Feeling God's Love

1) God wants us to have Joy!

It is, after all His Eternal Work & Glory to bring to pass the immortality and Eternal Life of man (the Book of Moses 1:39)

2) Nothing unclean can enter God's kingdom (D&C 109:20; 94:9; 1 Nephi 10:21; Alma 11:37; & 3 Nephi 27:19)

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God's kingdom is a kingdom of order (D&C 132:8), which means that we can't just do whatever we want and whatever makes us feel good

3) Therefore, man must obey God's commandments and repent if he or she is going to be able to enter into God's kingdom and inherit Eternal Life!

... But ...

Let's face it...  This is not probable...that is...until men and women know and feel God's LOVE for them!

I mean, it already flies in the face of man's nature (Mosiah 3:19) to do good and repent--it's just not what we like to do!  But...  If a child (and we are all God's children--every single person to be born on this Earth!) feels that love from his/His father, he will do anything that he is told by his father/Father.

JPS

I would rather have nothing than have everyone be equal to me! - Satan/Lucifer

Satan, or rather, Lucifer, wanted to have God the Father's (my Heavenly Father and your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ's Heavenly Father and Lucifer's) glory and wanted to take away our agency or force us to follow him, as well as hated Jesus Christ and His being chosen to carry-out our Heavenly Father's eternal plan.

There is a reason why the scriptures attest that in nothing is God offended but in our ingratitude.  Lucifer was a son of the morning and held some authority among God's children, but was so ungrateful that he wanted ALL of Our Father's glory--all of it!  Just so happened that he couldn't stand the thought of every one of His children having an equal opportunity to inherit all that the Father hath.  The irony of it is, that he tempts us to be ungrateful and inherit nothing--the same as he receives--so, all of Lucifer's or Satan's followers will receive the exact same thing: NOTHING!  In the end, his plan is carried out (by those who follow him).  Only, every damned soul that came to Earth will be resurrected and therefore have an Eternal body, which Satan will never have.  Ever.  I understand that Pride is the gateway sin to all other sins, but isn't ingratitude also?

JPS

God's Love & Commandments

Until we, as human beings and, more importantly, as children of God, understand and allow ourselves to feel Our Heavenly Father's love and Our Savior's love for us, we are NOT likely to follow Their commandments!

As was said in General Conference:

God never loses sight of our eternal potential, even when we do!
- Carol M. Stevens

JPS

You gotta have faith... Just gotta have faith...

Why is it that we, as human beings and more importantly, we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ (unless you are not a member of the LDS church, but you are still, at least, a human being [and so this applies to you just the same...]), hear the prophets say something or give us a promise--like Moses prophesying to Pharaoh, "free my people or all of the first born of Egypt will die"--and we still doubt it, still continue on doing what we were doing before, still are naysayers, or even admitting that we know we shouldn't but keep doing it anyway?  Why don't we always do what is right when we have been asked to do it?

Why can't we liken the scriptures to ourselves, as Isaiah and Nephi tell us to?  Why can't we put ourselves in someone's shoes and trust that our outcome will be the same or similar to other people's?

When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, why can't we hear what Our Lord and God is telling us, and believe Him?

Why do I feel like Alma when he wishes that he were an angel in Alma chapter 29?  Am I sinning in my wish?  I am content with the things given to me...really...I am!

JPS

Will you have lived in such a way that God can work His miracles through you (or will you be cut to pieces)?

President Dieter Friedrich Uchtdorf gave a world-class talk (as usual) in the Priesthood Session in October of 2015 called, Be Not Afraid, Only Believe.  The talk begs the question: What would you do if an opportunity or challenge appears that you are not ready to take-on or accomplish?  Really, the talk speaks of Daniel, who becomes kidnapped and forced to walk 500 miles to his new home live in the land of Babylon where he would be taught to live with and around those who practiced a foreign religion.  Daniel was a follower of the Hebrew God, Jehovah, and he stayed true to his faith.

That foreign religion would have been, to Daniel, the worship of a false God.  Their rites and prayers would have all been vein.  The kicker, though, was that Daniel could and would been burned in a fiery furnace (think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego who miraculously survived a fiery death!).  In fact, Daniel and his colleague students taken to Babylon were under a threat from King Nebuchadnezzar to perform he seemingly impossible: Recount a dream that the king had had and reveal it's interprettation!  Who could do such a thing?  Impossible, right?

Daniel, however, did not doubt that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God that he had worshipped his entire life, could and would reveal it to him.  In fact, He did.  "Daniel believed.  He did not doubt."  The fact that he did, saved the life of not only Daniel, but all of all the soothsayers, astrologers, astronomers, priests, counselors, magicians, and wise-men whom Nebuchadnezzar had charged with the task or they would be cut into pieces!

My question, then, is similar to President Uchtdorf's and applied to each of us: Will you have lived in such a way that God can work his miracles through you?  What if Daniel had eaten the food offered to him by the King, what if Daniel hadn't kept his covenants and commandments he'd entered into. and culminating in question: what if Daniel hadn't lived in such a way that God can work His miracles through him?

What if we don't?  Are we fulfilling every promise made to us by our Stake Patriarch?  Are we living the way we should?

JPS