Moroni 10:33

And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

Here is hope! Moroni's final words are of hope. We can hope to be spotless and holy and acceptable to God because Christ has ransomed us and paid our price. God can be merciful because of Christ, which fills both the Father and the Son with joy. Their joy is our one true hope.

Moroni 8:3

I am mindful of you always in my prayers, continually praying unto God the Father in the name of his Holy Child, Jesus, that he, through his infinite goodness and grace, will keep you through the endurance of faith on his name to the end.

Mormon is an example of a father who prays for his children He prays always and continually for his righteous son. He prays that God will bless his son with grace (enabling power) and goodness (love and mercy) so that he can endure in faith. This father and son lived in a harsh, violent world. To stay true to Christ was not easy in their day. Our world is becoming increasingly harsh and violent, and staying true to faith in Christ is not easy for our children, either. If Mormon felt the need to pray for his son, surely we should feel the need to pray for our children.

Moroni 2:2

And he called them by name, saying: Ye shall call on the Father in my name, in mighty prayer; and after ye have done this ye shall have power that to him upon whom ye shall lay your hands, ye shall give the Holy Ghost; and in my name shall ye give it, for thus do mine apostles.

When Christ ordained his twelve special Nephite disciples, he gave them authority, but he added instructions that to exercise that authority with power, they had to pray.

Authority and power are  not synonymous. Authority is the right to do something; power is the ability to do it. We get our abilities from God. The enabling power of God is called grace. We must pray for grace, as we would for any worthwhile gift. God gives marvelous gifts, but only when we ask.

Neither can the asking be casual or occasional. The disciples, with all their authority and witness,  still needed to exercise "mighty prayer." Mighty prayer is the kind of prayer we offer when we know we are totally dependent on God's grace and no other help is available. In a mighty prayer we say, "Lord, it is you or nothing. I have nowhere else to go and no one else to lean on. Whatever you do is good, and so, give me whatever is good. Just don't  leave me alone."

Ether 12:41

And now, I would commend you to 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.

If we want to have God with us, we must seek him. He rarely sneaks up on us. We have to use our agency to search him out. The good news is that he is not hard to find. He is practically right out in the open for those who make the effort. He is a mystery only to those who do not want to know him. And when we find him, he gives us grace, which is the gift of enabling power. He enables us to stay with him so long as we keep seeking, keep trying, keeping choosing to believe.

Ether 4:8

And he that will contend against the word of the Lord, let him be accursed; and he that shall deny these things, let him be accursed; for unto them will I show no greater things, saith Jesus Christ; for I am he who speaketh.

We argue against the word of the Lord when we reject the revelations of the prophets and refuse the prompting of the Holy Spirit. In such an attitude we are cursed by the natural vicissitudes of mortality without the help and strength of grace. God does not punish us, he simply withholds his help, and without it, life is much harder than it has to be.

Mormon 7:7

And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end.

Because Christ has redeemed us, we can in fact pass before the judgment bar of God totally guiltless. We can be perfect in Christ. And then note the next phrase: it will be given to us to dwell with God. To live in the presence of the Father and the Son is a gift. First, Christ has to erase our sons, which is totally a gift of his love and mercy. And then when he has cleaned us all up through his perfect sacrifice, he gives us the gift of eternal life with him in the presence of Heavenly Father, which we totally do not deserve! The whole idea is beyond comprehension and truly humbling. As Elder Holland once said, how thrilling it must be for God to be merciful to those who least expect it and don't think they deserve it. Of course we won't really have time to stand around all day and sing songs of praise in a heavenly choir,  but we will feel like it as we are filled to overflowing with gratitude as we begin to comprehend the gift we have received.

Mormon 2:15

And it came to pass that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty and four years had passed away.

The day of grace is never passed for those who sincerely wish to repent. No sin is so severe, so deep, and so frequently repeated that it is beyond the reach of Christ's Atonement. Nevertheless, if we do not avail ourselves of Christ's merciful gift through repentance, he will not force his mercy upon us. If the day of grace is passed, it is because we choose to deny grace, and we refuse to ask for forgiveness. If we refuse mercy, the only alternative is justice.

