Can you believe it's Easter time already? It feels like just yesterday I was getting ready for finals as I sat in my apartment watching the Easter Devotional on the BYU Channel. It's amazing how time can fly and how quickly things can change. This time of year my thoughts, like many others, are turned towards that infinite atoning sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.
In my last few posts I've written a lot about choices and how they can both negatively and positively effect our lives. As I think about the role of the atonement in my life my thoughts are once again pulled towards the many choices that I have made. Inevitably we all make mistakes, none of us are perfect but because of the perfection of Christ we can be forgiven of our transgressions and be made clean. My favorite account of the healing nature of the atonement is in The Book of Mormon and it's about Alma the Younger. His father was a prophet yet he went around trying to destroy the Church, destroy Christ's Church. When an angel appeared to him he was struck down and brought to a complete remembrance of all of his many sins. Of this he said, "I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins...I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yeah I saw that I had rebelled against my God... (Alma 36:12-13)" Now we may not be in such excruciating pain as Alma but we are all tormented with feelings of guilt. Elder Scott Grow said, "There is no sin or transgression, pain or sorrow, which is outside of the healing power of His Atonement." No matter what we've done that has brought us the pain of guilt we can be comforted in the promise that there is nothing outside of Christ's healing power. I know that my life has been far from perfect but I also know that as I continue to exercise faith in Christ I can be forgiven of my many mistakes and face each day with a "perfect brightness of hope."
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." -2 Nephi 31:20
"Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." -2 Nephi 31:20
No comments:
Post a Comment