Category: God

What do Mormons Really Believe?

While not an actual question someone left in the question box, it is a top entry in Google’s autocomplete for “What do Mormons…”

Mormons really believe in God, our Eternal, Heavenly Father, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Savior and Redeemer, and in the Holy Ghost, who testifies of both the Father and the Son.

We really believe in the power of the Atonement of Christ in daily life.

We really believe that God still communicates His will to people on earth directly and prophets exist in the same way they did in biblical times to teach God’s will to the people generally.

Besides revelation and prophecy, we really believe in miracles and in the power of God on earth, and that the priesthood, the authority to act in God’s name, has been restored to the earth.

We really believe the true gospel that has been taught since the days of Adam.

We really believe the Bible and the Book of Mormon to be the word of God and that further words from God will be given to us as He deems necessary.

We really believe in being good people and serving our fellow man.

We really believe that by following the commandments, we can live fuller, better lives because they are given by a loving God who has our best interests first.

Question Box: Divine Visitations

Question:  Do Mormon’s believe that non-eartly beings, divine or otherwised, have visited the Earth?   Thank you.

Yes, we believe that both God and angels have visited the earth.  All Christians, if they stopped to think about it, believe the same thing.   Some of the most well-known examples are

1) When God visited Moses in the burning bush (Exodus ch. 3),

2) When an angel told Mary that she would be the mother of Christ (Luke ch. 1), and

3) Angels visiting shephards in the fields announcing that Christ had been born (Luke ch. 2).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is unique in that we believe that God still speaks to men today.  In the early 1800’s, a young boy named Joseph Smith was concerned about which church he should join.  After much study, he finally realized that there was no way he could figure it out.  One night he read a verse in the book of James, which stood out to him (James 1:5).  He realized that the only way he could find out what to do would be to pray and ask God for direction.  In response to his sincere prayer, God the Father and Jesus Christ visited him and told him that none of the churches were true.  They told him that they were calling him as the next prophet to restore the true church to the earth again. (To see a short video representation of this story, click here.)

We believe that God has called prophets and apostles again to the earth.  Just as God visited Moses and gave him directions on how to lead His people, He has a prophet on the earth today who can receive guidance on what we should be doing now – President Thomas S. Monson.  Just earlier this month, we had the opportunity to listen to the prophet and apostles in a General Conference of the Church.  I love watching conference.  As I watch and listen, things stick out to me and I write them down, so I can work on them.  I know that God speaks to prophets today, because I receive help and guidance with my life as I listen to their messages.

The Origins of God

Q. The origins of God

Wow that’s a big topic; perhaps too big for us mortals to deal with. The creation stories of many cultures begin with the gods already in place. The Jewish/Christian story is one such example Geneses 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The Greeks with their highly developed mythology explored the question of where their gods originated; Edith Hamilton in her book Mythology begins by stating: “The Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe. It was the other way about: the universe created the gods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren. Yet that still leaves the mystery of how the heaven and earth were formed and who might have had a hand in that process.

Every good story needs a beginning. A puzzle I used to present to my high school history students was: “What should the starting date of United State’s History be?” I would get dates  as recent as 1776 and as old as 30,000 BC. Another thing to consider is that for a story to make sense we have to be able to understand it. So the story in the scriptures begins with God in place and creating the world, and there isn’t much detail about the physics of the whole exercise.

Mormons believe in prophets and continuing revelation. From my study it appears that every age or so one of the main prophets gets the “Big Revelation”. They get to take a glimpse of the whole story and sometimes it can help us gain a better understanding of the eternal perspective. One of these revelations was given to Moses and is recorded in the Book of Moses found in the Pearl of Great Price. Allow me to capture the essence of the conversation as it was later revealed to Joseph Smith which is in Chapter 1.

God introduces himself to Moses and tells him that he is eternal and that his works and his words are endless and that no man can behold all his works or his glory and remain in the flesh. The Lord did however show Moses this world and all the children of men which were created. After a brief interlude the vision is again opened up to Moses and Moses begins to question how all these things could be. God then gives him the short answer to the question saying that all these things were created “by the word of my power, which is his Only Begotten Son.” He then says that, “worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose”. Essentially telling Moses that the vision of the earth on which we dwell is all he’s going to go into and that the bigger picture is just too much for Moses to comprehend.

So for our purposes all we need to consider is that God the Father exists and is eternal, that he has created the earth and the people of the earth through the power of the Son. We also know why He did it: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39). Of course our curious minds want to know more details and some hints are available both in the scriptures and through modern revelation, but it isn’t terribly important to our salvation, which we probably should be more focused on. We are asked to live by faith, which means trusting God before we have all the details.

So that is what Mormons believe…

…as for what they speculate: that belongs on a different website.

Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day!

Today in church, the young children went up to the front and sang some songs about fathers that they have been practicing for the last couple of weeks.  It was fun to hear and see them sing.  I also watched with great interest as my oldest son, who is 3 years old, sang along.

I haven’t been a dad very long and I’m still learning a lot.  Some things I’ve learned so far are just little things, like how to get marker out of the carpet or how to make the tastiest Mac and Cheese, but some of the things I’ve learned are on more of a deeper level.  Maybe fatherhood and ageing has given me a different perspective.

As I watch my two toddlers, I often think about our Heavenly Father watching over us.  I think of the love that He has for us.  When my son works on a puzzle, gets stuck and asks for help, I’m willing to help him out with it.  I also think about God being eager to help us if we come to him with our problems.  The scripture in Matthew 7:9-11 fits well:

“Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?  Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask of him?”

My wife shared with me an experience she had when she took our son to get his immunization shots.  Our son has always been really trusting.  Even when he’d cry as a baby, he’d just call out and then wait for us to take care of him.  He just wasn’t a big crier.  Well, as the shots were administered, a look of pain and shock overcame his face.  He looked up with an expression of “how could you let this happened to me?”  My wife admitted she started crying too.  She felt so bad for him and wanted to somehow tell him that the shots were to help him.  It would only hurt for a little while.  Later, she realized that Heavenly Father must feel the same way when we go through our trials in life.  They may be painful or seem really hard at the time, but they really help us learn and become stronger people.

What are some insights that you have gained that demonstrate our relation, as children, to our Heavenly Father?