God's love

Have we ever had any of these thoughts?

1. I am doing terrible

2. I will never be perfect

3. I can't do anything right

4. I am a loser

5. I am not living up to what I am supposed to be

6. I am not good enough

7. I am so inadequate

In Romans 1 Paul opened his epistle by greeting the church members and calling them "Beloved of God who are called to be Saints."  Paul said that their faith was spoken of throughout the world, and that without ceasing he mentioned them always in his prayers. He spent much of his epistle correcting false ideas and flawed behaviors that these members had but he first assured these new Christian converts that God loved them. I love that he first said that to them because how many times we feel discouraged and struggle to feel God's love or feel like becoming a Saint is out of reach. It is important that when we seek correction or give correction we start with "you are doing really good, let's work on this" which is what Paul was emphasizing "you are doing good things, don't be discouraged." Saints in Greek means "holy one or one set apart." It is helpful when we are discouraged to think that God loves us, that we are His children, that we are Saints that we have been set apart to fulfill a mission on earth. In Romans 7:24 and 25 Paul says: 24-Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?  25-I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.  

Paul is saying "The natural man is an enemy to God. I know I'm wretched. I know that I have a propensity to want to sin, but I myself am going to serve God."

Those words are very important, even though I am not perfect, I am trying to be by obeying God's commandments and doing all I can to follow Jesus Christ. I will make mistakes but if I repent and go back to the path, I will be forgiven through the atonement of Jesus Christ. In John 15:9-10 it says: 9- As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 10-If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. Elder D. Todd Christofferson said: God will always love us, but He cannot save us in our sins....Repentance, then, is His gift to us, purchased at a very dear price...To abide in God’s love in this sense means to submit fully to His will. It means to accept His correction when needed, “for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”²¹ It means to love and serve one another as Jesus has loved and served us.²² It means to learn “to abide the law of a celestial kingdom” so that we can “abide a celestial glory.”²³ For Him to be able to make of us what we can become, our Heavenly Father pleads with us to yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and [put] off the natural man and [become] a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and [become] as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”