A Hope in Christ

At a ward conference, several years ago, I was asked to speak on the subject of hope. One of the brethren stated that we should not just hope that Christ is a redeemer or that we can be saved, but we should know those things are true. In a sense, he was right. There is a way to obtain the testimony of which he spoke and we should have a conviction borne of the Spirit. We can obtain that testimony by our application of true principles and asking in faith for the direction we seek.

Hope in Christ, however, is not the same as hoping we got it right. The way to express the hope in Christ is to understand that without Christ, there is no hope. I have, in past posts, stated that we do not receive what we need from God, but what we deserve. We cannot go out to our garden and expect to get food if we never planted, cultivated or harvested, no matter how hungry we are. However, we cannot deserve Eternal Life, that is life with God, no matter what we plant, water, fertilize or cultivate. We do not have the capacity to make our wrongs right. As James Ferrell puts it in his book, The Peacegiver, the only thing we deserve as a result of our living here in mortality is Hell. Without the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection we are without hope. With faith in Him, we have hope in a glorious resurrection. (verse 42) Additionally, our faith and hope are meaningless if we do not have a meek and lowly heart and confess by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ. In other words, we must come to understand that no matter how expert we become, no matter how closely we follow the commandments or how much we read the scriptures, etc., we must admit that without the selfless act of the atonement, we cannot expect eternal life. (Verse 43) With Christ, our hope is fulfilled and we can expect perfection, not because we deserve it, but because Christ makes up the difference. (2Nephi 25:23; Moroni 10: 32-33)