Merciful AND Just

 Today I got to teach Young Women's for the first time, which meant I had a wonderful week of studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I loved getting back to what is the most important, central doctrine and life changing event of all human history.
I had read this book before, but have no idea how I forgot how freaking awesome it is!
I re-read it in one day.
It explains so simply why the Atonement is so important and how it works in our lives. In some ways it is incomprehensible, but the way it effects our life does not need to be.
READ THIS BOOK.

 I had actually already been thinking a lot lately about the nature of God and what it is that I believe about Him and who He is.
I have no doubt that God exists. We were not created by accident. We were created very purposefully.

And knowing that there is a God changes everything. It brings on a whole list of other questions to answer, like what role does He play in my life? What does he expect of me? What is required of me to return to His presence and receive exaltation? "Believing in God should affect and change us. It should alter the choices we make."

Knowing the true character of God can be a tricky business. Some people believe that God is only ever full of grace and mercy, that we can do whatever we want and because God loves us or because we say we believe in Christ, we will all be saved in the end. Others have this idea of a God that is just waiting for us to sin and wants to punish us and make us suffer, a God that gives us commandments we are unable to keep so that He can serve justice upon us.
How do we reach that healthy understanding of who God really is and what our relationship with Him really means?
Well, by learning about Him, by testing His promises, by having faith in and following Him.
Pray and ask Him if He loves you. I promise you He does.

What do I know about God?
--He is my Heavenly Father. We are literally children of God. He loves me because I am His child.

"The pedigree of your Spirit can be written on a single line. You are a child of God."

--Jesus Christ is His Firstborn, Only Begotten Son in the flesh.

--I know that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are 3 separate beings, that God and Jesus Christ have bodies of flesh and bone and that we were created in their image, thanks to the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"The restoration of the gospel was not just another retelling of the same old stories. It was a restoration of the complete truth that surrounds the stories with purpose and perspective.

The story of the Creation wasn’t new. However, the Restoration added the knowledge of the premortal existence. Now people could understand why God needed to create an earth for His children in the first place.

The story of the Fall wasn’t new, but the Restoration added the knowledge of a mortal probation. Now people could understand why Adam and Eve’s choice was wise and prudent rather than selfish and sinful- and why the consequences, though difficult, were desirable. Now people could understand the God wasn’t blaming or punishing them, but ultimately helping them.

The story of the Atonement wasn’t new, but the Restoration added the knowledge of eternal laws and the spirit world. Now people could understand the reason for the rules and how opportunities to make correct choices are offered many times before any final judgment occurs."

The gospel is more than just good and nice and fluffy. It is a fullness of the truth because it holds the answers to questions that you cannot find answers to anywhere else.

--He is all powerful, all loving, all knowing, and good. He knows the beginning from the end.

--He knows me. By name.

 --He hears and answers my prayers. In His timing and in His way.
--He weeps for us when we suffer.
--He feels what we feel because He has felt it all before. He understands. He knows how to succor His people and He will. He will never leave any of us comfortless. (John 14)
“Well, my dear sisters, the gospel is the good news that can free us from guilt. We know that Jesus experienced the totality of mortal existence in Gethsemane. It's our faith that he experienced everything- absolutely everything. Sometimes we don't think through the implications of that belief. We talk in great generalities about the sins of all humankind, about the suffering of the entire human family. But we don't experience pain in generalities. We experience it individually. That means he knows what it felt like when your mother died of cancer- how it was for your mother, how it still is for you. He knows what it felt like to lose the student body election. He knows that moment when the brakes locked and the car started to skid. He experienced the slave ship sailing from Ghana toward Virginia. He experienced the gas chambers at Dachau. He experienced Napalm in Vietnam. He knows about drug addiction and alcoholism.
Let me go further. There is nothing you have experienced as a woman that he does not also know and recognize. On a profound level, he understands the hunger to hold your baby that sustains you through pregnancy. He understands both the physical pain of giving birth and the immense joy. He knows about PMS and cramps and menopause. He understands about rape and infertility and abortion. His last recorded words to his disciples were, "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." (Matthew 28:20) He understands your mother-pain when your five-year-old leaves for kindergarten, when a bully picks on your fifth-grader, when your daughter calls to say that the new baby has Down syndrome. He knows your mother-rage when a trusted babysitter sexually abuses your two-year-old, when someone gives your thirteen-year-old drugs, when someone seduces your seventeen-year-old. He knows the pain you live with when you come home to a quiet apartment where the only children are visitors, when you hear that your former husband and his new wife were sealed in the temple last week, when your fiftieth wedding anniversary rolls around and your husband has been dead for two years. He knows all that. He's been there. He's been lower than all that. He's not waiting for us to be perfect. Perfect people don't need a Savior. He came to save his people in their imperfections. He is the Lord of the living, and the living make mistakes. He's not embarrassed by us, angry at us, or shocked. He wants us in our brokenness, in our unhappiness, in our guilt and our grief.
You know that people who live above a certain latitude and experience very long winter nights can become depressed and even suicidal, because something in our bodies requires whole spectrum light for a certain number of hours a day. Our spiritual requirement for light is just as desperate and as deep as our physical need for light. Jesus is the light of the world. We know that this world is a dark place sometimes, but we need not walk in darkness. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light, and the people who walk in darkness can have a bright companion. We need him, and He is ready to come to us, if we'll open the door and let him.”
― Chieko N. Okazaki

--He guides us to the experiences we need and chastens us when necessary because He loves us.

