Doctrine and Covenants 60-61

(October 23, 2015)

                Sometimes in this Church I think we still confuse justification (being clean before God) and sanctification (being cleanse from even the desire to sin).  Justification is, thanks to the Atonement, fairly easy.  When the time comes that we desire to give our lives and our hearts over to the Lord, and when we repent and confess and forsake our sins, we are forgiven.

                But as becomes clear in this Section (‘I can make you holy, and your sins are forgiven’), becoming holy or sanctified is another matter.  This, too, is possible only through the Atonement of Christ. But this is a lifelong (at best) process, and one that will require constant sacrifice.

                I think that many of us desire some sanctification, but not enough sanctification.  We want the particularly noticeable warts in our character removed (sometimes we want them removed, but just not quite yet).  But this isn’t enough for us to be holy – we must be willing to allow the Lord to completely change us in His imagine until every part of us that is not worthy of Him is gone.

                The greatest blessing of all, of course, is that He is speaking the truth when He tells them (and us) that He can make us holy.