(The next post will be in the new year.)
George W. Pace wrote:
As you really search the scriptures and study with all your heart, you discover that there may well be a possibility that you are not as sinless as you would like to be or should be. You realize that perhaps the reason you aren’t receiving more revelation and happiness in your life or fulfilling your stewardship as you should is because you don’t enjoy sufficient power from the Holy Ghost.
So, like Enos, you hunger and thirst as you never have before for a complete remission of your sins. Oh, it’s true you’ve been baptized, but you are mindful that having hands on your head and the word of promise spoken over you may not be the same thing as being baptized of the Spirit. Consistently you go to the Lord in humble prayer and plead with Him that you may have a remission of your sins.
Let me share with you a way to imagine the Atonement that might make it more real for you. Suppose that you were to review your life with the Savior, the occasions where you broke the commandments. How would you feel? Just the idea would bother me greatly, because I feel so ashamed of my sins. Imagine how that guilt would be quickened by the presence of the Savior, how painful to know that the Lord has really seen all your weaknesses and your willful disobedience. What a heartbreaking experience! Particularly when you realize that there is no way for you to make amends for your sins.
Then, perhaps, your mind goes back to the account of the Lord in Gethsemane, of how he was so burdened with sorrow and agony of suffering that drops of blood came from his pores. You realize that part of his suffering was to pay for your sins.
When I contemplate this, after repentance, something happens. I feel a new kind of joy and peace. I feel clean, changed. I feel myself with a whole new nature (see Alma 36:20-21). I realize that this change is a result of his magnificent love and a willingness to assume the pain and suffering caused by my disobedience (see Mosiah 5:2). And, oh, how I rejoice for that tremendous blessing! ~George W. Pace, from The Gift of the Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 120-21
(The next post will be in the new year.)