--He wants me to have joy.

--He wants me to succeed. Gloriously.

--He wants me to obey His commandments.

"Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don’t rock the boat but don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds.

Talk about man creating God in his own image! Sometimes—and this seems the greatest irony of all—these folks invoke the name of Jesus as one who was this kind of “comfortable” God. Really? He who said not only should we not break commandments, but we should not even think about breaking them. And if we do think about breaking them, we have already broken them in our heart. Does that sound like “comfortable” doctrine, easy on the ear and popular down at the village love-in?

And what of those who just want to look at sin or touch it from a distance? Jesus said with a flash, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. If your hand offends you, cut it off. “I came not to [bring] peace, but a sword,” He warned those who thought He spoke only soothing platitudes. No wonder that, sermon after sermon, the local communities “pray[ed] him to depart out of their coasts.” No wonder, miracle after miracle, His power was attributed not to God but to the devil. It is obvious that the bumper sticker question “What would Jesus do?” will not always bring a popular response.

 Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning against condoning it (which He never ever did even once)."

The Cost and Blessings of Discipleship  by Elder Holland

--He wants me to live with Him again.
--He wants more than anything to pour out blessings upon us.
--He expects perfection.
--He wants me to become as He is and have what He has.
--He wants to help change me into something better than I ever was before.
--Each one of us are of infinite worth to Him and He has made eternal life possible for all.
--But most importantly, "God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have ever lasting life." 
--God is LOVE.


So why does the Atonement of Jesus Christ matter?
Because it saves us. He saved us.
He saved us from the effects of the Fall.
From our sins (which prevent us from being able to return to God's presence) and from death.
He gave his life to atone for the sins of all mankind.
Because He LOVES each and every single one of us. That is His motivation. Supreme, perfect, complete and unconditional love.
The price has already been paid, the demands of justice already met.
"There is no other name whereby salvation cometh."
All we have to do is repent. Change. Try to become better.

"Christ asks us to show faith in Him, repent, make and keep covenants, receive the Holy Ghost and endure to the end, By complying we are not paying the demands of justice- not even the smallest part. Instead we are appreciating what Jesus did and using it to live the life of a disciple and follow a pattern set by Christ himself."
 Making and keeping covenants are what bind us to the Savior and give us godly power.

But love for Him needs to be our motive.  

"If ye love me, keep my commandments"

"Follow me and do the things which ye have seen me do."

"True faith is more than knowing there is a God. It is knowing God- His attributes and His relationship to us. It is knowing that He has a plan for us and that we are living in accordance with that plan. True faith in Jesus Christ is more than a declaration of belief or hope. It leads to action."

 

 In order to live in God's presence we have to be perfected. That expectation can not be lowered.

Just like the young priest that gets to try again every time he messes up the words of the sacrament prayer, we too get as many chances as it takes to correct our mistakes. No matter how many mistakes were made and corrected along the way, the final outcome is counted as perfect and acceptable. That is mercy. He makes up the difference. He makes all the difference.

Does He require us to keep His commandments? Yes. Does He require us to make sacrifices? Yes.

Does he forgive and forget every time that we repent? ABSOLUTELY!

The miracle of the Atonement is that He will forgive our sins. That includes not just multiple sins, but also multiple times we commit the same sin. Beyond suffering for our sins, the Atonement of Jesus Christ also reaches every weakness, imperfection, affliction and infirmity we will ever expereince.

Christ is not waiting at the finish line once we have done "all we can do" He is with us EVERY step of the way. He knows how to succor His people and He will.

YOU ARE NEVER ALONE. There is always hope.

That is the miracle of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

“However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.” Elder Holland

"All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ."

"His love is greater than our fears, our wounds, our addictions, our doubts, our temptations, our sins, our broken families, our depression and anxieties, our chronic illness, our poverty, our abuse, our despair, and our loneliness. He wants all to know there is nothing and no one He is unable to heal and deliver to enduring joy. His grace is sufficient. He alone descended below all things. The power of His Atonement is the power to overcome any burden in our life. He knows our life situations and that we can always walk with Him no matter where we stand. In any of life’s travels, why would you ever turn away from the only Savior who has all power to heal and deliver you? Whatever the price you must pay to trust Him is worth it." -Elder Robert Gay

 

For "I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." 

"Jesus Christ is the ONLY religious leader that declared himself to be divine. Buddha did not. Muhammad did not. Nor did Lao-tzu, Confucius, Abraham or Moses. Only Jesus Christ made such a claim and then backed it up by the way He lived, the things He taught and the MIRACLES He performed. Did any of these leaders claim the willingness or power to be able to suffer and atone for the sins of the world? Did Buddha or Muhammad? Did the founders of Hinduism or Shintoism? No. The only one who claimed such a thing and actually completed it was Jesus Christ. While many religions contain part of the truth, and many do much good, they are not all the same. Likewise, all religious leaders are not the same. They enjoy their religious perspectives without understanding who did the work and made such benefits possible. The priceless blessings of the Atonement (which will be a reality for even those who don't believe in Him) didn't just happen by chance. They happened because of Jesus Christ."

BECAUSE OF HIM 

all will live again 

death has no sting 

the grave no victory

we can start again
guilt becomes peace
regret becomes relief

despair becomes hope

we have second chances

clean slates

new beginnings

there is no such thing as the end