3 Nephi 13:34

Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof.

Each day contains enough evil and temptation to keep our attention fully occupied without worrying about tomorrow's possible trials and afflictions. We are not to put our heads in the sand, but we are to get the most we can out of the day at hand. We have many opportunities each day to serve and do good. We must put everything we've got into making today the best day possible and don't leave any chips on the table. God gave us our strength for this day, and he will give us strength for the next day when it comes. One day at a time is all we can do.

3 Nephi 12:48

Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect.

Jesus commands us to be perfect. Now, we know that he gives no commandments unto the children of men save he prepare a way for them to keep the commandment with his help (see Nephi 3:7). We can therefore assume that he is ready to help us and that perfection is achievable. "Ask Heavenly Father to bless you with these attributes you cannot develop them without His help" (PMG p. 115).

What he does not give us in this commandment is a timeframe. He doesn't say when we have to reach perfection. He gives no deadline. It takes as long as it takes, and we each move along the path to perfection at our own pace. As long as we are striving to stay on the path and make progress through the grace of Christ, we are keeping this commandment. It does not matter whether we achieve the goal in this life or the next. We are judged by trajectory, not speed. We must have patience and not get discouraged and give up. Christ is in this with us for the long haul.

3 Nephi 12:20

Therefore come unto me and be ye saved; for verily I say unto you, that except ye shall keep my commandments, which I have commanded you at this time, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

We have to keep the commandments to be admitted into the heavenly kingdom where the Father and the Son dwell. But Christ knows we cannot do it on our own. So he invites us to come to him, lean on him, depend on him, draw strength from him, and accept his offer of redemption, justification, and sanctification. He will help us to qualify for eternal life. It is after all his work and glory. He can do almost everything for us except the one vital part of the equation -- we, and only we, can and must choose to come to him. If we will but make that one choice, he will do all in his infinite power to see to it that we succeed. No wonder the gospel is good news!

Helaman 13:38

But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

Christ offers the grace of his atonement to all, but he does not offer it forever. It is free, but it is not without terms and conditions. A condition of redemption is that we must repent before it is too late. Only God knows the statute of limitations on repentance for each of us. We must repent before we find ourselves in the situation where a prophet tells us it is too late. If we repent continuously, we need not worry. But if we put off repentance when we know it is needed, we play a very dangerous game, a game with eternal consequences.

Alma 56:46

For as I had ever called them my sons (for they were all of them very young) even so they said unto me: Father, behold our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth; we would not slay our brethren if they would let us alone; therefore let us go, lest they should overpower the army of Antipus.

We may not be victorious in every battle, but when the Holy Ghost confirms to us that God is with us, we can enter the fray unafraid of the outcome. God's power can make up for our lack of experience and even skill. We just have to be willing to try.

Alma 49:2

And behold, the city had been rebuilt, and Moroni had stationed an army by the borders of the city, and they had cast up dirt round about to shield them from the arrows and the stones of the Lamanites; for behold, they fought with stones and with arrows.

The "war chapters" of Alma are rich with metaphors. In this case Moroni used wisdom in strengthening the weakest cities. We should likewise recognize our weaknesses and try to strengthen ourselves in these areas. Satan certainly knows our weaknesses, and he will strike us first in our most vulnerable spots. If he succeeds once, he will keep picking at that scab. He may win a battle, but if we are wise and seek God's strength to shore up our weaknesses, Satan will not win the war. Properly prepared and defended, we can turn away his attacks and disappoint him.

Alma 26:20

Oh, my soul, almost as it were, fleeth at the thought. Behold, he did not exercise his justice upon us, but in his great mercy hath brought us over that everlasting gulf of death and misery, even to the salvation of our souls.

