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5 Principles to Help You Understand and Access the Atonement of Jesus Christ
From a devotional address given to young adults in Latin America and Spain on January 9, 2022.
When we understand and embrace Jesus Christ’s Atonement, we see His infinite love, His mercy, and the incomparable blessing of being able to return to our celestial home.
Christ in Gethsemane, by Harry Anderson
The Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ has a powerful influence in helping us to repent and to receive forgiveness.
1. Repent and Come unto Christ
As your faith [in Jesus Christ] grows, you will be able to feel deep within you the ability and divine help to change your behavior. You will want to repent. You will have a greater desire and greater strength to keep the commandments and to get rid of that which does not bring goodness to your life. As you do this, all of a sudden there will be another power: the power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, which will grant unto you greater forgiveness for sins. You will start to feel His approval, His love, and His grace. Then, in a miraculous way, you will feel the gift of His forgiveness.
2. Have a Broken Heart and A Contrite Spirit
For me, three qualities—a broken heart, a contrite spirit, and godly sorrow—are dear friends that prepare us so that we can become who we want to become.
Jesus Christ, the greatest of all, has paid for all our mistakes and sins through His sinless life, His suffering, and His sacrifice, on the condition that we be willing to accept Him and repent of our sins. When we understand and embrace His Atonement, we see His infinite love, His mercy, and the incomparable blessing of being able to return to our celestial home. It is then that we come to know a broken heart and a contrite spirit as we come to know conclusively that without Him we are nothing. He enables all our eternal possibilities.
The greatest awakening may be to individually and personally understand that the payment that Jesus Christ made for our sins is very real, and that His suffering is not only for everyone else, but also for you and for me! And this is where our third friend comes in: godly sorrow. According to our spiritual understanding that He has suffered for our sins, we feel sorrow for the part of His pain that we caused. We realize that that is a part of our Father’s plan, but the gift that He gives us is overwhelming.
That amazement, that gratitude, that worship for the Savior who has done this for us, makes us bow our knee as our spirit is filled with godly sorrow, and we receive the feeling of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. With the help of these three friends, we continue our path toward repentance.
3. Be Honest
True repentance and true forgiveness do not exist without total honesty.
When we desire to repent, honesty becomes crucially important. First and foremost, we must be honest with our Heavenly Father and with ourselves. Lack of honesty and deceit make up the foundation of almost every sin.
On occasions, when somebody starts to repent, they start by revealing only a part of the problem. Sometimes we deceive ourselves by thinking that there is no reason to mention all the details, or that part of what has happened has been someone else’s fault. Any type of deceit delays the repentance process. Trustworthy Priesthood leaders can help us to realize what we may not have fully understood.
When we seek out the Savior’s forgiveness, only total and complete honesty will open that important door. Remember, God knows the thoughts and intentions of our heart.
4. Partake of the Sacrament
We resolve to take the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, remembering each week our love for Heavenly Father and our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We pay attention to the words: “And witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them” (Doctrine and Covenants 20:77). The word “always” echoes in our mind and in our hearts.
As we remember Him and remember His suffering, His love for us, and His willingness to free us from our sins, we are overwhelmed by gratitude and the desire to offer Him our soul. We rejoice to have taken upon us His name and to have promised to keep His commandments.
As we remember the Savior, we take on in our spirit the example, the character, and the teachings of He who we need in our own life
5. Understand How to Know You Are Forgiven
The memory of some sins that have been abandoned may remain with us, but the pain, the sadness, the remorse, and the guilt will disappear. Even though the Lord promises to remember our sins no more, it is a blessing for us not to completely forget past mistakes in this life, so that we will never repeat them. Satan tries to use our past sins against us, but we can overcome those evil tactics by honestly thanking our Heavenly Father for His Son and for His grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
President Henry B. Eyring talks about an occasion when, while serving as bishop of his ward, a young man that “had been moved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to go through a long and painful repentance process” asked him how he could know that the Lord had forgiven him.
Bishop Eyring, on an occasion where he was alone with his uncle, then Elder Spencer W. Kimball, asked the Apostle: “How can he receive that revelation? How can the young man know if his sins have been forgiven or not?
President Eyring recounts what happened then:
“[Elder Kimball] began a series of the most simple questions … little things, simple acts of obedience, of submission. And for each question I was surprised that my answer was always yes. Yes, he wasn’t just at all of his meetings: he was early; he was smiling; he was there not only with his whole heart, but with the broken heart of a little child, as he was every time the Lord asked anything of him. And after I had said yes to each of his questions, Elder Kimball looked at me, paused, and then very quietly said, ‘There you have your revelation.’”1
Can you see how this applies to you? If you are acting like this young man, you are in the process of being forgiven.
Before Pilate, Jesus acknowledged, “for this I came into the world” (see John 18:37).
In Gethsemane and in Golgotha, He suffered “both body and spirit,” and that “caused [Him], even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:18). Nevertheless, he did not shrink, but rather offered Himself as a “sacrifice for [our] sin[s]” (2 Nephi 2:7) and took upon Himself our “pains and … infirmities” (Alma 7:11–12). He bore our sins so that His mercy could save us, and He bore our infirmities so that He could offer us His hand during our difficult times.
In my capacity as servant of the Lord, I leave an apostolic blessing upon all those who desire to repent and come unto Him. I bless you so that as you honestly do your best to come unto Him, and to repent of those things that you need to remove from your life, you will feel His love and His grace directed specifically to you. You will know that He desires that you may live with Him forever.