Not in Tables of Stone, But in Fleshy Tables of the Heart

I am currently in a New Testament class here at BYU. One of our assignments each week is to write to someone about what we learned in class for that week, and last week we studied 2 Corinthians. I wrote the following:

One thing that really touched me [this week] was that Jesus Christ already paid the price for us through His Atonement. It’s done. Finished. He atoned for our sins one by one in the Garden of Gethsemane. But sometimes Satan tries to get us to forget that. He want us to have no faith or hope or claim to happiness. Instead of overcoming our sins through Jesus Christ’s Atonement, Satan wants us to be defined by our lowest struggles of mortality. He wants us to be so discouraged that we will pull ourselves away from God. He tells us that it is too hard, that [insert blank here] is so much more fun and easy, and that [insert blank here] isn't that bad. Satan loves telling us that we can never accomplish our righteous goals and desires. He loves pulling us down to his level of pain and despair.

But we need to remember that we worship an all-powerful God who isn't bound by time. For Him, our past isn't written in ink, “but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:3). Accessing Jesus Christ’s Atonement is the only way that we can change the past. It is the only way that we can become a new person who isn't defined by the mistakes we made last week, last month, or last year. By changing our heart and coming to Christ, we change our past. As Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

I have a testimony of Jesus Christ’s Atonement. I know that if we will strive to be better and rely on the Atonement of the Savior, we will be able to be justified, or pronounced “not guilty” for our sins, and work to become a new person through the Atonement and teachings of Jesus Christ. I know that we can be forgiven of our sins, and that the Atonement is the only way for us to return to live in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

To learn more about Jesus Christ and the Atonement and what I believe, visit mormon.org here.