The Mighty Change of Heart

Alma called his people to repentance boldly. He held them to a higher standard. They should be ready to meet God. To be ready, they had to be spiritually born of God, receive his image in their countenances, and experience the mighty change of heart.

Ezra Taft Benson, in the October 1985 conference, discussed the mighty change of heart. He said:

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

(Read President Benson's talk, Born of God, to better understand Alma 5:14.)

Therein lies the key to why all of the social programs in the world won't save a society, why government is, in the end, powerless to succeed on its own. The change must come from within, and that can happen only through Christ.

The concept of the mighty change of heart also goes to the question of becoming. The Lord looks not so much on what we do as what we are. That was made clear to me when, as a bishop, a good and repentant person would come to me to confess a sin. For that person, confession was a necessary step but there was little need to help that person further in the process. On the other hand, a person who had not felt the mighty change of heart needed much more help because confession, though necessary, was ineffective without that change.

You can evaluate yourself by asking the following questions: Do I resist sin because I am afraid to get caught, do not want to suffer the consequences, or do not want to disappoint someone else? Or do I resist a sin because I am not the kind of person who commits that sin? Do I have “no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually”? (See Mosiah 5:2, 7.)

Are we becoming like Christ?

Update 8/30/06:

In his April 2006 conference talk, As a Child, Elder Henry B. Eyring explained the relationship between doing and becoming and the mighty change of heart:

From King Benjamin we learn what we can do to take us to that safe place. But remember: the things we do are the means, not the end we seek. What we do allows the Atonement of Jesus Christ to change us into what we must be. Our faith in Jesus Christ brings us to repentance and to keeping His commandments. We obey and we resist temptation by following the promptings of the Holy Ghost. In time our natures will change. We will become as a little child, obedient to God and more loving. That change, if we do all we must to keep it, will qualify us to enjoy the gifts which come through the Holy Ghost. Then we will be safe on the only sure rock.