Sharon G. Larson in a book titled “My Yoke is Easy” shared thoughts on ‘The Gift of the Atonement’:
The gospel is intended to lighten our burden. In the gospel covenant, we are in partnership with the Savior. That is what makes his yoke easy. When we are yoked with him, Heavenly Father accepts our combined total worthiness. Christ makes his yoke easy for us, but do we believe him when he tells us that he will? Do we believe he really is who he said he is and will do for us what he said he would do? . . .
. . . When he says his yoke is easy and his burden light, he does not mean that his burden would cause no pain, no suffering , no staggering under its load, no sacrifice. In fact it calls for the greatest sacrifice of all—our old selves, our natural selves that are an enemy to God (see Mosiah 3:19). . . .
Taking Christ’s yoke upon us is the vital step toward godhood. We can’t skip this step on the ladder. It is receiving the incomprehensibly exquisite gift of the Atonement. Elder F. Enzio Busche warned us, “We will not be satisfied until we have surrendered our lives into the arms of the loving Christ, and until He has become the doer of all our deeds and He has become the speaker of all our words” (Ensign, November 1993, 26).
When you decide it’s Christ’s yoke you want, you will quit resisting His will, and the weight of your burden will be equalized by his yoke. You will find that your half of the yoke will be equalized by his yoke. You will find that your half of the yoke, your own capacity, has taken an exponential leap. . . .
His yoke is easy for us, but it wasn’t for him. Not at any time in his mortal life was it easy—from his birth in a lowly stable to his cruel death on Golgotha.
His atonement was infinite, It covered everything that is not perfect from the beginning of this world to the end. His atonement was intimate because in that garden in Gethsemane, the Redeemer of the world somehow complete paid for our personal burdens of disappointment, sin and guilt. That why his yoke is easy for us—and so heavy for him. He paid the awful price of justice so we could rest in mercy’s arms with him forever. ~Sharon G. Larson, The Gift of the Atonement (Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City 2002) 102-103
