Institute Reflection

While in college I have had the amazing opportunity to take religion classes during my regular class schedule at the university I attend. I've taken a total of five different classes for the past two years, and I learned so much more about the Savior, His ministry, and His restored church in all of them. However, I feel I have grown the most spiritually as a result of the most recent institute class I took.

This past semester I took a class that was focused solely on the Savior's Atonement and the options of Repentance and Forgiveness that are made available because of it. Because of the things that I learned in that class about the nature of the Atonement, the scriptures I studied, and personal experiences and trials I've had this semester, I think I've grown more that I have from any other experience.

This opportunity to look at the Atonement on a deeper level helped me realize so many things I had never even thought about before. I've tried to organize my thoughts, in the best way possible in the following paragraphs, but only reading my thoughts won't convey the significance this new perspective has had on my life, a personal study and understanding is crucial.

I learned that the Atonement is individual.

In the class we talked about the Atoning Sacrifice. Christ began suffering for our sins when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane. While there he was tempted with every possible temptation, physical, spiritual, and emotional. He felt every pain and sorrow while he was there. He felt the same heavy heart I experienced when my Grandmother passed away, when I missed my family while I was away at school, He experienced that worry and stress that I felt when I was trying to figure out a way to pay for college. He felt the throbbing of my twisted ankle, the ache after my surgery and the fatigue I felt every day from walking through the snow in my cast. In the garden He physically felt the same rejection, sadness, and heartbreak I have ever experienced in my lowest times.

He suffered all of these things so He would have perfect empathy. In Alma 7:12 reads:

... and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to ^csuccor his people according to their infirmities.

Christ could have asked Heavenly Father to show him how all of those sadness and sicknesses of the world and he could have known in his mind what all of them were like. But, our Savior chose to suffer all of those things physically himself. The same chemical reactions with the same neurotransmitters that occur in my mind to physically manifest sadness to my body were being manifested in His. He literally suffered everything in the way we suffer. And He did this so He would know, and FEEL, exactly what we go through so he could perfectly understand us, and have perfect empathy. 

In the class we talked about the Road to Golgotha and the Cross.

After Christ had paid the price for our sins and had suffered our infirmities, He only had death left to conquer for the Atonement to be complete. So why did he have to travel that road to Golgotha? After leaving the Garden of Gethsemane in His incredibly weakened state, Christ was subjected to hours of scrutiny, judgement, mockery, physical abuse, and betrayal. When the pharisees and soldiers spat upon him and slapped his face, when they whipped him with stripes that would kill any other man, He kept his cool. He continued his journey and responded perfectly in a God-like way to it all.  

I learned how the Atonement pays for our sins, and how Christ's Atonement satisfies justice and mercy.

While in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the same way that He felt all of our sorrows and pains, Christ also was subjected to every temptation any person has ever had. From the temptation a pedophile has to rape a child, or a serial killer has to murder, to the temptation and desperation a heroin addict feels to get his next fix, or the temptation to cheat, lie, steal or commit any other sin, Christ felt them all. He was tempted with every temptation ever known to mankind, and yet our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did not give into temptation. Not even a "small" sin. He overcame every one and did not give even an inch. And then he felt the pain that those sins cause. He paid the price for the sins he had not stooped to. Justice owed him because He had suffered the punishment for something He didn't deserve. He owned justice and now He could grant mercy on his terms.

That mercy is the only way we can repent now. After sinning we were in debt to justice, but now we are debtors to Christ who paid that price. He has set the terms of repentance and made a way for reconciliation. Because of the Atonement we are not damned, we are not stopped from progressing. 

In this class I learned that is our central purpose for being on Earth; to progress.

As a young and rebellious LDS girl, I was blinded by the rules. 

I saw a massive rule book that I was taught would save me and help me, but I could never see how. Now I know there is a rule book, but they are not arbitrary rules. Those rules are guidelines and following them or disobeying them is a personal choice that will lead us closer or further to becoming like God.

I want to become like God. I want to be in His presence and become like him, because I know that I am His child and I was destined to become like my Father. I already am part god and through Christ's atonement I can repent of my sins, and through His Grace I can improve over time until my nature has changed and I am like Him.

Because Christ experienced all of the temptations I will ever face and he didn't give in, He can show me how to respond to those same temptations in a Godly way. When he walked the road to Golgotha, in the midst of all of those people that hated and rejected Him, He responded to them like the God He was, and He can help me do the same in my life when I encounter hard situations and unpleasant people. Because He knows everyone's sorrows, He knows exactly what we need to help us feel better and overcome those challenges, and by turning to Him we can have those burdens lifted and He can show us how to help lift others' burdens as well. 

The Atonement was made so we can return to God's presence. An Atonement literally means an "At-one-ment" the purpose of the atonement is to bring us back in harmony with God through repentance and also to bring us closer to Him as we try to become better. His Grace is sufficient for all men that will humble themselves. If we turn to God and follow his commandments, if we try to be at one with him and we don't give up when it is hard, his grace will lift us. It will help us progress and do good in ways we won't notice until we look back on how far we've come. Grace is the enabling and strengthening power God gives to help us do good and be righteous.

Life is not meaningless. We are here to become like God. We needed to experience opposition and temptation and sadness so we could learn to deal with those things like a god would. We are here to learn, to progress, to become like our Father. We are not perfect though, so Father made a plan that we could have help, through Christ making an Atonement and showing us the way to become At One with God. I know this is true, as I studied the scriptures, and conference talks and thought about it in my own life, all of this resonated so strongly within me. I believe it with my whole heart and soul. This is truth!  Through the power of Christ's Atonement I can become like God and live with him, like him, forever.

Further Reading/References*
Conference Talks:
http://jesuschrist.lds.org/SonOfGod/eng/his-life-and-teachings/articles/the-atonement-of-jesus-christ
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1991/04/a-crown-of-thorns-a-crown-of-glory?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1977/05/the-mediator?lang=eng
http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=251
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/10/the-challenge-to-become?lang=eng

Scripture References
Alma 7
John 17
Bible Dictionary- Grace
Hebrews 4

*Not a very extensive list of references. Will add more in the future