To be worthy does not mean to be perfect

I often have struggled with the concept of being perfect. Maybe you have too?

But over the last couple of years, I realized God never intended for us to be perfect. He intended for us to fail. That was the plan.

God’s plan was for us to become stronger by getting up every time we fall. His plan was for us to be humble, to rely on His love and counsel to guide us home. His plan was for us to be refined by failing time and time again, to become impenetrable through the furnace of affliction.

The way we reach perfection is through obedience and humility to God, and laying hold upon the atonement of Christ. For "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23). The question should not be “have you been saved by grace?” but “have you been changed by grace?"

In the words of Brad Wilcox…

“A life impacted by grace eventually begins to look like Christ’s life. While many Christians view Christ’s suffering as only a huge favor He did for us, Latter-day Saints also recognize it as a huge investment He made in us. As Moroni puts it, grace isn’t just about being saved. It is also about becoming like the Savior (see Moroni 7:48).

The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can live after we die but that we can live more abundantly (see John 10:10). The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled but that we can be transformed (see Romans 8). Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God (see Alma 40:26), but, brothers and sisters, no unchanged thing will even want to (Brad Wilcox, His Grace Is Sufficient)."

"To be worthy does not mean to be perfect” (Gerritt We. Gong). To be worthy is to rely on Christ and allow His atonement to transform us. This is the plan.