There is a song that has been coming into my head incessantly over the last twelve hours until I decided there was an excellent message in the words and perhaps something I should write about today. It is not a Mormon hymn, nevertheless, it is one of great beauty and meaning:
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
The composer beseeches the Savior to come to him. As I pondered this I thought how wonderful it would be have to the Savior come into my home and my bless my family with His presence. But as I thought about that, it occurred to me when we invited the Savior into our lifes, we invite Him to the plains of our spirituality.
When He beseeches us to “Come Unto Me, He reaches down and pulls us up to the mountaintops, the natural temples of God. Do we want Him to come to us or do we want to go to Him.
In Luke 18:22 we read,
Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.
I believe the greater joy comes in following in the footsteps and along the path the Savior took. In doing that, we climb higher and higher, leaving the plains far behind. Our spirituality rises with our growth and there, at the end, the Savior awaits us, there at the mountaintop, heaven only a step away.
There comes a point in every person’s life where they make a choice. There are times, when a single choice, made in a careless and hasty moment, can alter the course of a lifetime or eternity, with no possibility of ever revisiting that precious moment again. A choice such as that rests before you now, a choice of great import.
The Savior invites us:
Come unto me, all ye that blabour and are heavy laden, and I will give you crest. (Matthew 11:28)
Nowhere does the Savior, in any book or scripture that I can find, ask us to carry our burdens alone. He carried them once before for us. He paid the greatest, and most tragical painful of prices for us:
And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44)
The Savior, the greatest of us all, was in such agony He asked “Abba, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine be doneet, He stayed in the Garden of Gethsemane until every sin, sorrow, illness, grief and pain were paid for . . . until the price for justice had been met and mankind’s ransom paid with the blood and suffering of the Son of God.
Yes, you have a choice quickly approaching you, if not today. Will you choose Him who ransomed Himself for your sins or will you walk away?
