Keep The Change

When one pays with more than the asking price, it is said that there is change left over. When Jesus Christ paid for our sins, He paid more than the asking price. He paid an infinite amount. He values each of us so highly that He paid our debts to the uttermost farthing, and then paid more still. There was change left over. This change He leaves with us. He asks us to keep the change. He asks us to take the leftover abundance of His love and His mercy and His power and His grace and commit ourselves to keeping the change. Everytime that we try a little harder, and serve a little more, and dig a little deeper, and forgive and love a little more unconditionally, we are keeping the change burning bright within us. We are honoring our Savior’s sacrifice and the lengths to which He went to satisfy not only the demands of justice, but to provide for us an Atonement that exceeded the required price and paid for us to not only be forgiven but to change for the better. It has always been the Plan to not merely put us back together, just as we were, but to build us back up to be better than we were. For all of His generosity, Jesus Christ asks us only that we keep the change, keep fighting the good fight, keep honoring our covenants, keep loving our Heavenly Father and our brothers and sisters with all of our heart, might, mind and strength. I know that we often feel that our Savior is far, far better to us than we deserve. This is true. He loves us much more than we deserve because He loves us not just as we are now, but as we one day will become. We must change and grow into the person that deserves the degree of love that God even now pours upon us. It is only through the infinite power of the Atonement that we shall ever change and grow to that level. I hope that whenever we feel the weight of the excess of our Savior’s love, that we will take fresh courage to strive to keep the change and learn and grow and exercise our faith so that we deserve a little more of that excess.