Sherri Dew wrote: “The Lord knows the way because He is the way and is our only chance for successfully negotiating mortality. His Atonement makes available all the power, peace, light and strength that we need to deal with life’s challenges—those ranging from our own mistakes and sins to trials over which we have no control but we still feel pain.
The Lord promised to heal our broken hearts and “to set at liberty them that are bruised” (Luke 4:18); to give power to the faint, to heal the wounded soul, and to turn our weakness into strength (see Isaiah 40:29; Jacob 2:8, Ether 12:27); to take upon Him our pains and sicknesses, to blot our our transgressions if we repent, and loose the bands of death (see Alma 7:11-13). He promised that if we will build our lives upon His rock, the devil will have no power over us (see Helaman 5:12). And He has vowed that he will never leave us or forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5). There is simply no mortal equivalent. Not in terms of commitment, power, or love. He is our only chance.
Our responsibility is to learn to draw upon the power of the Atonement. Otherwise we walk through mortality relying solely on our own strength. And to do that is to invite the frustration of failure and to refuse the most resplendent gift of time and eternity. “For what doth if profit a man if a gift is bestowed . . . and receive not the gift?” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:33).
. . .The Lord is our advocate, and He “knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them that are tempted” (Doctrine & Covenants 62:1). In other words He knows how to succor all of us. But we activate the power of the Atonement in our lives. We do this by first believing in Him, by repenting, by obeying His commandments, by partaking of sacred ordinances and keeping covenants, and by seeking after Him in fasting and prayer, in the scriptures, and in the temple. . . .
May we recommit to seek after this Jesus, of whom the prophets have testified. May we yoke ourselves to Him, draw liberally upon the matchless power of His Atonement, and rise up as sons and daughters of God and shake off the world. To “those who will have him to be their God” (1 Nephi 17:40), the Lord has extended a magnificent promise: “I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up” (Doctrine & Covenants 84:88). Jesus Christ is our only chance. ~Sherri Dew, The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 89-90
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