Prepare to Be Judged

Nobody likes to be judged. Perhaps it’s because we are so keenly aware of our own weaknesses and failings. We’d like to hope that other people can overlook those things and accept us as we are. And we ought to do that for one another. We ought to give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that other people are doing their best.

But we must also face a stark reality: We will one day stand before God to be judged. We can’t escape that reality, and we ignore it at our peril. Book of Mormon prophets have warned us about the agony of arriving at that moment unprepared. Alma said that we would “quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye” (Mosiah 27:31). On another occasion, he said that “we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence” (Alma 12:14). Jacob described us having “a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness” (2 Nephi 9:14). Nothing will be hidden. Everything will be visible, even the parts of our lives that we have tried to hide from ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We have a Savior who will help us prepare for that day. But we have to want to prepare, and we have to be willing to accept His help.

A key purpose of the Book of Mormon is to persuade us to make those preparations. Mormon said:

For this cause I write unto you, that ye may know that ye must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human family of Adam; and ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil. …

And I would that I could persuade all ye ends of the earth to repent and prepare to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.

Mormon 3:22

Later, after seeing hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered at Cumorah, Mormon cried out to his deceased friends:

The day soon cometh that your mortal must put on immortality, and these bodies which are now moldering in corruption must soon become incorruptible bodies; and then ye must stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, to be judged according to your works; and if it so be that ye are righteous, then are ye blessed with your fathers who have gone before you.

Mormon 6:21

Mormon went on to assure them, “The Father, yea, the Eternal Father of heaven, knoweth your state; and he doeth with you according to his justice and mercy” (Mormon 6:22). We can count on God to be perfectly fair and even to give us as much mercy and grace as we are willing and able to receive. Shouldn’t we prepare now for that day? Shouldn’t we repent every day: identify shortcomings, plead with God for help, and strive to do better? Shouldn’t we remember that we are never merely passive observers. We are active participants, and our reactions to the events around us say far more about us than they say about those events.

As President Dallin H. Oaks has taught:

The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.

“The Challenge to Become,” General Conference, October 2000

Today, I will prepare to be judged by God. As I make decisions throughout the day, I will remember that those decisions are crafting and forming my future self. I will repent and change for the better with God’s help, knowing that the person I am becoming is the same person who will stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.