This
was written for the final class of our Mid-Singles Seminar, May 8, 2013
By Holly
C Metcalf
“May God Grant
Unto You…Repentance [and exquisite Joy]” Alma 34:17, Alma 36:21
It is
a difficult thing to do—to give you my thoughts and testimony on the Atonement:
·
because the
Atonement is very personal and in order to explain it--really, and deeply--
would take too much time and be too intimate.
·
because the
Atonement is so precious to me I would wish for the tongue of angels to speak
it! Yet, I know my powers to express testimony about it are limited—whose are not. Words tend to fail.
·
Because I know I
have more to learn, more to feel, and whatever I say now exposes where I am in
terms of my worship and love and recognition of my need for a Savior. I hope someday to look back and see how much
my testimony and powers of appreciation have grown!
So, I
mention just 7 things relating to the topic of the Atonement of Jesus Christ
and my thoughts and feelings and testimony about the Infinite Atonement and
Life and You.
#1 GOD LOVES YOU: I’ve said it before, and I say
it again. I even feel I have a special urging
to say it to you. If I could I would
take you each by the hand, look you in the eyes, and say with the surety I feel
that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves YOU! Our Heavenly Father knows and loves YOU! You are a child of God, He knows your
strengths and weaknesses and he still loves you and will always love you. His arms are open, he beckons you. He will
run to you to help and comfort when you invite Him, when you come to Him. God loves you.
Believe it! It is true! This is a
message for you.
So if
you are looking for true love and an embrace that transcends time, Jesus Christ
is waiting. He is the representation and
the vehicle of the Father’s Love for you personally. God is Good.
He loved you first before you ever could do anything right or
wrong. He loves you still—when you are
awesome and approaching perfection and when you do not choose Him or when you
turn away from His path. He loves you when you doubt, when you are
disillusioned, when you are so tired you want to give up, or so lonely you
ache. He wants you to be happy, awesome,
and whole! He wants to bless you beyond your dreams. His arms are open to you.
Scripture: John 3: 16 ¶For aGod so bloved the cworld, that he dgave his eonlybegotten fSon, that whosoever gbelieveth in him should not
perish, but have heverlasting ilife.
17 For God asent not his Son into the world to bcondemn the world; but that
the world through him might be csaved.
Therefore,
what? The Love of God for us is the driving force, the founding and operating
principle of the precious Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Sometimes
I wonder what went on in the pre-mortal world—how was it that you and I agreed
to let the Holy One, the Sinless One, suffer and die for us? All of us who are so eager to be independent,
to not cause others to suffer for us—what was it like when we said not only “OKAY”
to the plan, but we rejoiced that this precious Son of God would be the
sacrificial Lamb -- for us.
Did
we think then that we would coast through life without doing too much harm to
Him, to others, and to ourselves? That we wouldn’t need Him as much as others
would? Surely NO!
I
believe we all must have soberly and honestly known that the dangers were great
and we would be PREY! We must have known and agreed that for periods of time we
would ignore Him and His teachings, give up on His love, misunderstand His commands
and His mercy, and foolishly and pridefully think we knew better than God.
Through
the fog of the veil of mortality, can we
recall that we were utterly certain that the Lord’s Love and the Lord’s Plan
and the Lord’s Sacrifice would be enacted, fulfilled, finished for our sakes!
That it was a surety that He would do His part! That justice would be satisfied
and mercy extended to us all.
Certainty
He would do his part, yes! But no
certainty for us doing ours—no guarantees—that was Satan’s plan as I
recall.
So
now what? What can we do, fallen as we are, farther from God than we wish we
were?
#2 Repentance: And
so we hear the words of Amulek again:
“Therefore, may God grant unto you, my brethren [and sisters] that you may begin to
exercise your faith unto Repentance!”
Amulek
asks that God will continue to GIVE US THE STRENGTH and opportunity to exercise
our faith to repent. This is the Gospel of Repentance! It is part of the Good News.
Repentance is a gift God grants unto us. It is the job
of mortals, it is our path to exquisite happiness! Repentance is the key to
humility and unmeasured blessings.
Repentance is the key to improvement and transformation and harmony. The
Savior in essence says: “O [Repent] that
ye may be even forgiven now by me” hymn
185
#3 Prayer: Amulek also asks
us to cry unto God for mercy, for he is mighty to save. (34:17-27) He asks us
to let our hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for our
welfare and for the welfare of each other!
