Striving for Obedience
While Relying on Grace
While being perfect
is not a requirement for Christ’s grace, this truth does not excuse us from
trying. The idea that we do not need to try for perfection is like a child
asking his parent to teach him to ride a bike but then refusing to push the
pedals. Christ’s atonement is meant to help us learn how to be perfect.
Therefore, if we are not trying for perfection, we have missed the point of the
Atonement altogether.
Some struggle with
the balance of grace and obedience. Perhaps some infer that if we talk about
salvation’s dependence on grace, then people may think salvation’s dependence
on grace, then people may think salvation requires little effort. However, we
should not equate an emphasis on grace with a de-emphasis on obedience. Grace
and obedience can coexist. When a true understanding of grace is coupled with a
true knowledge of the Atonement’s purpose, the desire to be our best becomes instinctive.
As we truly comprehend that Christ’s mission is to help us become something
great, we naturally want to strive for greatness.
While some may fear
that stressing grace without obedience will cause idleness, stressing obedience
without grace can cause hopelessness. President M. Russell Ballard taught, “Unfortunately,
there are some within the Church who have become so preoccupied with performing
good works that they forget that those works—as good as they may be—are hollow
unless they are accompanied by a complete dependence on Christ.” (M. Russell
Ballard, “Building
Bridges of Understanding,” Ensign, June 1998) To this same point,
those who focus solely on what they lack in “good works” are often ridden with guilt
from never measuring up; they believe Satan’s false narrative that their level
of perfection equates to the level of God’s love for them. I fear that sometimes
we inadvertently help Satan pound this belief into ourselves and others.
Perhaps in our desire to emphasize that obedience shows our love for God (see
John 14:15), we inadvertently teach that God loves only the obedient. I believe
part of why I was so anxious as a child and obsessive about my own worthiness
before God was because I did not understand the Savior’s compensatory role in
helping me learn obedience. To use President Ballard’s words, I had “become so
preoccupied with performing good works” that I had forgotten my “complete
dependence on Christ.” In time, I came to better understand the Savior’s role,
which gave me more hope to keep trying. I had an even stronger desire to stay
on the covenant path when I found out I was not walking the path alone.
In His godly
omniscience, our Heavenly Father anticipates the day when His children are
perfectly obedient, but HE does not expect it in this world. Our role in
partaking of our Savior’s compensating power is to do our best while realizing
that He is the One who does the perfecting, just as Moroni taught that “by his
grace [we] may be perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:32). (B. J. Allen, The Compensating
Power of Christ: How Christ’s Atonement Rights the Wrongs of an Unfair World
and Imperfect People [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc.,
2024], 145-47)
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