1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
The concept of hope plays a vital role in Latter-day Saint thought. Firmly centered in Christ and his resurrection, it is the “hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:2) repeatedly alluded to by Paul. It is the opposite of the despair found among those who are “without Christ, having no hope, and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). As the Book of Mormon prophet Moroni writes, “If ye have no hope, ye must needs be in despair” (Moro. 10:22). For those, however, who accept Christ’s Atonement and resurrection, there comes a “brightness of hope” (2 Ne. 31:20) through which all who believe in God “might with surety hope for a better world” (Ether 12:4).
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Regardless of their form, the individual variations of meaning all center on the confidence or trust in God that springs from knowledge that mankind is saved through the Atonement (“for we are saved by hope,” Rom. 8:15). Hence, hope is inseparably connected with faith. Book of Mormon passages add insight to New Testament teachings by expanding on this interactive relationship: “How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?” (Moro. 7:40); “hope cometh of faith” (Ether 12:4); “without faith there cannot be any hope” (Moro. 7:42).
In combination with faith, hope leads to knowledge of the truth about Jesus Christ (“if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true” [Alma 32:21]). It is also an essential attitude for individual salvation (“man must hope, or he cannot receive an inheritance in the place which thou hast prepared” [Ether 12:32]).
James K. Lyon
Hope, The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
A Christian serves others. He or she does so almost as automatically as they inhale and exhale. They serve others because they remember Christ and they remember what an infinite and eternal service He has done for them through His Atonement.
When we provide Christlike service, regardless of how humble or how unnoticed, we become a better person. With enough humble service, we become great in all the ways that count.
Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. –Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct”
Opportunities to serve are everywhere. There will never be a shortage of people to help. All of this service is encompassed in Christ’s commandment to Peter and to us, “Feed my Sheep.” (John 21:15–17)
Our Savior wants us to learn something of what He knows by helping to do His work. Paul urges us to have “the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16) Christ saved the world and everyone in it. He asks us to help save God’s sons and daughters one at a time from loneliness, from suffering, from ignorance, and from the many other afflictions that accompany life in a mortal world. In that process and under His divine influence, our hearts are changed, and we become a little more like our Savior. By our service, we take His name upon us and feel His love for those in need flow through us to them. We cannot be a conduit for His love without being profoundly blessed by that experience. As we communicate His love to others, we understand more clearly how much He loves us.
David P. Vandagriff
portions taken from: I Need Thee Every Hour – Applying the Atonement in Everyday Life
Thus, we further the Savior’s work of atonement when we live together in a state of at-one-ment. We do atonement work when we marry and work at that marriage. Without the commitment to marriage, the Lord’s atoning work could not go forward on the earth. The purposes of creation would have been wasted.
Eternal marriage, after all, is both a type and a function of at-one-ment. It is a type in that it constitutes two separate, fallen beings-a man and a woman-brought into oneness with each other and with God through the grace and power of Jesus Christ. It is a function of atonement in that, through the divine enabling power of the Atonement, a man and woman make their marriage eternal.
The Savior said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” (Matthew 19:4-6; emphasis added.)
The word cleave is an atonement word that means “to cling to closely, tightly.” Paul wrote to the Corinthians, countering currents of asceticism already gaining momentum in the Church: “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all . . . [are] of God.” (1 Corinthians 11:11-12.) Conversely, when we put relationships asunder, we violate this spirit of at-one-ment.
M. Catherine Thomas
The Restoration of the Doctrines of Marriage and Atonement
Women and Christ: Living the Abundant Life: Talks Selected from the 1992 Women’s Conference
Sponsored by Brigham Young University and the Relief Society
Edited by Dawn Hall Anderson, Susette Fletcher Green, and Marie Cornwall
Deseret Book Company (1993)
(paragraph breaks added to enhance online readibility)
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Note that when Paul speaks of the law in verse 28, he is referring to the Law of Moses and the term, “without” in the original Greek is “apart from” or “without intervention of”.
In one test of creativity, subjects are faced with the following problem: A ping pong ball has fallen to the bottom of a tube that stands, in a vertical position, fastened permanently to the floor. Some participants try, unsuccessfully, to reach into the tube and retrieve the ball with tools that are provided. The problem is that some tools are not long enough to reach the ball, while others are too wide to fit into the tube. Some subjects eventually give up in exasperation, but others discover a creative solution, realizing that water can be poured into the tube. The water displaces the air in the tube, and the ball pops to the surface, rising higher each time water is poured in. Once water fills the tube, the ball is easily retrieved.
In the same way, one of the best methods to remove something from our lives is to displace it with something else. . . . we can become so caught up in a purpose for good that we simply have less time and energy to get wrapped up in the bad.
Alma the Younger and Paul the apostle both utilized this principle. At one point, each had strong desires to tear down the Church, then repented. In their repentance, they permanently replaced bad with good. It would be absurd to imagine that after they were converted they had to resolve each morning, “I just have to resist the temptation to preach against Christ today.” Instead, they had become captivated and eager to build up the Church and had thrown themselves completely into the cause of Christ.
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Certainly it is true that good can displace the bad in our lives. When we are deeply involved in a positive purpose, our souls, and even our bodies it seems, resonate with the power and energy of God. Just as precious ore that has been purged of imperfections is more pure, we are more fully ourselves when we are in the midst of doing good rather than evil. In essence, the process of gaining more self-control and increasing in righteousness is not one of changing from who we are. Rather, we are changing to who we are. Changing is a process of becoming more fully ourselves.
A. Dean Byrd and Mark D. Chamberlain
Willpower Is Not Enough, (1995, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City)