After you have gone through the initial steps for faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, you begin the work of sanctification. Sanctification is the process in which our actual natures change to be like Gods. This is not an event, but a process. Sanctification is not possible without the Grace of Jesus Christ and the companionship of the Holy Ghost. This is the part of life that Latter-Day Saints refer to as “Enduring to the End”.
But enduring to the end is not just sitting around and waiting. It’s a process of becoming. It requires us to keep repenting as we fall short each day by our sinful thoughts, words, and actions.
In addition, sanctification is not just about eliminating the negative in our lives, but rather it’s replacing the negative with the positive. The Book of Mormon gives us some fantastic insights into this process:
- Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
As we repent, we are able to renew the covenants we have made at baptism each week the partaking of what Latter-day saints call “The Sacrament” which other faiths may call “communion” or “Lords Supper”. (i.e. the bread and water(wine))
King Benjamin gave us some insight on how we can retain a remission of our sins: (Mosiah 4:11-
11And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have atasted of his love, and have received a bremission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own cnothingness, and his dgoodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of ehumility, fcalling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing gsteadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel.
12And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the alove of God, and always bretain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the cknowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.
Later in the chapter…(Mosiah Chapter 4:26-27)
26And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may awalk guiltless before God—I would that ye should bimpart of your substance to the cpoor, every man according to that which he hath, such as dfeeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.
27And see that all these things are done in wisdom and aorder; for it is not requisite that a man should run bfaster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.
So as you can see, the process of sanctification is not passive, but an active good work which God works in you to change you. In the end, your judgement will be more about who you have become than about each individual work or sin. You cannot work your way to heaven, but you have retain a state of grace and thus a remission of your sins by actively sanctifying yourself through the enabling grace of the Lord and the companionship of the Holy Ghost and renewing your covenants with God.
