Enabling Power
I gave a talk in the Harlem ward a few months ago and got a lot of good feedback on it and requests for copies. So I'm sharing it because I feel like I learned a lot preparing for it and it's knowledge that I hope I remember.
Today I was asked to speak on the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. "Enabling power" is a term we often hear in a gospel context, but I never actually took much time to think about what it really means because it seems pretty straight forward. Even without knowing exactly what it is referring to, we can make a pretty good guess. To enable means to encourage, facilitate, aid, make possible, etc. Knowing that, you can get by with a basic understanding that the Atonement encourages, aids and otherwise helps us to do stuff.
We often think about that power in terms of trials. I have trials. We all have trials. The Atonement gives us power to overcome trials. This is absolutely true, but I wanted to understand the enabling power of the Atonement in greater dimension as I was preparing for this talk.
I went to the Church's website and searched for "enabling power." A list of references came up. I scanned through them and quickly realized that "enabling power" is always linked to "grace." In fact, sometimes they are used interchangeably. This was a new discovery for me. The idea that enabling power = grace put the concept in a different light for me. When we think of someone who is gracious, we think of that person as being forgiving, tolerant, accepting or understanding. Likewise, when I thought of grace, I thought of it as the Lord overlooking our mistakes when we repent and making up for them where we fall short.
In 2 Nephi 25:23, Nephi explains his motivation for keeping the sacred records.
For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.When I've read that in the past, I've always thought about grace in terms the graphic below.
I thought about grace as something that kicks in to make up the vast difference after the point where we exhaust all our efforts. As in grace comes into play "after (and only after) all we can do." We get to a point where we just can't do anymore or get any better due to our imperfections and then grace takes over. I thought of it like a curved test where grace would take my imperfect score and turn it into a passing grade.
However, if we think about grace as enabling power (something that facilitates, aids, encourages, etc), it changes things. If grace is enabling power, it cannot be something that kicks in at the end. It has to be something that is present from the beginning and every step of the way in order to truly enable. Think about it in terms of the graphic below.
In this light, grace strengthens, directs, pushes and grows us in the process. It takes our imperfections and infuses them divine help. Grace, that enabling power of the Atonement, doesn't disguise or excuse our weaknesses by filling in the gap. It turns our weakness into strength and increases our capacity so that we can expand to fill in the gap ourselves. As we study to understand the gospel and strive to apply it and align our actions to it, grace is the power that converts those efforts into godliness.Nephi said that "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" because he knew as Paul wrote to the Philippians "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13). Paul knew this because he had been reminded by the Lord when he had asked three times for a trial to be removed from him. The trial was not removed and Christ answered simply, "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Corinthians 12:9), knowing that through the enabling power of the Atonement, Paul could accomplish what he needed to.
When Christ gave his sermon on the mount and commanded followers saying "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect," (Matthew 5:48), he was not giving them an impossible or eventual commandment. He was encouraging them to partake of his grace and reach their potential as children of God. He was encouraging them to believe that truly "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
Elder Bednar, in a talk on enabling power said,
It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. ("In the Strength of the Lord," October 2004, GeneralConference)
Elder Bednar does not say that grace makes it as if we did good when we did not. He says that it gives us the strength to do what we are charged with doing.
This leads us to a beautiful thesis of the Atonement: The Lord died for our sins as well as for our goodness.
Think about the atonement in terms of a pencil.
We would probably tend to say that the eraser end represents the power of the Atonement because it removes mistakes. However, the primary function of a pencil is as a writing utensil. It is a creative tool before it is a remover of mistakes. Pencils are designed to be used for writing, drawing, crafting and creating. Then it has this great contingency plan for when we mess up or craft something less than ideal.
So it is with the Atonement. It is primarily designed to help us express and create the goodness that is in us. Then it also has this built in contingency to help us move past our sins and mistakes. If all we did was repent of sins, we'd be perpetually in the same place, repenting of the same sins all the time. However, we're not just supposed to not sin. We're supposed to get better. We're supposed to build. We're supposed to be more than we are. We're supposed to work on being like God. That is what the Atonement is aimed at doing for us.
In other words, the Atonement makes it possible for us to right our wrongs as well as to write our goodness. It enables us to nurture the budding godliness within us and overwrite the natural man. When we talk about the all-inclusive nature of the Atonement, we're not just talking about its ability to cover all of our sins, but also it's ability to uncover all the good we are capable of. Considering we are God's children, that potential is great.
In the New Testament, we read of an adulterous woman who was taken before Christ by a group of deceitful people in an effort to trick him. Christ reasoned that the person among them who is sinless should cast the first stone at the woman. As this applied to no one, they left. Christ then instructed the woman to "go, and sin no more" (John 8:11). Christ doesn't tell her it's OK that she sinned. He doesn't tell her that he'll let this one slide. He recognizes it and tells her to go and sin no more. It's as if he is instructing her (think of the pencil) to erase what she has done and not to let it affect what happens next.
Repentance doesn't just mean getting rid of a mistake. The Greek root for the word repentance refers to change. Therefore, repentance requires using every part of the Atonement to get rid of the mistake and then to change and redirect efforts to something usable, productive and godly.
I have a testimony that there is beautiful poetry, prose, essay and art to be written with our lives through the enabling power of the Atonement. We are not here just to not make mistakes, but to make goodness.
Sister Sheri Dew said,
Our responsibility is to learn to draw upon the power of the Atonement. Otherwise we walk through mortality relying solely on our own strength. And to do that is to invite the frustration of failure and to refuse the most resplendent gift in time or eternity ("Our Only Chance," April 1999, General Conference).
In the 3rd Article of Faith, we read,
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
We may be saved. We are welcome to it. It is ours for the taking.
I have a testimony that this is true.
