Lesson Summary: What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?

The relief society presidency has asked that I post a summary of the lesson each week for those of us who need a refresher or who weren't able to make it to church on Sunday. Becky Holdaway is our ward literacy specialist and she has graciously accepted the assignment to write up the summary of the lesson each week. So the following inspirational words are all hers not mine:

"To be and to do are inseparable. As interdependent doctrines they reinforce and promote each other. Faith inspires one to pray, for example, and prayer in turn strengthens one’s faith.

The Savior often denounced those who did without being—calling them hypocrites: “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me” (Mark 7:6). To do without to be is hypocrisy, or feigning to be what one is not—a pretender.

Conversely, to be without to do is void, as in “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17; emphasis added). Be without do really isn’t being—it is self-deception, believing oneself to be good merely because one’s intentions are good.
Do without be—hypocrisy—portrays a false image to others, while be without do portrays a false image to oneself.

May your efforts to develop Christlike attributes be successful so that His image may be engraven in your countenance and His attributes manifest in your behavior."