Grace or Works, All or Nothing

[Anonymous]

I have been listening to the latest Mormon Stories podcast with Shawn McCraney. Not going to say I agree with Shawn on a lot, but he brings up an interesting point in the second episode, that is if you believe in Christ, who saves us him or do we do it ourselves. From what I gather Shawn believes it is all Christ. This is the basic evangelical belief of “saved by grace” even though Shawn does not consider himself an evangelical. Of course the Mormon belief is more along the lines of I have to work my butt off performing ordinances and living a set of predefined rules that will make me a good person and then whatever I am lacking Christ will make up the difference.

So my real question is taking those two points of view what makes us a good person and qualifies us for salvation or exaltation as a Mormon would say. Am I a good person because I live the commandments and it forces me into situations that mold me into a good person, or is it the fact that I accept my faults and believe in the saving ability of Christ and that is what makes me a good person and I will naturally live the commandments as a result.

Shawn made the point that Mormons say it is both. We are saved by grace and by works “we are saved by grace after all we can do” Is that really compatible? I mean Christ either takes all our sins upon himself or he does not. Is Christ really going to say well you were mostly good but you just did not work quite hard enough, off to the terrestrial kingdom with you. I guess I struggle with the notion if Christ really is our savior what is more important to him. His love for us or his ability to judge us?

[Anonymous]

Cadence, I like to link to previous posts about topics – largely because there usually are some really good comments in the thread, and I like to recognize people’s existing thoughts on the matter. Here is a link to a post about grace. It has 27 comments, and your participation would be great there:

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=201

I am going to bump it up for everyone to see afresh.

[Author]

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