Cry unto the Lord in every place, in every need, at all times of day and
night, on our knees, on our bikes and feet, in our hearts and minds, in our
cars and closets. Cry unto the Lord. Draw near unto Him.
In essence Jesus says: “Be obedient I implore,
prayerful, watchful evermore! In the solemn faith of prayer, cast upon me all thy
care.” Hymn 185
#4 Grace and
Power: Like Nephi, we beg that our souls may no longer
droop in sin! (2 Nephi 4). Like Nephi, we can plead that our hearts will
rejoice and have no more place for the enemy of our souls. Like Nephi, we can cry unto the Lord and praise
him forever, the Rock of our Salvation.
We petition the Lord for Grace and Power, like
Nephi, that we will be delivered out of the hands of our spiritual enemies and
ask for His Grace to bless us to shake at the appearance of any sin in our own hearts. Like Nephi, we ask with every yearning in our
souls, to have broken hearts and contrite
Spirits, and to be encircled in a robe
of righteousness.
It is
through such pleading that the enabling power of the Atonement rests upon us,
helping us to fight our battles and face our foes—even our inner demons, to
heal our wounds and broken hearts, to strengthen our spines and our spirits, to
renew our hope and our determination, to lift us up as with eagles wings and to
help us to lift others up! We are in this
together and we are not alone!
#5 OUR
GRATITUDE:
On
your behalf, as voice for the blessings we have received in this time together,
I declare that we do know that Christ has come among the children of men, and
has taken upon him the transgressions of his people, and that he has atoned for
the sins of the world. (Alma 34:8)
We marvel
at this—the Son of God came down among us to suffer, bleed, and die. He came to
be like man almost, to descend below all things, to have His bowels filled with
mercy and compassion for our sake—for all of us, every one.
We
declare that we know the atonement was
necessary-- From the beginning it was part of the great plan of the Eternal
God so see to it that mankind might not perish—for all of us would perish
without an infinite atonement. All are
fallen and all are lost, and all must perish except there were this great and
last atonement, an infinite and eternal sacrifice. It could not have been a
sacrifice of man for who among us could sacrifice our own blood and thus atone
for the sins of another? Nothing short
of an infinite atonement performed by the Son of God could bring salvation
(34:9-14).
We testify
as if with one voice, how grateful we are for the Atonement of Jesus
Christ. He is our Redeemer, our Savior,
our Hope, the Light the Life and the Truth, the Way, the Son of God, the One
who Loves perfectly, purely, steadily, endlessly, our gracious and merciful
God! And though our words of
gratitude may not be eloquent or magnificent enough, our feelings of love for
our Savior have grown over the last several weeks, and we look forward one
day to bend our knees and bow our heads in His presence, with tears washing His
feet. For HE has loved MUCH!
#6 A HEART LIKE HIS: In closing, keep thinking about
developing a heart like His. Pray with all the energy of heart
to be filled with the love He has. Our
hearts need to be more open to our Holy Father and our dear Savior. Our hearts need to be more open to one
another, forgiving, loving, looking for the good. Seeing with visionary eyes
and loving hearts.
#7 AT-ONE-MENT: Keep thinking about At-one-ment, for after we
understand Repentance and practice it daily, there is more for us.
All
that the Father has for His children is extended to us through His Son. Jesus says to us “If men come unto me I will
show unto them their weakness, I give unto men weakness that they may be humble;
and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me, and
have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether
12:27)
This
process—of seeing our weaknesses, turning to God for strength, will fulfill the plea Moroni in the last chapter of the Book of
Mormon, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be
perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness…and love God with all
your heart might mind and strength. Then
is his grace sufficient for you, that by His grace ye may be perfect in
Christ.” Seek also for the many, the
myriad, spiritual gifts that will can be granted to us one by one, little by
little. Those gifts can strengthen and
lift us and help us to strengthen and lift others. That is At-one-ment and it comes by the grace
of God. (Moroni 10:32)
Like
the prodigal son we once were lost but now are found, were dead but now we
live. For the mercy of the Son satisfies the demands of justice, and the grace
of the Son enables us—through repentance and faith on his name-- to be
encircled in the arms of safety. (34:16)
To us
today, as Amulek of old said, “therefore, may God grant unto you my brethren
that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance…to call upon his holy
name that he would have mercy on you.
This
was Amulek’s prayer and the prayer of all the holy prophets in every
dispensation, and to be bold, it is my prayer for each of us as well.
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