Christ Paid the Price for All Our Sins

In his recent talk on The Atonement, Elder Deiter F. Uchtdorf said that "Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins. All of them." This is not a revolutionary claim. Many prophets, ancient and modern, have said words to the effect. But I want to take a few moments to consider what that means.

Jesus paid the price for all our sins, whether we want Him to or not, whether we repent of them or not. We cannot spare Jesus from the pain caused by any of the sins that we commit, even if we, too, end up having to pay that price. When we sin, Jesus suffers. Every time.

So, if we want to spare Jesus the obligation of paying for our sins, our only option is to prevent them. We can prevent Jesus from having to pay for our sins only by preventing ourselves from committing them. If we fail and sin, there will be a price to pay, and Jesus will pay it (or will have paid it. The sin-predicting effect of the Atonement makes this a little bit weird).

I love my Savior. I feel sorry that being my Savior was such a burdensome task for Him. When I add up all of my wrongdoings and imagine what sorts of punishments would be just punishments as penalties for my sins, I can hardly even begin to estimate what price Jesus must have had to pay for me. I don't want to make Him have to pay for any more than He has already had to. I don't want to sin because I don't want Jesus to have to pay for those sins, and I know He will (have), whether I repent of those sins or not.

Sin is tempting, but one thought that makes it less tempting is knowing that Jesus will (have had to) pay for it.