You may believe in Christ, but do you believe Christ? When we put our trust in him, he makes us more than we ever thought we could be.
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Have you ever been afraid you were going to drown? Have you ever panicked as you struggled for breath and fought to stay above water?
Sin can make us feel like we are drowning. The expectation of perfection can seem too high to reach. It’s true that by ourselves, we can’t attain perfection. However, Christ promises us that through his Atonement we can become perfect, as he is.
While serving as a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, Stephen E. Robinson shed light on this promise in a BYU devotional.
“I have learned there are many that believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he is the Savior of the World, but that he cannot save them,” Robinson says. “. . . To have faith in his identity is only half the process. To have faith in his ability, in his power to cleanse and to save, that is the other half.”
Robinson likens our relationship with Christ to a business merger. “We have liabilities, he has assets,” Robinson says. “He proposes to us a covenant relationship. . . . I become one with Christ, and as partners we work together for my salvation and my exaltation. My liabilities and his assets flow into each other. . . . The two of us together are perfect.”
Jesus Christ loves us individually, and he wants to help us learn to swim. When we stop trying to be perfect on our own and instead rely on him, his perfection makes up for our inadequacies.
Read Stephen E. Robinson’s full article, “Believing Christ: A Practical Approach to the Atonement.”
Source: BYU Speeches
—Amber Dalton, Mormon Insights
feature image by jacob walti
This story is extremely inspiring. I sometimes feel as if I’m drowning in stress and weaknesses. But when we seek to believe Christ, not simply believe in Him, and that He can do what He says he can do, we can triumph. He really is the Savior of the world, and He can save us from our pains and suffering.
I think the first testimony we gain of Christ is that he lives, loves us, and knows us personally. However, because of our imperfections and mortal mentality it can be difficult to comprehend the power and authority of his redeeming sacrifice. It takes great faith to do the small, daily things like scripture study and prayer, but they prepare us for when life’s challenges force us to rely on the redeeming power of our Savior. I think the key to accepting his help in becoming like him is to see and look for the good in ourselves and not to forget our divine worth.