The Mormon belief is that you pay for your own sins and you are rewarded for your good acts. You are judged on YOUR works, not the works or the wills of others.
Often you can tell so much about a person by reading just one of their sentences....
Subtle but not correct.
Mormons do not pay for their own sins. This is false teaching about what Mormons believe in. Christ pays for all sin.
Shall I explain?
You are judged on YOUR works, not the works or the wills of others.
This part is true. You are judged according to your works.
Now for that explaination...
Mormons believe in making Covenants with God. Everyone must sooner or later make said Covenants so that all may be judged equally.
Covenants are made via Baptism and some similar types of Covenants within the Temples of our church.
No one can ever of their own fruition make their way to heaven, or any kingdom. It is impossible to do so without the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Do you have to be obedient? Absolutely!
Are we saved by works or grace? Grace, Absolutely!
How can this be?
Christ is the Judge of all men. We will all have to report to Him one way or another.
The Lord can extend His Grace to whomever He determines is worthy of it.
He can also withhold it from whomever as well.
If one lives and keeps their Covenants, the Lord has told us that will be the measure by which He judges.
Are you good, or not good? Have you tried? What is the content of your heart?
No one knows but you and the Lord.
In short, people that are obedient and have fulfilled the commandments to the best of their abillity are more prone to be found worthy of a heavenly reward.
In short, the Atonement of Christ is the only way for any man to be forgiven of his sins. The good thing about it is we don't believe one has to be dead to see and apply the Atonement in ones life.
If someone truly repents and seeks forgiveness of the Lord, he will most likely find it and the Lord will bless them here and now for it.
Please notice the words 'apply the Atonement'...its up to us to try our best to live as Christ lived, and as we do the Lord blesses us accordingly.
Applying the Atonement from a just and loving Christ requires us to be obedient to the commandments.
In further explanation, lets say someone pulls off the road and helps a little old lady change a flat tire.
That person will be blessed in some form or fashion and sometimes in ways we don't understand.
If this same person does similar acts his whole life... I don't believe its going to merely be an act by act accounting to get into heaven. Its more.
One has to be truly Converted in ones heart and otherwise to get there. If one is Converted, meaning 'changed into someone more holy', pulling off the road will be a joy not just a chore.
Christ is looking for our conversions, not just our acts. He wants to see each one of us turn into something better than we are now.
Doing this requires a lot of work on our part and a lot of faith in Christ.
As we embrace this process of conversion, we ask the Lord for forgiveness through His Atonement.
The act of conversion is the same as the act of repentance.
All of those things add up into one great whole, and in the end we are judged by Christ on it.
We don't have to pay for our own sins in the Eternal sense of the word, but we certainly have to recognize them and seek to overcome as many of them as we can.