Come unto Christ, for He is unchanging

This week we talked about Moroni 10. I never paid as much attention to this chapter until this past week. Our professor told us that Moroni 10 is the other half of a nutshell that sums up the Book of Mormon. Because of this, Moroni shares what he hopes we take away after reading it, and he calls them exhortations. The exhortations that meant the most to me are the ones contained in verses 19, and 30. In verse 19, Moroni said, “I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” This is important to me because even though I know that the scriptures are true, there are times when I forget that they actually apply to me. This verse, and this exhortation help to remind me that even though the scriptures were written by a different people in a different age, they were written for me, that I might learn from them. Also, we need to remember that Heavenly Father showed forth great mercies to His children in days gone by, and, because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He still loves His children, and still shows forth great mercies to them. In verse 30, Moroni exhorts us to “come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.” Moroni continues to say, in verse 32, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness.” Moroni isn’t just writing things as they come to his mind, but he is writing them in the order that they need to be done. First, we need to “come unto Christ,” and then we can be perfect, and deny ourselves of all ungodliness. We do not need to be clean before we go to Christ, but we need to go to Christ, and then, with His divine help, we can be perfected. There are people that believe they have to do all the work before they can turn to Christ. However, Christ said that He “came into the world not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” We are all sinners, and we cannot work out our own salvation without relying on His arm.