Article of Faith | One
Author: Christina Judd
We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
In Second Nephi, chapter two, Lehi teaches his son, Jacob, “[It] must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things (2 Nephi 2)”. His words transported me to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, observing fish and petting lambs. With eyes not fully open, all they could do was breathe, and observe the world through very limited experience. The problem was: in that state, everything “must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation (2 Nephi 2:12, 16).”
This led me to the Godhead.
Lehi taught that everything God made is for a purpose, and the Doctrine and Covenants teaches that we become Gods when we are filled with all power. So how do the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost do it? How do they transform us into Heavenly Mothers and Heavenly Fathers?
“Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other (2 Nephi 2:16).”
They allow us time in a world filled with opposition and they provide a Redeemer.
With eyes now wide open, we see good and evil, right and wrong, and choose for ourselves. Our agency makes us more like God, even when we don’t “choose the right”. Because of Jesus Christ and His perfect use of agency, the gift and miracle of our individual agency will be consecrated for our gain. “Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth. Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit (2 Nephi 2:6-7)”.
Because Jesus Christ answered every law perfectly, He became the law (3 Nephi 15:9). We are accountable to Him! Not to commandments—to how well we “do” them. We are accountable to the most gracious, merciful, loving, tender God; to the only One who knows exactly what we feel, what we do, and why. We are accountable to the only One who has triumphed over this magnificently fallen, broken world, and over our magnificently fallen, broken selves.
“Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day (3 Nephi 27:30). As we look at Jesus Christ in every thought (thoughts of loss, grief, doubt, despair, heartache, weakness, addiction, sin, and temptation (D&C 6:36)), He sends the Holy Ghost to purify, sanctify, heal, and perfect our hearts, increase our Priesthood Power, and, “line upon line (Isa. 28:10)”, make us the Gods we were created to become.
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