I love Christ. Just reading this makes my heart heavy with sorrow but my soul light with gratitude. Only Christ could perform what was necessary for all to be saved. He was the perfect Son and yet...he was afraid. Christ truly knows all feelings. My gratitude for his show of love for me is so great that I am sad. Often I find myself missing Home. By Home I do not mean my earthly home in Richmond UT but my heavenly, eternal home where God and Jesus and my dear Heavenly Mother reside. I long for the day of reckonging with an enormous desire that I can stand before all of them with a high head and clean hands...How heart breaking it would be to me to have to dip my head in shame knowing I had not lived in accordance with the gospel's teachings. Though the image is not clear, I imagine a decimal of the pain and sadness they will feel if I cannot fulfill my ordinances and wish to return to them clean and pure and READY to live eternally with them.
I have never thought before that in order to live eternally you not only have to live clean and keep yourself pure by doing all that is necessary but you also must be ready to accept your role in heaven. It's a large, unimaginable weight that I need to prepare for...
Matthew said He was “sorrowful and very heavy … exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:37-38). He went alone into the garden, intentionally left the Brethren outside to wait. He had to do this alone. He dropped to His knees and then, the Apostle says, He “fell on his face” (Matt. 26:39). Luke says He was “in an agony” and prayed so earnestly His sweat became “great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Mark says He fell and cried, “Abba, Father.” This is not abstract theology now. This is a Son pleading with His Father, “All things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).
Who could resist that from any child, especially the perfect Child? “You can do anything. I know You can do anything. Please take this cup from me.”
That whole prayer, Mark noted, was asking that if it were possible, this hour would be stricken from the plan. The Lord said, in effect, “If there is another path, I would rather walk it. If there is any other way—any other way—I will gladly embrace it.” “Let this cup pass from me,” Matthew records (Matt 26:39). “Remove this cup from me,” records Luke (Luke 22:42). But in the end, the cup did not pass.
In the end, He yielded His will to the will of His Father and said, “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). That is, for all intents and purposes, the last moment in the divine conversation between Father and Son in Jesus’ mortal ministry. From there on the die had been cast. He would see it through no matter what.
I have never thought before that in order to live eternally you not only have to live clean and keep yourself pure by doing all that is necessary but you also must be ready to accept your role in heaven. It's a large, unimaginable weight that I need to prepare for...
Matthew said He was “sorrowful and very heavy … exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matt. 26:37-38). He went alone into the garden, intentionally left the Brethren outside to wait. He had to do this alone. He dropped to His knees and then, the Apostle says, He “fell on his face” (Matt. 26:39). Luke says He was “in an agony” and prayed so earnestly His sweat became “great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Mark says He fell and cried, “Abba, Father.” This is not abstract theology now. This is a Son pleading with His Father, “All things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).
Who could resist that from any child, especially the perfect Child? “You can do anything. I know You can do anything. Please take this cup from me.”
That whole prayer, Mark noted, was asking that if it were possible, this hour would be stricken from the plan. The Lord said, in effect, “If there is another path, I would rather walk it. If there is any other way—any other way—I will gladly embrace it.” “Let this cup pass from me,” Matthew records (Matt 26:39). “Remove this cup from me,” records Luke (Luke 22:42). But in the end, the cup did not pass.
In the end, He yielded His will to the will of His Father and said, “Not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). That is, for all intents and purposes, the last moment in the divine conversation between Father and Son in Jesus’ mortal ministry. From there on the die had been cast. He would see it through no matter what.
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