Volunteered to be sacrifice
Taught great plan- Suffered for sins of all
Church members should learn to love the Savior more, striving to keep His commandments and become more like Him, said Elder F. Melvin Hammond of the Seventy.
Addressing the Sunday afternoon session, he asked, "Do we love Jesus Christ enough to follow His chosen prophets and apostles? . . .
"Do we love the Savior enough to forsake our lovely home, our precious family and accept a call to proclaim His gospel in any part of the world?
"Do we love Christ sufficiently that we will be true to our mates, casting out all of our unclean thoughts and never betraying their sweet love for us?"
Elder Hammond spoke of the Savior's mission and His infinite love. In the pre-existent state, He volunteered to become a sacrifice as an atonement for the sins of all men.
During His mortal ministry, Jesus taught the "great plan of happiness - faith, repentance, baptism by immersion, the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end," said Elder Hammond.
The night before He was betrayed, "He knelt meekly and humbly before each apostle and tenderly washed his feet."
Even after Judas left to betray Him, the Savior instructed the apostles to "love one another; as I have loved you. . . . " (John 13:31.)
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the Savior accepted the Father's will. "The law demanded a perfect Lamb for the atoning sacrifice," explained Elder Hammond. "He alone could qualify. His love for all of us was so great, so intense that voluntarily He suffered both body and spirit until blood came from every pore to pay the price of sin.
"Somehow, we must try to understand and internalize the ransom that He actually paid for each one of us.
"Betrayed by a traitor's kiss, condemned to die . . . for a crime He did not commit, He humbly submitted Himself to the ugly lash and was nailed by His hands and feet to a wooden cross."
Following His crucifixion, the Savior's body was laid in a borrowed tomb until "in mighty power He arose, the bonds of death to break."
After the Savior's mission in the meridian of time was complete, faithful apostles continued their ministry but after they died, soon "spiritual darkness enveloped the earth."
With the restoration of the gospel to Joseph Smith, the fullness of the gospel was brought back, said Elder Hammond. "All this to prepare the world for the glorious Second Coming proclaimed by the Savior Himself."
"Have we felt a greater love for Him?" asked Elder Hammond. "Can we do too much for the Lord? . . . Come unto Christ, eat the bread of life, drink the living water and feast on His limitless love."
