It's crazy to think that it's March. It's weird to think that spring is just around the corner. All the Japanese people keep saying that Spring will be here in April and that's just a concept that is hard to wrap my head around. It's been winter for so long, I can't really remember what it's like to not have to wear three layers of tights, two long-sleeve undershirts, and then my heavy winter coat. I can't say that I am not looking forward to it though. One thing I've learned a lot about on my mission is change. Change is an exciting thing, not something to be looked at with fear or resentment. The changing of seasons always strikes us with lightness in our hearts, with excitement. Shouldn't the changing of our lives strike us with the same sort of feelings?
Anyways, enough about the weather. Every week, the Mission President sends out a "Mission Email" to all the missionaries, just with announcements and little spiritual thoughts for us. This week, this was written. To those of you whom participated in the Young Women's program of the Church, this might sound a bit familiar:
"We are His, we are Disciples of the Great Jehovah, who loves us and we love Him. We will stand as His witnesses at all times, and in all things, and in all places, as we strive to become his true disciples. Remembering faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. We believe as we come to understand and rely on His power, we will be able to find the Lord's Elect, strengthen homes and families, help them receive the ordinances of salvation, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation."
I love that first line, "We are His, we are Disciples of the Great Jehovah..." It is true. We truly are His. We are His friends (John 15:14). We are His children (Mosiah 5:7). We are His, in every sense. He has paid the price for our mistakes. He has taken upon Him our every sin, our every experience, our every sorrow. It is through the spilling of His blood, His infinite and atoning sacrifice, that we can find peace and happiness, not only in this life, but for eternity. We are washed clean through Him. We are sanctified through Him. Our garments are washed white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 13:11).
He has paid the price, how great a price, I don't think I will ever to be able to understand. He, by His own choice, accepted the penalty of our mistakes. I think of it in the sense of paying a debt, as described by Jesus Christ Himself through a parable in the New Testament.
We owe God a debt, and we don't have the money to pay Him. And because we are unable to pay, we are subject to Him, and His Justice, just as if we couldn't pay the mortgage on our house or a loan on a car. But that's where Jesus Christ steps in -- He says, "Here is the money you need," and gives it to us freely.
And just think, He paid the sum total of not only my debt, or your debt, or your family's debt, but for the debt of every living creature. Think about if a single person had to pay bail for every person who had ever lived on this earth, or who is now living, or will live in the future. Think about how much money, in the literal sense, that would cost! Billions upon billions of dollars. If bail just cost one dollar for each person, that still would be an innumerable amount of money! And Christ paid so much more than a dollar for each of us. He paid with His own blood. Church leader, President Boyd K. Packer explains it like this:
"Jesus Christ, by choice, accepted the penalty in behalf of all mankind for the sum total of all wickedness and depravity, for brutality, immorality, perversion, and corruption; for addiction; for the killings and torture and terror -- for all of it that has ever been or all that ever would be enacted upon this Earth. In so choosing, He faced the awesome power of the evil one, who was not confined to flesh nor subject to mortal pain. That Was Gethsemane...
How the atonement was wrought, we do not know. No mortal watched as evil turned away and hid in shame before the light of that pure being. All wickedness could not quench that light. When what was done was done, the ransom had been paid...men at last were free."
The ransom has been paid.
We have been set free.
My brothers and sisters, I believe in Christ.
He has ransomed me.
From Satan's grasp, He has set me free.
Sister Weigl
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