Reading in the Book of Mormon

[junipersky]

I read my scriptures (Book of Mormon right now) before I go to bed at night. Usually it's not as whole hearted as it should be but tonight I was having a hard time sleeping so I took my scriptures out to the couch to read more. I'm reading in Mosiah chapter 3 where King Benjamin is speaking to his people right before he died. He's prophesying about the coming of Christ and what his mission would be upon the earth and the reason for that mission. 11. For behold, and also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned. 12. But wo, wo unto him who knoweth that he rebelleth against God! For salvation cometh to none such except it be through repentance and faith on the Lord Jesus Christ. As I read verse 11 it hit me that maybe this is why so many Christian religions believe that the only thing that matters is grace- not how you act in this life. Christ's atonement does several things- but two in particular that I was really thinking about. 1. Christ's atonement and death erases the fall of Adam. All men on Earth will be resurrected and given eternal perfect bodies. The fact that we are mortal is not our fault and Christ's sacrifice saves us from the things we didn't have agency to change in our lives. 2. Christ atones for the sins we commit by willfully disobeying SO LONG AS we repent (see verse 12.) Now, don't get me wrong, if we're not actually sorry about the things we did then the repentance is moot. We have to honest to goodness repent. There is no "Sin today repent tomorrow" clause. A lot of Christian faiths have the first one down pat. But they don't believe in Agency like those of us in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints do. They don't believe that Heavenly Father would be willing to let us screw things up so badly that we couldn't live with him any more. We believe that our own actions do define our futures. We cannot save ourselves - but by living correctly we can qualify ourselves for Jesus Christ's atonement to cover what we are going to screw up by being human. God doesn't expect us to be perfect, but he does expect us to do our darndest every day to try to get as close as possible. If I'm right about this then it makes me understand other Christian beliefs about grace a little more palatable. They're not lazy they're just misunderstanding the layers of Grace. No, I'm not pointing at anyone in particular nor thinking of anyone in particular.