In the end, verse 48 gives the key to attaining these blessings: “Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart that ye may be filled with his love.” Mormon had said at the beginning of this speech that one must pray with real intent (7:6, a stipulation that Moroni will reiterate in 10:4), and thus he returns at the end of his sermon, full circle, coming back to the need for the giving of offerings and prayers in their worship in their new synagogue with fullness of intent and withholding nothing.
Then, this love, or charity, which will be bestowed upon all true followers of Jesus Christ, allows that they “may become sons of God, and when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is” (7:48). The apostle John recalls this same promise, one which he knew because he had known Jesus, but which the world did not know, as he says, “because it knew him not” (1 John 3:1–2). The idea of both the potential and also of the obligation to become “even as he is” derives, in the Nephites’ minds, from these words of Jesus: “I would that ye should be perfect even as I [am]” (3 Nephi 12:48) and also from his words to his disciples, “what manner of men ought yet to be? Verily, I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27).
Mormon then finishes with encouragement that all “may have this hope that we may be purified even as he is pure, Amen.” What a powerful ending to this relatively brief but logically dense and spiritually potent speech!