Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace? 67.

^3.     3.   Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 348.

^4.     4.   Lewis, Mere Christianity, 175.

^5.     5.   Lewis, Mere Christianity, 130–31; emphasis added.

^6.     6.   Richards, Where Is Wisdom? 49.

^7.     7.   Talmage, House of the Lord, 3.

^8.     8.   Hinckley, in Church News, 31 August 2002, 3.

^9.     9.   Hinckley, Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 648.

^10.    10.   Whitney, “The Soul’s Captain,” Improvement Era, May 1926, [611].