“O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day.” (Alma 22:18). It is a truly beautiful formulation of repentance to give away all our sins that we may know God. But to whom shall we give all of these sins that we've been carrying with us? Who would take them? Who else, but Jesus Christ? Giving away our sins is not the same as giving them up. It is not enough for us to simply abstain or refrain from committing the same kinds of sins. As long as we continue to carry our past sins inside of our soul, whether we quit doing them sixty seconds ago or sixty years ago, if we don't hand them over to the Savior, then we will never be able to know Christ and God the Father as fully and completely as we want and need. God wants us to love Him with our whole souls, not just the parts of us that aren't being occupied by the guilt and fear and shame and resentment of our past sins that we can't atone for on our own or get rid of in any other way than by giving them away to Jesus Christ. Satan would have us believe that we must own our mistakes, but that is not true. Christ bought out our debt. Our sins belong to Him. He won't pry them out of our fingers, but at the same time, if we can't stand being around someone so clean and pure and holy because of these sins that we can't seem to let go of, then we are rendering Christ's sacrifice useless. Christ paid for our sins so that He could get rid of that barrier between us and Him. He wants to know us better and for us to know Him better, but He can't do that as long as we are holding up our sins like some kind of talisman to ward off His love and forgiveness. Whatever our sins are, however long we’ve been holding onto them, and whatever reasons, good or bad, that we felt were important or necessary for them to belong to us because we deserve to be punished or because we are horrible and broken deep, deep down, Christ doesn't care. He'll take them if they're fresh. He'll take them if they're old and rotten. He'll take the big sins and the little ones and the deadly ones. The more space we clear out in our hearts and our minds and our souls, the more of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ we can fit in those spaces instead. Instead of inviting Jesus into a place that is cramped and damp and piled high with boxes and boxes of all of our sins and emotional baggage, wouldn't we rather invite the Savior into a space that is clean and open and full of fresh air and sunlight? I hope we can all stop being hoarders of every single mistake we've ever made or even just imagined and just give it all away and let Christ help us haul it all out so that He and our Father can come in and dwell on our hearts and in our souls forever and ever.
