What is the Greatest Formula in the Book of Mormon? The greatest formula? Is it possible that the following is the greatest?
“Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.” (2 Nephi 31:20)
The Sequence of the Formula
1. Faith (to press forward with a steadfastness in Christ), hope (having a perfect brightness of hope), and charity (and a love of God and of all men).
One of the special keys to faith in Christ is: “If you shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ…” Faith in Christ takes effort, for it is a “doing.” “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:20) The action involves feeling strongly about what we are doing, not a weak nibbling, but a strong, wholehearted pursuit of whatever goal the word of Christ has brought to us. And one must be constant in this pursuit of obedience, not blowing hot and cold. Enduring to the end is to be so faithful that we become like Christ himself, who sought not his own will but who carefully and exactly fulfilled his father’s will.
2. Become as our Savior.
There is no greater goal any human being could have than to become as our Savior, relishing eternal life and its work of blessing others with the powers of godhood unto all eternity. To apply this formula one must keep the great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, might, mind and strength, and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him.” (D&C 59:5)
3. To love God, the Father, with all of our heart involves at least three strong feelings.
First, that we honor Him as the greatest person we know about because of his unfailing righteousness (always blessing others). Second, we should be overwhelmed with gratitude because of the multitude of blessings God has showered upon us. No matter how great our problems are, our blessings always way outweigh our problems. Thirdly, we should be grateful for his offer to share all that he is and has with us, if only we can stand that weight of glory. His commandments are the keys to qualifying to be able to accept and live with that glory.
Loving God with All our Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength
To love God with all our heart also means that our hearts are filled with His love for all of His children and all of His creations. Mormon counsels us to, “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ;” (Moroni 7:48)
To love God with all of our might means to use all the power and influence we have in this world to do his work of blessing others. We implement this by scanning our horizon constantly to see who we can bless and how we can bless them, even as our Father does. Then we proceed to use all the power we possess to execute those blessings we have seen are needed.
To love God with all of our mind means to treasure his truth. Our access to his truth, the real truth, is to receive the Holy Ghost, for by the power of the Holy Ghost we can know the truth of all things. To comb through our mind and carefully separate out the lies and half-truths planted there by Satan is a necessary precursor to basking in the knowledge of truth offered by our Savior.
To love God with all of our strength means to use our physical body to do God’s work of blessing others. Lending a helping hand to giving blood to bless others fulfills this opportunity. The greatest opportunity our strength affords is to beget children and to nurture and bless them in Christ.
Thus if we “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men” we will come to that greatest of all blessings given by God, the gift of eternal life and eternal lives.
Chauncy C. Riddle
More Guest Posts by C Riddle:
We Do Not Know Much About Ourselves
The Most Important Verse In the Book of Mormon
The Most Important Temporal Warning
The Most Important Spiritual Warning in the Book of Mormon
Book: Think Independently