Grace

So if we aren’t able to pay the price of our own sins, then what are we supposed to do?  We know that “faith without works is dead and cannot save you” (James 2:18). If you are telling me that my own personal righteousness or the ways I try harder to be good and do good aren’t covering the debt, then what am I supposed to do to show the works of my faith? How can I be saved if I am supposed to work for it, but you are telling me my efforts won’t cover it? Isn’t salvation something that is earned by the way I live my life?

Yes, you must work, but I have come to realize it is a different kind of work than I originally expected it to be.  “...we contribute to our salvation, but we do not earn it” (Callister, The Infinite Atonement, 311, emphasis added). President Uchtdorf added, “Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God.”

We are “saved by grace after all WE can do” (2 Nephi 25:23, emphasis added). Brad Wilcox says, “...not we as in you and me, but we as in each of us with Jesus” (Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, 114). We often take this single verse out of context. When we look at the surrounding chapters, it is speaking of Christ---not us doing all we can and just tapping into His grace like a cherry on top.  A dear friend pointed out this verse to me about all we can do, “...since it had been all that we could do (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain” (Alma 24:10, emphasis added). I love that twice in this verse it says that all we can do is repent and allow God to take away the sin from our hearts and remove the stain of it.  We will talk more about repentance, but for now, hopefully you have a small crack of light trying to penetrate your heart that there is hope in Christ!

This hope does not rest on your merits or your ability (which hopefully brings further hope).:)
This may be a familiar analogy likening grace and works to a thirsty man in a hot desert.  He climbs the hill (works) and drinks the water (grace).  Which saved him? (see Pearson, Know Your Religion, 92-93). I love what Brad Wilcox adds to this little analogy.  “While effective in teaching the necessity of both grace and works, the analogy doesn’t fairly illustrate the interactions between the two or the extent to which the Savior goes to enable us.  The water may be at the top of the hill, but that’s not where Christ is.  He comes down to the bottom and brings the water to us.  That’s how we can make the climb to the top---which He still requires because He knows it will strengthen us and be for our best good.  Christ is not waiting at the finish line; He is finishing our faith (see Hebrews 12:1-2).  Grace is not the prize at the end of the climb.  It is the enabling power throughout (see “Grace,” Bible Dictionary, 697) (Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, 111, emphasis added). So even with those parts that are “all we can do,” it truly is we as in you or me plus Christ. He carries us through each aspect of what we need to do to repent and to get God to remove the stain.

Listen to this passage about grace from A Princess Story (used with permission). “The problem with saying that we must do our best and Christ’s grace will make up the difference is that we’re assuming there are a lot of good things we can do apart from him, and that we only need his help when we mess up or when we run out of steam. But that’s not what Jesus taught at all, and it’s not what Moroni said in the Book of Mormon either. Listen carefully to the prophet’s words:

But behold, . . . every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God . . . [for] all things which are good cometh of Christ; otherwise men were fallen, and there could be no good thing come unto them” (Moroni 7:13, 24).

“I hope you didn’t miss that last phrase. According to Moroni, being fallen has some very unpleasant side effects, and one of them seems to be that we can’t do any good on our own. He says that if any good works show up in our lives, it’s only through the power of Christ that we’ve been able to do them. That’s why he tells us our only hope is to “[rely] alone upon the merits of Christ, who [is] the author and the finisher of [our] faith” (Moroni 6:4).

“Notice: we don’t rely on our own strength and our own merits for a while, and then when that gives out, turn to Christ for help to do the rest. That would be like the dead branches trying to grow the first few pieces of fruit on their own. No, as a...natural man, our only chance for redemption is by connecting with Christ’s grace right from the start.  I absolutely love how LDS author Sheri Dew explains it: ‘If we think we have to conquer a bad habit or an addiction by ourselves, before we seek help, we most likely don’t understand grace. If we’re discouraged with ourselves because we feel weak and succumb too readily and too often to temptation, we don’t understand grace. . . . If we keep trying to suppress envy or anger that rises up at the worst moments, if we feel as though nothing ever changes and we can’t seem to get over unfairness or hurt, if we feel unworthy of the Lord’s help, we don’t understand grace. . . . In other words, if we feel as though we’re alone and must rely largely or even solely upon our own energy, talent, and strength—we don’t understand grace. Or better said, we don’t understand the enabling power of Jesus Christ’” (Wightman, A Princess Story, 95-96, emphasis added).

Here is my favorite quote about grace.  “Grace is not a booster engine that kicks in once our fuel supply is exhausted. Rather, it is our constant energy source. It is not the light at the end of the tunnel but the light that moves us through the tunnel. Grace is not achieved somewhere down the road. It is received right here and right now” (Wilcox, Source).

We must get it out of our heads that grace jumps in at the very end of our lives after we have done everything ourselves and grace just somehow tops off our efforts.  Have you caught yet that such a concept of grace is skewed?  Do you understand that this idea is not reflective of God’s plan?  We need a constant source of power and Jesus Christ, through His grace, can provide that for each one of us if we allow Him to. Grace is available to you right now.  It isn’t something that has to come later after you have exhausted all of your efforts or resources.  It isn’t something we are only allowed to tap into if we are worthy or have our life put together enough.  It’s available and it’s available now.

We will revisit grace again from a different angle later, but before we move on, let me share two more analogies about grace. Brad Wilcox said, “Christ’s arrangement with us is similar to a mom providing music lessons for her child. Mom pays the piano teacher. Because Mom pays the debt in full, she can turn to her child and ask for something. What is it? Practice! Does the child’s practice pay the piano teacher? No. Does the child’s practice repay Mom for paying the piano teacher? No. Practicing is how the child shows appreciation for Mom’s incredible gift. It is how he takes advantage of the amazing opportunity Mom is giving him to live his life at a higher level. Mom’s joy is found not in getting repaid but in seeing her gift used—seeing her child improve. And so she continues to call for practice, practice, practice.

