As I read Paul's epistles there is this battle between grace and works. As a recovering addict, it seems I am always preaching grace. I know I'm alive today because of grace and would be dead if it were totally up to my own works. But in my personal life, the battle continues. While it is good to contemplate upon improvement and the works I can perform better and purging the contemptible from my life, it is also not profitable to beat myself up over those things not yet perfected. It injures my ego to realize my works will never be good enough to make it--at least in mortality.
I get hung up on concepts like my program or my sobriety. And really, I did nothing to merit any of it, rather it comes as a gift of grace from God. And to experience that divine presence and the sweet peace that comes from the Spirit, and that pure love from God, I have to be willing to go out on the field, play the game of life, and then fall down in the mud and muck and get a little dirty. Then I have to return to Him and beg for forgiveness and have faith and hope in His redeeming power to heal and cleanse.
So one of my favorite Pauline epistles is to the Galatians. For a little background, under the Law of Moses there were the "outward performances" (see Alma 25: 15) and the daily reminders. One of the best reminders was what became the prayer shawl, or tallit. The Lord gave a commandment to sew fringes in the borders of the garment as a reminder of the commandments. He said:
"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:
"And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring:
"That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God" (Numbers 15: 38-40).
And as a reminder to do ALL of the commandments, the fringes were tied in a prescribed manner. The Hebrew word for fringes is tzitzit. Now you have to understand that each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has a numeric value. So the numeric value of tzitzit is 600. Each of the fringes contained 8 threads and 5 knots. So you get a nice mathematical equation:
600 + 8 + 5 = 613
And the number 613 happens to equal the number of commandments contained in the Torah (or Law of Moses). By the way, 248 were positive (things you should do) and 365 were negative (things you should not do).
Then I can imagine Jehovah just sitting back and waiting for the results. Do you think He keeps a tally? If you're an ancient Israelite the odds are not with you!
Now in the Book of Mormon, both Lehi and Nephi see concourses of people en route to the tree of life, in hopes to partake of the fruit, which is the love of God. Interestingly, as they approach the tree to partake, there is a strange phenomena. Nephi, in recording the words of his father, says, " . . . And they did press their way forward, continually holding fast to the rod of iron, until they came forth and fell down and partook of the fruit of the tree" (1 Nephi 8: 30). As they approached the tree, they fell down. Now I know part of this is to portray the idea of worship, as the tree represents Christ and His love, and also the love of the Father in sending His Only Begotten Son. But the idea of falling down also conveys falling down in the dirt and trying to get back on your feet. Have you ever tried to pick fruit in the prostrate position? If we find ourselves falling down, we must reach upward and take hold of His hand. It is then that we experience the love and grace of God.
Paul explains, "For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law" (Galatians 5: 3). In every Pauline epistle, when you see the word circumcision it refers to one who clings to the Law of Moses and expects salvation to come thereby.
So what is Paul saying? To paraphrase he is saying, "Hey look, if you expect the Law of Moses to save you, then you need to adhere to all 613 commandments perfectly. You are a debtor to 'do the whole law.'" You would have to make a checkoff list of all 248 "thou shalts" and all 365 "thou shalt nots." Then as you retire to bed, go over the whole list and make sure you didn't violate any of the negative commandments or forget to do one of the positive commandments.
Besides the fact that this is a recipe for failure, if we do this, we have left Christ out of our lives, and we don't get to eat of the fruit of the tree of life and experience His love. Paul goes on to say, "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Galatians 5: 4).
It is by trying to do His will, falling down, getting up again, and reaching upward and outward to Him that we feel of His grace, love, and power. It is then that we feel and come to know the "fruits of the Spirit," which are "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith" (see Galatians 5: 22).
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