Calling and Election
Made Sure Bruce R. McConkie
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Everyone
in the Church who is on the strait 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
strait 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 strait 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 "strait and narrow." You do it by entering
the gate of repentance and baptism. The strait 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 strait 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 strait 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 University of Utah, Jan. 1982, p. II; See JD 1:6) |
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