Mormon 7:10 - The Simple Gospel

The last words the prophet/historian Mormon wrote in the Book of Mormon are,

...and if it so be that ye believe in Christ, and are baptized, first with water, then with fire and with the Holy Ghost, following the example of our Savior, according to that which he hath commanded us, it shall be well with you in the day of judgment. Amen.

How much would you love for that promise to be realized in your own life (or afterlife)? I don't know about you, but I would really like for it to be well with me in my day of judgement. Thankfully, the way Mormon described it, the way to ensure that "it shall be well with you" is refreshingly simple. It's not exactly easy, but it's simple. We just have to live the gospel of Jesus Christ, and living the gospel is basically as simple as following the example of the Savior. Again, it's not easy, but it's simple.

We tend to overcomplicate things - or at least I do. I tend to think that, in order to qualify as being righteous, I have to do a large number of specific things, and not do many other specific things, but when I get mired down in the specifics, I miss the bigger picture. I'm not trying to memorize infinitely long lists of things to do or not to do; I'm trying to become like Jesus Christ. Righteousness isn't measured by what we do or don't do, but by who we are. It's not about our actions; it's about our hearts. If we set Jesus as our example and set our hearts on becoming like Him, our righteous actions will fall into place.

I'm grateful for the simplicity of the gospel and for the occasional reminder of how simple the gospel is. With all the commandments we're supposed to keep and all the sins we're supposed to avoid, it's easy to get overwhelmed if we think about them individually. But when we think about them collectively, thinking of all the commandments as things that Jesus would do and all the sins as things that He would not do, we can keep all the commandments and avoid all the sins by simply trying to be like Jesus.

It's not easy to be Jesus, but the idea of being like Jesus is easier to remember than the long list of commandments that we should try to keep. If we want to try to list all of the commandments, we could probably come up with a list of hundreds, but as long as "Being like Jesus" is at the top of that list, we really only have to remember one. It's not the easiest commandment we're supposed to keep, but it's a simple one, and it fully encompasses all the others. We don't have to worry about trying to memorize all of the commandments. As long as we're following the example of Jesus Christ, everything else will fall into place, and "it shall be well with [us] in the day of judgment."