The Master in Gethsemane

I am glad you choose to read this, I have been able to gain a greater appreciation of the atonement this week as I studied His suffering in Gethsemane. We learn to be grateful for the things that people do or have done for us, when we realize at a portion to what they went through to do it. Think of the last time you helped somebody, knowing what you went through to help no matter how big the sacrifice.. Then, when you had somebody help you, you can understand what they went through for you and you can appreciate it beyond a surface level of gratitude. I have noticed during my study, key words that the Savior suffered during His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane. I have felt these things in a much smaller magnification than He suffered, but because I know it, it makes me grateful to know that He suffered these things for us. Because He suffered this, He knows what we go through, can help us in those times to get out of suffering, and can also help us prevent suffering in the future through repentance. It astonishes me to think that He so willingly suffered unjustly so that I can be made just before the Father. I have included those words that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered that I took out from the scriptures I read, they are listed just below.

Sorrowful, very heavy, exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Betrayed. (Sore amazed-Greek translation:. Awestruck, astonished.)
Agony, Sweat as it were great drops of blood. Blood cometh from every pore.  Temptations, temptations of every kind. pain of body, pains and afflictions. Take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
hunger, thirst, fatigue, anguish. Death, Infirmities.

Imagine going through all the suffering for the sins of mankind, to lay down you're very life knowing that even after suffering the most pain anyone could ever suffer, that the very people you are suffering might still not believe in you or use your gift. These are some quotes to help us further understand what He went through.

But what was it that caused the Savior’s intense agony?

“Jesus had to take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. . . . And as He in His own person bore the sins of all, and atoned for them by the sacrifice of Himself, so there came upon Him the weight and agony of ages and generations, the indescribable agony consequent upon this great sacrificial atonement wherein He bore the sins of the world, and suffered in His own person the consequences of an eternal law of God broken by men. Hence His profound grief, His indescribable anguish, His overpowering torture, all experienced in the submission to the eternal fiat of Jehovah and the requirements of an inexorable law.

“The suffering of the Son of God was not simply the suffering of personal death; for in assuming the position that He did in making an atonement for the sins of the world He bore the weight, the responsibility, and the burden of the sins of all men, which, to us, is incomprehensible. . . .

“Groaning beneath this concentrated load, this intense, incomprehensible pressure, this terrible exaction of Divine Justice, from which feeble humanity shrank, and through the agony thus experienced sweating great drops of blood, He was led to exclaim, ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.’ He had wrestled with the superincumbent load in the wilderness, He had struggled against the powers of darkness that had been let loose upon him there; placed below all things, His mind surcharged with agony and pain, lonely and apparently helpless and forsaken, in his agony the blood oozed from His pores.” (Taylor, The Mediation and Atonement, pp. 149–50.)

“Christ’s agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as to intensity and cause. The thought that He suffered through fear of death is untenable. Death to Him was preliminary to resurrection and triumphal return to the Father from whom He had come, and to a state of glory even beyond what He had before possessed; and, moreover, it is within His power to lay down His life voluntarily. He struggled and groaned under a burden such as no other being who has lived on earth might even conceive as possible. It was not physical pain, nor mental anguish alone, that caused Him to suffer such torture as to produce an extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of soul such as only God was capable of experiencing. No other man, however great his powers of physical or mental endurance, could have suffered so; for his human organism would have succumbed, and syncope would have produced unconsciousness and welcome oblivion. In that hour of anguish Christ met and overcame all the horrors that Satan, ‘the prince of this world’ could inflict. The frightful struggle incident to the temptations immediately following the Lord’s baptism was surpassed and overshadowed by this supreme contest with the powers of evil.

“In some manner, actual and terribly real though to man incomprehensible, the Savior took upon Himself the burden of the sins of mankind from Adam to the end of the world.” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 613.)

I am grateful for the Savior for what He did for all of us. A humble Son of God submitting to the will of the Father, not seeing any other way out of it. I know in those times when I have felt trapped and didn't see an easy way out, that He helped me through it. I love Him for what He did, and continues to do for me in my life. I invite you to gain a greater testimony of the atonement. You will never feel closer to God than in those moments that you are on your knees praying earnestly for your will to harmonize with the Lord's will. Then when that power comes to you to overcome, you will feel the Love of the Lord that He has for you. For that is why He suffered it. 

A Time To Prepare

Mark 13:33: Take ye heed, watch and pray: For ye know not when the time is. 37- And what I say unto you I say unto all, watch.

Whenever I think of the second coming of Christ, I can't help but wonder about what is going on in the world today that will lead to it. Many of us have heard of the signs to look for, which is vital and important to know, but what can we be doing now to prepare for that time? What shouldn't we be doing to prepare for that time?

D&C 87:8 Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold it cometh quickly, saith the Lord, amen.

Our environment influences us in so many ways. It is remarkable to see how much change a person can have based on their outside influences. A story in the Book of Mormon about the Jaredites: To stage the history, this comes right after the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. The Jaredites were a righteous people, but after the languages were confounded, the people around them were terrible. The Lord commanded them to leave, He promised if they did that He would lead them to a promised land (America). The Lord knew well enough that the influence of wicked people could lead them astray. Sometimes we must do the same. If we are surrounded by bad influences, peers, even buildings; we may have to change our environment or friends in order to find a new "Promised land" in our lives. Sometimes a fresh start is what we need, because changing before we placed in a situation is much easier than changing while you are in the middle of it. So stand in holy places, that your influences may guide you to happier and better paths.

Finally, we must be giving all that we can give unto the Lord. We are all imperfect people, but it doesn't mean we can't do our best.  2 Nephi 25:23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
The Lord wants us to succeed, He wants to help in any way that He can. But He can't do everything for us, we must be willing to give all that we can give, which is far less than perfect, and then He can lift us the rest of the way and help us do much more than we could have done on our own. We can change, because of the Savior, we are able to overcome our weaknesses and become whole physically and spiritually. We can become much greater with God than we ever could without Him.


I do not know when Christ will come, but I do know what I can be doing. The world will get tougher and more wicked; we can make ourselves stronger to take it on. I know that when He comes, I want to be able to be in His presence, knowing that I did all that I could to follow Him, and have it be acceptable before Him. We can use today as A Time To Prepare. And when the time comes, it won't matter, because we are made strong with God.