The Power and Mercy of Jesus Christ's Atonement

     Before His arrest and execution, Jesus Christ chose to momentarily retire to a garden called Gethsemane, knowing that the darkest hours of His mortal existence would soon be upon Him, and still having yet more arcane messianic duties to perform before He could surrender Himself to His persecutors.

     As He led them on to the garden, His apostles took notice of their Master's morose behavior, and became increasingly aware that something was amiss. But they could not, at that time, fully comprehend the enormity of the final task that their Master was about to undertake.

     When Christ was beginning to approach His preappointed destination within the garden, He instructed His apostles to wait behind and watch before He continued to walk forward, alone, into the encompassing night. He only walked a little further, just out of immediate sight of His disciples, before He kneeled to the ground, and uttered these words:

   "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." (Luke 22:42)

      The cup that Jesus spoke of was the Atonement that he was about to make, at that very moment, for the sins of all mankind. This means that in these pivotal hours before His death, the sins of all past, present, and future penitent transgressors would be siphoned away from their adulterated souls, and pressed upon His immaculate own.
     This was a labor willingly undertaken out of love, and a task so painful and strenuous that it would cause Him to physically bleed from every pore in His body.

     Why then, we must ask ourselves, did He do it?
     The Bible enlightens us with this this one simple explanation:

"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the World to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." (John 3:16) ".. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin." (1John 1:7)

     As evidenced by the Holy Scriptures, God, our Heavenly Father, is both just and merciful. He cannot look upon sin with any degree of tolerance, and yet His love for us, as His children, sways Him to consider mercy for our transgressions.
      How then can God's law of justice and desires of mercy, if they so conflict, both be satisfied?
     The answer was, and still is to this day, Jesus Christ. As the Son of God, Christ acted as a supernal propitiation in mortal flesh, and by taking upon Himself the sins of the world, and consequently suffered degrees of pain and distress so intense that His mortal body had to be strengthened by celestial reinforcement (Luke 22:43), He ensured that mankind could have a chance, if they chose to always repent of their sins, (and then of course be baptized into His true church and receive the Holy Ghost) to return to live with God, their Father in Heaven.

    The scriptures are reverently silent as to the intricacies of this miraculous feat. Even if the Atonement were explained in full detail I doubt the infantile human mind would be able to comprehend it.
However, the Savior didn't complete the Atonement so that mankind could understand how it was accomplished. He completed it so that mankind could take advantage of it, and have their souls be literally cleansed from the degenerative banes of sin.
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  In our studies of the Atonement, we will always find ourselves returning to one recurrent theme. This being that the Atonement was enacted for only one reason, and that reason is love.

     "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, the we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1John 4 : 9-10)

         God loves you enough to have allowed His only begotten son in the flesh, Jesus Christ, to suffer agony for all the sins that you have committed. By this supreme demonstration of His love, it is obvious that Heavenly Father wants you to succeed in life, and return to His presence after death. He wants you to overcome temptation and embrace righteousness, but has always known that you would not be able to do so on your own. He knows you have weaknesses, and so He gave you a means to be forgiven for the times when you foolishly succumbed to them. A means that can still be utilized at any time, and on any day, no matter how far from the paths of righteousness you find you have strayed at the time. (However, we know the scriptures to say that the shedding of innocent blood is an unforgivable offense, but nevertheless, God will surely judge as He sees fit).
       Christ's Atonement was, and will forever remain, an all-encompassing and ever-enduring propitiation for your welfare. Our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ desire nothing else more than they desire for you to take advantage of it.  It would be just as selfish and calloused to refuse Christ's Atonement as it would be to refuse to accept freedom whilst in captivity. Relief whilst in the throes of gnawing, relentless, and suffocating anguish. Light and substance whilst haplessly wandering in dark and foreign territories

      For indeed that is exactly what the Atonement is. The Atonement is freedom. It is the most exquisite relief, and it is the light we need to lead us out of the darkest hours of our own mortal existence.

     I know that because of Christ's Atonement, God's mercy can always be extended towards you if you choose to contritely repent.  However, this is possible  if and ONLY if you call upon the grace of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and completely repent of your sins by first, confessing them in prayer (and, if necessary, confessing to anyone who have been wronged by your actions), and then by forsaking them. (1John 1:7-10)

     Christ began The Atonement with the same ecumenical first step by which all miracles are predicated upon. He fell down to the earth, and He began to pray. This is the same step that we must take in order to call upon the Grace of the Atonement. Pray to God sincerely for clemency, and, if you have real intent to foresake your sins,  it will be granted to you. This is the first step that all mankind must take before they can receive the fulness of the blessings of salvation, which can only be attained thereafter by being baptized into God's true church, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

         I testify that as you repent of your sins, and take this first and vital step to coming closer to your Savior you will experience the exquisite sensation of having the weights of sin lifted from both your shoulders and your conscience. You will feel a relief and a comfort and a lightness of spirit that you would have never before thought possible. Most importantly though, you will feel love. You will feel the love of your Savior, as you realize that over a thousand years ago, as He knelt in a secluded patch of garden soil and writhed in anguish as great drops of blood were pressed from His fragile frame, He was thinking of you. And though it caused Him unimanginable pain, He thought that you were worth every single drop.