The Atonement

In Alma 36 Alma tells his son Helaman about his repentance and conversion to the gospel. I think this story shows Alma as the epitome of the healing powers that the Atonement can bring. He wasn’t just on the edge of good and bad, he was farther away from God than I think most people ever come close to.  And yet, he repented and turned his life around. He moved on from his mistakes and moved the Lord’s work along. Alma’s life teaches us that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, or what you’ve done, the Atonement works for you. No exceptions. President David O. McKay once said that “The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better.” Alma shows that it does just that. In Luke 5: 31-32, Christ says, “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance." When we mess up, that is when we need Christ the most, not when we should feel like we aren’t worthy to go to him. He wants us to be happy. He wants us to reach our full potential and return to him. And more than anything he wants to help us with it. We are a fallen and sinful people so we need Christ, we literally cannot do it without him. Just like he helped to change Alma, he will help to change us. If we will turn our lives over to Christ he will help to mold us into the person we’re meant to become.