“If the child sees Mom’s requirement of practice as being too overbearing (‘Gosh, Mom, why do I need to practice? None of the other kids have to practice! I’m just going to be a professional baseball player anyway!’), perhaps it is because he doesn’t yet see with Mom’s eyes. He doesn’t see how much better his life could be if he would choose to live on a higher plane.

“In the same way, because Jesus has paid justice, He can now turn to us and say: ‘Follow me’ (Matthew 4:19); ‘Keep my commandments’ (John 14:15). If we see His requirements as being way too much to ask, maybe it is because we do not yet see through Christ’s eyes. We have not yet comprehended what He is trying to make of us” (Source)

This second analogy was written by Lindsie Nichol Yost and is used with her permission.  “There once was a four-year-old little boy who loved brownies more than anything in the world.  His whole heart was set on brownies—this was the one thing he wanted more than anything else.  The problem was, being a four-year-old, he had no way of getting brownies for himself.  He couldn’t go out and get a job in order to earn money to pay for the brownie mix.  He couldn’t drive himself to the store to buy it.  He couldn’t mix up the batter or turn on the oven; and heaven forbid he couldn’t try to crack the eggs.  It was completely impossible for him to get brownies on his own.

“Then one amazing day his mom drove to the store, bought the best deluxe double fudge brownie mix with delicious chocolate chunks, drove home, mixed up the batter using all the right ingredients, turned on the oven and baked the brownies; and oh, they smelled so good!  Finally, once they were all baked and had cooled, she even frosted the brownies with a rich chocolate frosting.  Basically, these were the best brownies in the entire world.

“This little four-year-old could hardly contain his excitement as he asked, ‘Mommy, may I please, please, please have a brownie?!’  His mother looked at him and said, ‘Yes, you can have one of these delicious brownies; in fact, I made them just for you!  But,’ there’s always a catch, right? ‘but first, you have to clean your room.’

“Our little four-year-old was disheartened.  His room, like any four-year-old’s room, was, to put it kindly, a disaster.  There were clothes all over the floor, toys everywhere, and paper scraps covering everything; his bed was unmade, his books were scattered all around, and there was even a rotting banana peel that he had thrown under his bed, hoping that his mother wouldn’t find it.  He looked at the mess and then thought of the brownies that he wanted so badly, and he got to work.
“Before long he became disheartened.  The job was just too big.  Even though he was the one who had made the mess, there was simply no way that he was going to be able to clean it up all by himself.  He sat down and started to cry.  His mother heard him and came into his room.  She loved her son, and so she dried his tears and said, “let’s work together to get this job done.”

“They both got to work with a will.  The mother directed her son, telling him to pick up these books first, and then those toys in the corner.  She even helped him swish out all the garbage from under his bed, finding the rotten banana peel in the process, which she kindly helped him to throw away and then assisted him in washing his hands.

“With the mother’s help the job was finally done.

“The little boy felt pretty good about himself.  He had worked hard and now had a beautifully clean room to show for it.  Then he remembered the brownies, which, truthfully, were never far from his mind, and he asked his mother, ‘Now may I please, please, please have a brownie?!’

“This time his mother smiled and said, ‘Yes!’  She dished him up a large piece, kissed his head and thanked him for all his hard work.  That little boy savored bite after delicious bite.  He hadn’t done anything to provide himself with those brownies, but by the grace of his mother he was able to eat them once he had met all the conditions that she had set.

  “Now, what does this story have to do with the relationship between grace and works?  In this analogy we are like that little boy.  We can do nothing to save ourselves from spiritual death; nothing.  Just like that little boy with his brownies, it is only through the grace of another that we can ever receive that gift.  We are completely dependent on the grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

“However, our Savior’s grace, like the brownies, is extended to us only conditionally.  Remember the catch?  Like the little boy cleaning his bedroom, we are required to clean our lives.  We are required to do everything that we can to keep Jesus’ commandments, and as we do so He will guide us as to the things that we need to take care of next, lending us His help and His strength in the process.  Little by little, line upon line, He will guide our efforts.  He will even help us find those rotten banana peels, or past sins, that we’ve unsuccessfully tried to hide under our metaphorical beds and will help us to get rid of them.  He never gets discouraged, never stops calling after us, and never leaves us to clean up our lives on our own.  Not only can we not save ourselves, we also cannot fulfill the conditions set by the Savior without His help, and He will help us gladly if we let Him.” (She shared it a few years ago in a RS lesson and I wrote her for permission to use it for this book).

Check out the audio recording for an impromptu summary of a story told in Bruce C. & Marie K. Hafen's book, The Contrite Spirit: How the Temple Helps Us Apply Christ's Atonement. Also listen for a few other impromptu add-ins in the audio recording about grace as I wear my yoga instructor and nurse hats. :)

Our use of Christ’s beautiful gift of grace and our gratitude for it is what He wants to see!  As we appreciate what He has given and we actually use it, we cannot repay Him, but it brings Him joy. Is all of this starting to sink in a little bit?  When I first began to really understand these things it was as if it lit up something inside of me. I had completely new eyes to see the world!  It radically changed the way I viewed my life, my situation, and the world around me. I was beginning to feel hope!  As we get our own lives squared away, God will use us to bring the same message of hope to others through ministering.

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