Monday, November 2, 2009

John 10:33-36 -- On Being the Children of God

"The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?"
John 10:33-36


I think that this doctrine is amazing. We are children of God, and we have the potential to be like him. Not the guarantee, since we can always rebel and destroy ourselves. We have that option as well, but we are seeds of the divine, and we can grow up into that divine potential, just like any other child can become like his father. Not anything that we can accomplish in this life, of course.  It will probably be eons before we are even out of figurative kindergarten, but even so, it is hard for many to accept. I had a student come and tell me this fact about Mormonism once... he thought I probably didn't know, and wanted to save me from the secrets of the leaders of the church. But it isn't secret, it is all through the scriptures. I think it makes the world make a lot more sense... and shows us one of the reasons that we are here in this life.

God loves us and has our best interests at heart, always. God wants to save even the people who have become so steeped in sin that they can't remember what purity is. God loves us all, equally. ...Why? Because he is our Father. Our symbolic *and* literal Father, and we are here to learn and to grow and to discover things about ourselves that we couldn't if we didn't have the opportunities that we have here. We are worthwhile, and have goodness in us, even when we make bad choices. ...Why? Because we are His children, and we are here to learn what it is to be mortal, to have a body, to learn to love others even when it is difficult.

ALL of us are God's children, not just our friends or the people we like, or the people in one church... everyone. Let's remember that today. Remember the divine potential in ourselves, and that we can triumph over any test we're given in this life... and also that the people around us have that divine potential too, and our our brothers and sisters. Let's strive to treat them that way. :)

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