Come Follow Me this week includes this verse from chapter seven of Alma:
“And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity,
and then ye will always abound in good works.”
(Alma 7: 24)
The noticeable link between the three-legged stool of faith, hope, and charity and always abounding in good works especially caught my attention this go around. This verse makes it clear that it is our unavoidable responsibility and our Christian duty to see to it that we are found possessed of the great Christian triad.
As we devote tremendous effort to this tremendously important work, the promise is that we will ALWAYS abound in good words. Meaning constantly. As in continually. Resulting in no lapses in good works. Season after season after season of them, all coming upon the heels of one another. No personal, familial, or public famine of decent and caring deeds. No tiring of them. No being overwhelmed or overcome by the unending need and call for them.
This is a powerful connection. Truly a remarkable promise.
I’d like to further explore it here at Untoalltheworld.blog today.
First, I love the pensive personalness of the lens through which we are to see in this admonition. It’s totally self-focused which is, in my observations, a rarity in scripture. But in personal character improvement and Christ-like becoming, it is imperative to begin with self and look often that direction for both evaluation and correction.
“And see that ye have…” (Alma 7:24)
Take care to develop. Try, try, and try some more. Keep on keeping on. Deny yourself. Work at it. Engage in the struggle. If you discern you are without, make course corrections. But whatever you do, check yourself. Often. Self-analyze. Fine-tune. Regulate. Discern the lack. Do something about it. Change.
Faith rooted in good causes or happy todays and tomorrows can be helpful and supportive throughout life’s journey, but it is faith in Christ (the only One whose Atonement saves from sin, ignorance, and death) that moves mountains, destroys hate, rebirths hearts, and delivers individuals as well as nations.
Faith in Christ births other Christian virtues that bless all people and all lands that live them.
Faith in Christ is “not to have a perfect knowledge of things,” but it is manifest in a “hope for things which are not seen” but are, nevertheless, true. (Alma 32:21) For all of us (save a select few who are very special witnesses and called to those holy callings), Christ is unseen, but of all things, He is the truest. Hence, our faith in Him is both deserved and should be devoutly deliberate.
Faith in Christ thrusts one forward, causing positive action out of hopeful belief. It fuses human effort with divine blessing.
Faith in Christ trusts in a timetable and will far superior to those possessed of the human mind. Such faith is grounded on the bedrock of eternity and takes frequent flight on the wings of eternal perspective where vision is cleared and unfeigned hope sustained.
Faith in Christ is the way forward, the hope of headway, the leg up of progression. It is the journey for soul growth. It is the substance of living well, the promise of more uncountable good than this fallen world can ever offer, and the joy of a complete and full redemption from sin, death, and ignorance.
Faith in Christ brings Christ close, and when He is near, so is hope.
Anybody’s world is dark and dreadful without hope. Humans were made to hope.
Father Abraham, “who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which [had been] spoken,” did indeed become our father and Sarah our great matriarchal mother. (Romans 4:18)
Adam and Eve hoped to commune with God again after exiting the garden, so they built an altar and offered heavenward very penitent words from their hearts.
Because he hoped to make a difference in the lives of those he was called to serve, the Book of Mormon Jacob labored to teach his people unceasingly about virtue and chastity so as to not be guilty of prophetic dereliction.
Abigal hoped to spare imminent destruction by David and his men, and so she loaded both herself and a myriad of goods on a donkey and set off to intervene in her haughty and foolish husband’s behalf.
Esther hoped to be received by the king, though he hadn’t summoned her, and she was. She hoped to perhaps save her people, and in beautiful truth, she did.
Nehemiah hoped to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. At great personal peril and in the face of opposing terrorizations and intimidations, God helped him do it in just 52 days.
These are miracles born of hope.
Daring to believe in divine help. Petitioning heaven for something better. Hoping, working, and praying for it. Content of course but still, carefully, deliberately, daily choosing hope. Believing that, in the end, all things will work together “for good to them that love God.” (Romans 8:28)
And so we must hope.
And we will.
If our faith in Christ is determined, purposeful, and growing, we will be blessed with the heavenly bestowal of faith’s close cousin, hope.
Mormon taught, “Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.” (Moroni 7:42)
Hope is sweet, especially when life isn’t.
I believe God Himself operates from a very hopeful position, one that allows for human folly as well as divine intervention.
Well did Mormon say: “And what is it that ye shall have hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in Him according to the promise.” (Moroni 7:41)
Faith in our assured resurrection and redemption! How would that change our living?
As our faith in Christ matures in each differing season of our lives and as our hope – gift of increasingly firm faith in Christ – spurs us forever forward, we find ourselves becoming the personification of charity.
For so long, we practice. We plead hard. We do charity. We work at developing and cultivating love for Christ, love from Christ, and love of Christ.
Blessed by the grace of Christ falling drop by drop upon our souls (and in the process, bathing and reviving us in a critical rebirth), it one day appears in the mirror as we ready ourselves for the Lord’s errand(s). We glimpse charity herself. Not the doing of charity but the being of it. She is lovely, this new person we’ve become, and we rejoice in the growing fulfillment of Mormon’s words: “We shall be like Him…” (Moroni 7:48).
Our vision is clearing, and we are seeing Him “as He is.” (Moroni 7:48). We can literally see that what we lack still is being fully supplemented in full by what He is.
We are overcoming and becoming. We are no longer failing in kindness, envy, pride, provocation, and iniquity. Rather, we are full of belief, hope, and faithful endurance.
We are daily, hourly, by the minute and even every sublime second abounding – absolutely abounding – in good works.
And it is oh so “well with [us].” (Moroni 7:47)
The three-legged Christian stool is sturdy and holds us up well in pursuit of Christ here and eternal rest with Him and all that His Father hath there.
Unto all the world; “And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.” (Alma 7: 24)