Earlier, I wrote about the missionaries teaching me. It felt right and I felt the Spirit speaking to me, or the Lord speaking to me via the Spirit, telling me that it was all true. But I haven’t really written much about what it is I now believe, which, of course, is based on what the missionaries taught me but has been expanded somewhat over 40 years of reading and experiencing the Gospel in my life.
To me, life without the Gospel has no meaning, no purpose. Scientists can tell us how life on earth exists, but I don’t believe that they can tell us why it exists and what the purpose of life on Earth is.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives our lives meaning. A large part of the Gospel is the story of Adam and Eve. Exactly when they lived and how they lived, I do not know. The first commandment that God gave to them was to “multiply and replenish the Earth”. In other words, raise a family. If you want to become a better person, become a father or a mother. If that opportunity has eluded you in this life, become fatherly or motherly to nieces and nephews or young friends.
You may have noticed that you are not perfect. If you have not noticed that, maybe a good friend can help point out some of your weaknesses to you. Adam and Eve were not perfect either. In becoming imperfect, they were cut off from the presence of God. They disobeyed God’s commandment to not partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. While still in the Garden of Eden, they lived in a state of innocence and in the presence of God. Not that God was there all the time, but He was there at times. Adam and Eve transgressed by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not by eating an apple or by transgressing sexually as some people believe. You should read Genesis to get the correct account.
Becoming mortal meant that Adam and Eve needed to be cast out of the Garden of Eden, leaving the state of innocence that they had enjoyed in the Garden. In becoming mortal, they were able to bear and rear children. It also meant that they needed to work to produce food to live and had to battle the earth’s environment to do that.
They also became more able to exercise their free will, being tempted to do evil. In making mistakes, as we all do, they became spiritually unclean and unable to enter or endure God’s presence. They needed to communicate to God through prayer and have Him communicate with them via the Holy Ghost, and they needed a way to become clean, so that after death (the separation of body and spirit) they could return to live in their heavenly home, in the presence of God, and with their families.
Fortunately, in the premortal realm, Jehovah offered himself as a sacrifice, to pay the debt that we incurred through sinning. His atonement would make us spiritually clean again, as long as we had faith in Him, tried our best to be obedient, and repented when we disobeyed. Jehovah came to earth and is known to us as Jesus Christ. Without Christ in our lives, without faith in Him, we can still enjoy ourselves in this life, but without Him, we will not make it back to the presence of God or achieve exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom, living in our eternal family unit, becoming perfected even as God is perfect.
Think of it this way. When you fall in love and get married, do you expect that in 5, 10 or 20 years you will get divorced, that as a result you may never see your spouse or children again and that life will be miserable? Of course, you don’t! Why would you get married if you knew that you had a 50% chance of being totally miserable? You get married and you expect for it to last forever. To me, forever means forever, it does not mean that it all ends when we die. If I love my wife and kids in this life, why would I not want that to continue into the next life?
Whether we separate and divorce in this life, or at the end of this life, the result is pretty much the same. We will want to be with our family again. What is the point in spending most of our earthly existence forging loving relationships with our parents, our spouse and our children and their children, if it is not meant to last beyond this life?
Fortunately, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and laws and ordinances of the Gospel, our families can survive this life and extend into the next. Why would anyone not want this? Well, you might not want to live with your spouse forever in the next live if you don’t have a good relationship in this life. But if you loved each other to get married in the first place, maybe you should work on building that relationship up again? Maybe you need to change and improve some aspects of your character?
Our loving Heavenly Parents have given us a way to have these relationships endure into the next life. Like any loving parent, they want the best for us, and they want us to become like them. They continued to communicate to Adam and Eve through the power of prayer and the gift of the Holy Ghost. In generations following Adam and Eve, other prophets came to lead the family of Adam. God revealed to these prophets the laws and the ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that we must obey, to learn to become like God.
The prophets that we read of in the Old Testament, like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Malachi, told their people of the coming, in the meridian of time, of Jesus Christ, who would atone for their sins. Jesus would live an exemplary life, showing us how to behave, particularly in relation to our fellow human beings. He would teach us the way to become better people, through treating each other with kindness, by speaking to each other in a way that we would expect to be spoken to, by serving one another and by communicating to each other the way to become eternal families through faith in Jesus Christ.
The New Testament testifies of Christ’s life on Earth. As I was raised going to Sunday School regularly, some of the stories from the New Testament, and some of the verses, stayed with me until the time the missionaries taught me of the Restoration of the Fulness of the Gospel. While the New Testament does not contain every word that Jesus uttered, or every miracle He performed, or every act of kindness in his life, it does contain enough information about Him and His life that we can learn from, appreciate, and try to emulate Him. In conjunction with The Book of Mormon, we can learn enough about the infinite atonement of Jesus Christ to understand why we need to repent, how to repent, and how to follow his example and teachings to become, not just better people, but also spiritually clean so that we can return to live in the presence of the Father of us all.
Following Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, He ministered to his followers in both the Middle East, specifically Jerusalem and the surrounds, as well as to the inhabitants on the American continent and most likely in other areas as well, the “isles of the seas”. The Book of Mormon – Another Testament of Jesus Christ, reinforces my belief in Jesus Christ. This ancient record was translated by the Prophet of the Restoration, Joseph Smith, by the gift and power of God. I believe that it is true, and I hope you can come to believe it too. I encourage you to read it and pray about it, asking God if he inspired Joseph Smith to translate it.
Joseph was raised in rural America in the early nineteenth century. His family, like many of the families in that area and at that time, were deeply religious. His mother and siblings enjoyed attending various Church meetings and the Churches at the time were recruiting as many members as they could. Joseph’s father declined invitations to attend and join any Church. As a young teenager, Joseph would attend some meetings and at times converse with the various ministers of religion, but he was unable to feel that any of those churches were built upon the foundation of the original New Testament church that he read about.
He was troubled about his standing before God and about which Church he should join. He obviously understood enough about the Gospel to know that we are all guilty of sin, and that we all need cleansing to return to God’s presence. He read in the Bible that God would answer his prayers and he decided that he would attempt to communicate with his Father. He stated later in life that he was confused and wanted answers, hoping that God would direct him to the correct Church to join. He did not expect the answer that he received, which was to join none of the established churches of the time.
As a result of this vision, Joseph learned of the true nature of God, which was contrary to the contemporary Protestant and Catholic views at the time. God the Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph as two separate and distinct beings. The popular view was, and still is in most of Christendom, that they are one person, that Christ was the embodiment of the Father, and that the Holy Ghost is part of the same being.
I agree with what Joseph has clearly stated that “the Father has a body of flesh and bones, as tangible as man’s, the Son also, but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a Personage of Spirit”.
This simple doctrine, which is plainly evident in the Bible, is one of the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is so appealing to many Christians who have lost faith in their Churches, but have not lost faith in God. How could God be the author of so much confusion, such an illogical concept of who and what He is? Perhaps this is worthy of a whole chapter later?
Do you have any questions? I would love to have the opportunity to help you understand more.
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