“I didn’t start out intending to get covered in mud but that’s where I ended up.”
I believe that when Heavenly Father announced the need for a savior in His plan we ask turned and looked to Jesus.
Someone in our group decided we should turn our hole into a swimming pool, so we filled it up with water. Being the youngest and wanting to fit in, I was persuaded to jump in and try it out. Now I was really dirty. I didn’t start out planning to be covered in mud, but that’s where I ended up.
When it started to get cold, I crossed the street, intending to walk into my house. My grandmother met me at the front door and refused to let me in. She told me that if she let me in, I would track mud into the house that she had just cleaned. So I did what any nine-year-old would do under the circumstances and ran to the back door, but she was quicker than I thought. I got mad, stomped my feet, and demanded to come into the house, but the door remained closed.
I was wet, muddy, cold, and, in my childhood imagination, thought I might die in my own backyard. Finally, I asked her what I had to do to come into the house. Before I knew it, I found myself standing in the backyard while my grandmother sprayed me off with a hose. After what seemed like an eternity, my grandmother pronounced me clean and let me come into the house. It was warm in the house, and I was able to put on dry, clean clothes.
With that real-life parable of sorts in mind, please consider the following words of Jesus Christ: “And no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom; therefore nothing entereth into his rest save it be those who have washed their garments in my blood, because of their faith, and the repentance of all their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end.”
Standing outside of my house being sprayed off by my grandmother was unpleasant and uncomfortable. Being denied the opportunity to return and be with our Father in Heaven because we chose to remain in or dirtied by a mud hole of sin would be eternally tragic. We should not deceive ourselves about what it takes to return and remain in the presence of our Father in Heaven. We have to be clean.
That was good parenting by Grandma.
Because our Father in Heaven loves us and has as His purpose “to bring to pass [our] immortality and eternal life,” His plan included the role of a Savior—someone who could help us become clean no matter how dirty we have become.
Satan offered to be a lazy savior – someone who would get the glory by forcing us to stay clean rather than helping us get clean. If someone got dirty in his plan their chances would be over.
Although avoidance of sin is the preferred pattern in life, as far as the efficacy of the Atonement of Jesus Christ is concerned, it matters not what sins we have committed or how deep we have sunk into that proverbial pit. It matters not that we are ashamed or embarrassed because of the sins that, as the prophet Nephi said, “so easily beset” us. It matters not that once upon a time we traded our birthright for a mess of pottage.
What does matter is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind” so “that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people.” What does matter is that He was willing to condescend, to come to this earth and descend “below all things” and suffer “more powerful contradictions than any man” ever could. What does matter is that Christ is pleading our case before the Father, “saying: Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; … wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.” That is what really matters and what should give all of us renewed hope and a determination to try one more time, because He has not forgotten us.
I like the contrast between what doesn’t matter and what does matter.
Repentance is real and it works. It is not a fictional experience or the product “of a frenzied mind.” It has the power to lift burdens and replace them with hope. It can lead to a mighty change of heart that results in our having “no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” Repentance, of necessity, is not easy. Things of eternal significance rarely are. But the result is worth it. As President Boyd K. Packer testified in his last address to the Seventy of the Church: “The thought is this: the Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces. What it fixes is fixed. … The Atonement leaves no traces, no tracks. It just heals, and what it heals stays healed.”
We can inflict a similar injury again on ourselves out others but that doesn’t mean the previously healed injury wasn’t healed.
As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we attribute greater power to the Savior’s Atonement than most other people because we know that if we make covenants, continually repent, and endure to the end, He will make us joint heirs with Him and, like Him, we will receive all that the Father hath. That is an earth-shattering doctrine, and yet it is true. The Atonement of Jesus Christ makes the Savior’s invitation to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” perfectly possible rather than frustratingly out of reach.
The scriptures teach that every individual must “be judged according to the holy judgment of God.” On that day there will be no opportunity to hide among a larger group or point to others as an excuse for our being unclean. Gratefully, the scriptures also teach that Jesus Christ, He who suffered for our sins, who is our Advocate with the Father, who calls us His friends, who loves us unto the end, He ultimately will be our judge.
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