Turning A Profit

¹“I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” (Mosiah 2:21). It is hard to read a verse like this and not feel at least a little discouraged. If we served God with our whole souls, we would still be unprofitable? I mean, we can't do any better than our whole soul. Is there then no way that we can become profitable to God? Paul shows us what it would look like to give absolutely everything and yet still come up short. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Without the pure love of Christ, we are and always will be unprofitable, even if we serve God with our whole souls and give our bodies to be burned. But that also means that the only thing that is necessary for us to become profitable servants is for us to be filled with the pure love of Christ. On our own, we will never be enough. We will never get out of the red. We have been in debt since the day we were born and every breath we take only gets us farther and farther from balancing the books. But if we have charity, if we have Christ with us to support our efforts and fill us with His mercy and grace and love, then in His power we can become profitable servants. Everything we do without charity profits is nothing. But everything we do with Jesus Christ is pure profit. The problem with trying to obtain Salvation without our Savior is that on our best day, when we put our whole soul into it, our efforts aren't enough even to keep up with the interest that our debts are accruing. We can't even meet the minimum payments. But if we just repent and let Christ settle our accounts, then even if we are only bringing in a couple of mites every day, it's still profit because it's no longer getting wiped out by all of the compounding interest that we would be dealing with if we were on our own. We could cure cancer and eradicate poverty and usher in world peace, but if we have not charity, if we have not allowed Christ to settle our debts, then we are still unprofitable servants. On the other hand, if we are constantly repenting and allowing Christ to dwell in our hearts that we may be possessed of His pure love, then even if we never do anything more than small and quiet acts of service, we are still profitable.