This theme is repeated over and over throughout the scriptures, but it is particularly emphasized in the Book of Mormon. We do not save ourselves. We do not leap over the awful gulf in a single bound. Christ carries us over the gulf. It is his power, not ours, that brings us to salvation. I am awed and humbled each time I am reminded of this magnificent concept of salvation. The gift of salvation is beyond comprehension in the depth and breadth of mercy, kindness and love it represents. Oh, how blessed we are to live in a universe over which a God of love reigns supreme! And how blessed we are that this God of love could produce a Son of equal capacity and possessed of a willingness to pay the price to save us. I truly stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me.

Alma 26:12

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

Grace is the enabling power God loans us to perform his work. When Ammon says he is nothing, he means in comparison to God. We can, in fact, do many things on our own. Many people live their whole lives supposedly on their own. In reality, though, as King Benjamin taught, none of us ever really do anything truly on our own. God has given us the earth, the sun, water, air, natural laws, and all the raw materials with which to work, not to mention life itself. Yet with all these gifts we cannot completely succeed in fulfilling God's purpose for us without his help. We will fall short of accomplishing all that is in his plan if we do not seek his assistance. Life is designed that way.

Alma 24:11

And now behold, my brethren, since it has 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.

Twice in this verse and again in verse 15 the king says that it has been all his people could do to repent and be forgiven. Is this not true for all of us? Can we ever really do anything more than throw ourselves on the mercy of Christ and his atonement? For all our intentions to do good, keep our covenants, and obey the commandments, we fail every day. In the final analysis, we can earn nothing for ourselves. Every effort, every good intention, every right choice only qualifies us for the gift of forgiveness and justification. The fact is, we must be forgiven, we must be pardoned, we must be saved. There is no other way into God's grace.

Alma 23:7

For they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of their brethren.

The questions we must ask ourselves are: What are our weapons of rebellion? How are we fighting against God? And what do we have to do to lay them down? Each answer is individual and personal. Our weapons of choice may be very subtle, hardly noticeable to an outside observer. The tiniest bit of pride, a faint trace of stubbornness, an invisible addiction, a harmless temptation, a fleeting but recurring thought, a memory we like to replay, just the smallest sin we harbor and protect in our heart. Each time we indulge, we put a brick in the wall that separates us from God.

When we repent, the Savior pulls the brick down. We put up the bricks one by one, but Christ can knock down a whole bunch of them, even the whole wall, at one time if we let him. The best course, however, is to stop building the wall in the first place.

So how do we stop piling up bricks? We have to cut off our supply so we don't have any more bricks to stack. We have to terminate our contract with our supplier and then refuse to accept his charitable donations. To do this, we need a powerful advocate on our side--one more powerful than our adversary and ourselves. That advocate is Christ. Only he can show us our weapons, teach us how to lay them down, and then empower us to put the program into effect. And that is the definition of grace.

Alma 22:18

O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead.

Giving away all our sins is harder than it sounds. Many of our sins are habits. That makes them iniquities. They are designed by the natural man to make us comfortable and temporally secure. Life can seem a little scary without our regular sins. We wear them like an old sweater that just makes us feel good. Without God's grace, it is impossible for us to just give them up. The first step is, like the king realized, to want to give them up. With the natural man it us impossible, but with God all things are possible to him that believes.

Alma 5:34

Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life; yea, ye shall eat and drink of the bread and the waters of life freely;

The bread and water of life - Christ's love and mercy - are gifts. No amount of pious works from us can buy them. We cannot earn salvation. We cannot pay the price. But we must choose the gift that is offered on the conditions by which it is offered, and those conditions are by doing our best and humbly repenting when we fail.

Mosiah 21:8

And it came to pass that the Lamanites did beat them, and drove them back, and slew many of them.

Just like the people of Limhi tried to fight their way out of their captivity using only their own power, we often try to "fix" ourselves using sheer grit and determination. Resistance against the natural man without the help of God, however, is futile. The spirit may be willing but the flesh is always weak. We must rely on Christ's grace--his enabling power. He is the only way!