“For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.“ (LDS 2 Nephi 25:23)
What is the meaning of the phrase “all we can do”? Is this setting an impossibly high standard that can easily be violated the moment anybody does not live up to their full potential? What does it really mean for someone to fulfill what is required for “all [they] can do”?
First of all, “all we can do” has to refer to something that someone “can do”. To think that it refers to something that is nearly impossible, completely misses the point of what a person “can do”.
Further clarification is given within the book of Mormon when the same kind of wording is used to describe what a group did, “And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain” (LDS Alma 24:11)
What a person can do is repent. In fact, if a person is living the gospel, repenting basically covers all that a person is doing. There is no excess virtue, or extra deeds that can be offered. If a person takes the gospel seriously, it is all they can do just to simply ”repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain”. If a person does nothing more with their life than to repent of their sins, they would have done all they could do.
How humbling is it to know that all the things that a person can do is really just an effort to repent? All the service that can be rendered, all the help that can be offered, all the charity that can be done is really just an effort to simply repent. To keep the commandments is to demonstrate the willingness and desire to repent. It is all that anyone can do. It is all that God asks of us.