By Alice-Anne Lewis
Applying the enabling power of the Atonement was the focus of BYU-Idaho''s President David A. Bednar''s Devotional address.
'We are more aware of the redeeming power, but not the enabling power,' said President Bednar to BYU students and faculty in the Marriott Center on Tuesday, October 23, 2001.
The price Jesus Christ paid was not just for the sinner but also for the saint, he said.
'I don''t think many of us get it,' he said. 'The gospel of the Savior is not just about avoiding bad but doing good.'
President Bednar quoted and kept coming back to a statement President David O. McKay made when he once said, 'The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better.'
The enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ turns people from the natural man and helps them become a saint, President Bednar said.
President Bednar illustrated how grace is essentially an enabling power by quoting the Bible Dictionary definition for grace. Grace allows a to receives strength and assistance to do good works.
'Through the enabling power of Jesus Christ, we are given power to do things we otherwise would not be able to do,' he said.
When reading the scriptures, President Bednar said he inserts the phrase 'the enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ' whenever he comes across the word grace.
Elisa Hart, 19, a freshman from Springdale, Ark., majoring in industrial design knew President Bednar when he served as a stake president in her stake. Hart said she remembers how much he emphasized the scriptures in his talks.
'He would always ask us to hold up our scriptures,' Hart said. 'You were embarrassed if you didn''t have them. People would try to cheat and hold up hymnbooks.'
At BYU-Idaho devotionals, President Bednar is known for asking students to show they had their scriptures on hand.
Tuesday''s Devotional at BYU was no different.
Not only did he ask students to hold up their scriptures at the beginning of his talk, but he continued to use the scriptures throughout his address.
The Book of Mormon is replete with examples of people applying the enabling power of the Atonement, he said.
Through using a few Book of Mormon stories, President Bednar proved how saints deal with a difficult situation by realizing they are agents of the Lord and pray to act and affect the situation, but not be acted upon.
'As we understand and use the enabling power of the Atonement, we will pray to change our circumstance and not have our circumstances changed,' he said.
Eliza Brazier, 18, a freshman from San Diego, Calif., majoring in elementary education said she found President Bednar''s talk to be spiritually uplifting and his PowerPoint presentation, which accompanied his talk, to be effective.