Calling and Election Made Sure Bruce R. McConkie
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Everyone in the Church who is on the straight and narrow path, who is
striving and struggling and desiring to do what is right, though is
far from perfect in this life; if he passes out of this life while he's
on the straight and narrow, he's going to go on to eternal reward in
his Father's kingdom. We don't need to get a complex or get a feeling
that you have to be perfect to be saved. You don't. There's only been
one perfect person, and that's the Lord Jesus, but in order to be saved
in the Kingdom of God and in order to pass the test of mortality, what
you have to do is get on the straight and narrow path--thus charting
a course leading to eternal life--and then, being on that path, pass
out of this life in full fellowship. I'm not saying that you don't have
to keep the commandments. I'm saying you don't have to be perfect to
be saved. If you did, no one would be saved. The way it operates is
this: you get on the path that's named the "straight and narrow."
You do it by entering the gate of repentance and baptism. The straight
and narrow path leads from the gate of repentance and baptism, a very
great distance, to a reward that's called eternal life. If you're on
that path and pressing forward, and you die, you'll never get off the
path. There is no such thing as falling off the straight and narrow
path in the life to come, and the reason is that this life is the time
that is given to men to prepare for eternity. Now is the time and the
day of your salvation, so if you're working zealously in this life--
though you haven't fully overcome the world and you haven't done all
you hoped you might do--you're still going to be saved. You don't have
to do what Jacob said, "Go beyond the mark." You don't have
to live a life that's truer than true. You don't have to have an excessive
zeal that becomes fanatical and becomes unbalancing. What you have to
do is stay in the mainstream of the Church and live as upright and decent
people live in the Church--keeping the commandments, paying your tithing,
serving in the organizations of the Church, loving the Lord, staying
on the straight and narrow path. If you're on that path when death comes--because
this is the time and the day appointed, this the probationary estate--you'll
never fall off from it, and, for all practical purposes, your calling
and election is made sure. ("The Probationary Test of Mortality," Address given at Univ. of Utah, Jan. 1982, p. II; See JD 1:6) |
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