January 19, 2006

• From a study journal entry, January 17, 2006:
  I have come to realize that the world, for the most part, has no concept of the true and living God.  They worship gods that I do not know.  For example, the Presbyterian Confession of Faith descibes a God that is "invisible, without body, parts, or passions . . . [and is] incomprehensible."  I know of no such deity.
  
  The God I know is knowable.  "It is the first principle of the gospel to know . . . God" (Joseph Smith).  The God that I know is visible.  Prophets have seen Him throughout time, and I long for the time when I will see Him face to face.  The God that I know has body parts.  He has arms with which to hug me.  He has a mouth through which He speaks.  Perhaps more important, the God I know has passions.  He has emotion.  He weeps when He sees us suffer.  He smiles when He sees our triumphs.  I will even say that I have felt His sense of humor.  This is God.
  
  I testify that God lives.  Literally, He lives.  He breathes.  He thinks.  He communicates.  Allbeit He is eternal, immortal, and perfect, but He is eternally, immortally, and perfectly alive.  He sent His living Son, who is in His express image, to Earth that we might know of Him.  And that Son did not come out of the Garden Tomb only to be killed by the creed of man which describes Him in such infinately dead terms.  He came out to live, and to show man that he too may live.
  
  The prophets forsaw the day when the living God would not be worshiped.  Moses wrote, "the Lord shall scatter [Israel] among the nations . . . And there [they] shall serve gods . . . which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell" (Deuteronomy 4:27-28).  Constantly the Apostles centuries later were correcting and reproving the Church for false doctrines- false concepts of deity.  To the saints of Corinth who were doubting the literal resurrection, Paul wrote of the hundreds of perople who saw the Risen Lord.  "And last of all," Paul writes, "He was seen of me as one born out of due time" (1 Corinthians 15:8).  And yet despite such marvelous testimony, so many are caught up worshiping "the unknown God" (Acts 17:23).
  
  We need to remember that we are literally the spirit children of God.  We were created in His image.  "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to thing that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device" (Acts 17:29).  As far as men worship an unknown being defined by the creeds of men, they are worshiping "man's device."
  
  There is a true, literally living God.  Of Him I bear solemn witness.  Of Him and His compassionate character the Prophet Joseph Smith said, "Our Heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings that we are ready to believe or recieve. . . God does not look on sin with allowance, but . . . the nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls; we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their sins behind our backs."
  
  I testify of a God who has such shoulders.  Literally, He has shoulders.  And He loves us, and wants us each to find happiness.  He can and will carry our burdens and lift us up with His infinate compassion.  That He has done so for me is my testimony in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
  

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