🌿 The Atonement Is a Total Change ------------------- What Actually Happens When We Walk With Christ
🌿 The Atonement Is a Total Change
What Actually Happens When We Walk With Christ
For a long time, I thought the Atonement was mostly about forgiveness.
Jesus suffered.
Jesus paid.
Jesus covered my sins.
I believed that. I still do.
But as I’ve gotten older — and slower — I’ve realized something important:
Most of what God does in us doesn’t happen through explanations.
It happens through experience.
And when the Atonement really begins to work inside a person,
it doesn’t just clean things up.
It changes who you are.
🔥 Some Things Can Only Be Learned by Living Them
There are things in life you can understand with words,
and things you can only understand once you’ve lived them.
I could explain pain to you.
I could explain exhaustion.
I could explain fear.
But until you wake up at night and can’t turn over without bracing yourself —
you don’t really know.
Once you’ve lived it, nobody has to convince you.
That’s when I started to understand something about Christ:
He doesn’t just know about our suffering.
He lets us live inside His obedience — and He lives inside our pain.
That exchange is the Atonement.
🕊️ King Benjamin: Truth That Changes the Heart
One of the clearest examples of this is King Benjamin.
He didn’t just give a good talk.
He told the people that the words he spoke came from an angel.
That matters.
This wasn’t institutional teaching.
This was heaven touching earth.
And what happened to the people?
They didn’t clap.
They didn’t say, “That was inspiring.”
They cried out that they had seen themselves clearly —
and that they wanted to change.
They described their hearts as being changed.
That wasn’t emotion.
That was the Atonement entering them.
🌿 What Changed in Them?
They didn’t just promise to behave better.
They received:
a new understanding of God
a new understanding of themselves
a new way of seeing the world
Something inside them shifted.
That’s not willpower.
That’s transformation.
🔥 Alma’s People: “No More Disposition to Do Evil”
Later, the Book of Mormon describes another people who had been fully converted.
It says they had no more disposition to do evil.
That used to sound impossible to me.
Now it sounds familiar.
It doesn’t mean they became robots.
It doesn’t mean temptation vanished.
It means they were no longer wired the same way.
When your mind changes, your desires change.
When your desires change, your actions follow naturally.
That’s the Atonement doing its real work.
🕊️ Receiving the Holy Ghost Is Receiving the Mind of God
This is the hinge point of everything.
Joseph Smith taught that the Holy Ghost is the Mind of God.
That line used to confuse me.
Now it explains everything.
When someone truly receives the Holy Ghost:
they don’t just feel comfort
they don’t just get guidance
they don’t just feel peace
They begin to think differently.
They see people differently.
They react more slowly.
They stop needing to be right all the time.
They feel less urgency to control outcomes.
No one orders this to happen.
It just does.
That’s imprinting.
That’s the Atonement taking root.
🌿 Paul: A Changed Man, Not Just a Forgiven One
You see this same pattern in the Bible.
Paul didn’t just stop persecuting Christians.
He became someone else.
Same mind? No.
Same heart? No.
Same direction? No.
He didn’t receive a checklist.
He received a new way of being.
That’s conversion.
🔥 “Be the Patient” — Learning How Healing Really Works
Rehab has taught me something I didn’t want to learn.
I wanted progress.
I wanted speed.
I wanted results.
What I kept hearing instead was:
“Slow down. Let the healing happen.”
That’s frustrating.
But it’s also how real healing works.
You don’t heal by forcing the body.
You heal by allowing the right work to be done.
Spiritually, it’s the same.
Some seasons aren’t about teaching or fixing or proving.
They’re about receiving.
That’s not weakness.
That’s wisdom.
🕊️ Why Feeling the Spirit Isn’t the Same as Being Changed
I’ve felt the Spirit in meetings before.
I’ve felt warmth.
I’ve felt peace.
I’ve felt comfort.
Then I went home…
and realized nothing had actually changed.
That doesn’t mean the feeling was fake.
It just means momentary feeling isn’t transformation.
Transformation happens when something settles into you quietly —
and stays.
That’s the difference between inspiration and imprinting.
🌿 What Walking With Christ Actually Produces
So what happens when we really walk with Him?
Not hypothetically.
Not ideally.
In real life.
Here’s what I’ve seen:
fear loosens its grip
pride softens
compassion increases
truth feels lighter, not heavier
love becomes easier than argument
You don’t feel forced.
You feel re-aligned.
🔥 The Atonement Is Still Happening
The Atonement wasn’t just an event.
It’s a living process.
Christ doesn’t stand at a distance forgiving us.
He walks with us —
and invites us to live inside His way of being.
And over time, we change.
Quietly.
Deeply.
Lastingly.
🌿 A Simple Compass for the Walk
When things get confusing, I come back to four words:
Light — am I seeing more clearly?
Love — am I becoming gentler?
Healing — am I more whole, not just correct?
Oneness — am I closer to God and to people?
If a path leads me there, I trust it.
If it doesn’t, I slow down.
🕊️ Closing
The Atonement is not just something Christ did for us.
It is something He does with us.
And when it truly takes hold,
we don’t just believe differently.
We become different.
If you’ve watched or listened to the video
“What Changes When You Walk with Jesus?”,
this written reflection is simply another way of naming
what may already be happening inside you.
That has been my experience.
And it has been enough.
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