My Beliefs
Saturday, December 21, 2013 Mikentire 0 Comments Category : Church , God
INTRODUCTION
This page is an introduction to my beliefs. As a Mormon, I'm asked about my beliefs regularly so I figure some of the people reading my posts may be interested as well. If you are interested, feel free to scroll down and learn! The page is fairly extensive and has a lot of material, so feel free to read and watch what you're interested in. But it is not exhaustive, so if you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment or to message me and I'll do my best to answer you.
JESUS CHRIST
I have a testimony of Jesus Christ - that He is our Savior and Redeemer. I know that He suffered for me personally so that I can face all of life's challenges with His enabling grace. It is through Christ's Atonement that we can receive forgiveness for our sins and find comfort and guidance in all the challenges we face in life. I know that His Gospel - when lived to its fullest extent - will bless us and bring us closer to Him in many ways. For me, the most important of those ways is developing a stronger relationship with Him and becoming more like Him. Everything He taught, everything He was, was to show us the way to live life. Kindness to our brothers and sisters and obedience to God's commandments will bring us the most happiness we can have in this life. I will undoubtedly be referring back to Him in the explanation of my beliefs but He is the end-all and be-all of my faith so it's only fitting I start with Him.
RESTORATION OF THE GOSPEL
From the beginning of mankind, God has revealed His will to prophets. Just check out the Bible. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses are just a few of them. Through them, God revealed His will to his people and guided them through life. Eventually He sent His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ to fulfill all He had taught those prophets. He set the perfect example and taught the fullness of the Gospel teaching us what manner of men we ought to become. He called Twelve Apostles and like He had to the prophets of the Old Testament, He gave them the Priesthood Authority to act in His name. But after His crucifixion, the church began to go in different directions. Just read any of Paul's works to see just how much effort went into keeping false doctrines and practices from creeping into Christ's church. Eventually the Apostles were martyred and their Priesthood Authority went with them. After that, doctrines were determined by vote and councils and many of Christ's teachings changed with them. After the Reformation, there were hundreds of different denominations claiming to have the correct interpretation of His Gospel.
Naturally that was very confusing - and it still is. But in the early 1800s in upstate New York, a young man named Joseph Smith Jr was also confused by the religious fervor of his area. He sought advice from a variety of different pastors. His experiences left him confused until one day, while reading the Bible, he found a verse in James which reads, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who giveth to all man liberally and upbraideth not and it shall be given him." He wrote that he had never felt a verse of scripture hit home like this one did. So, desiring to seek out wisdom from God, he found a secluded place near his home and knelt down and prayed. While praying, he saw a pillar of light which descended gradually upon him and within the light he saw two personages - God the Father and Jesus Christ.
He asked Them his question - which of all these denominations were right? He was instructed that none of them held the fullness of the truth and he was to join none of them. Through Joseph Smith, They restored the fullness of the Gospel and the Priesthood Authority. This is the defining moment of my religion - we are Christians in the fullest sense. We believe in an active religion that is still led by Jesus Christ today because He restored it through His prophet Joseph Smith and continues to lead it by His prophets and apostles today.
THE PLAN OF SALVATION
God has a plan for all of us. We are his children and before this life we lived with Him. He presented a plan for our growth that included us coming to earth to gain experience and a body. So this life is the fulfillment of that plan. While here, we grow closer to Him through our obedience to his laws but also in our relationships with each other.
We believe in the creation of the earth, that it was created from existing materials, and that it was created ultimately to be our home for our growth and was to be under our care. It is important to note that we do not believe in the absolute timeline of the Bible but that a day in God's time may be significantly longer than a day is to us. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no official position on evolution and evolution is actively taught in biology courses in its private universities. As both a scientist and a man of faith, I like to tell people that science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive - you choose to make it that way or not.
We also believe in Adam and Eve but that their Fall was a part of God's plan and was essential to our own growth and progression. So their actions in the Garden are not seen as original sin, but rather something to be celebrated that allowed the rest of us to be here.
The Savior came to this Earth to fulfill the Atonement. Because of His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary, we can be forgiven for our sins by forsaking them and turning to Him to accept His grace and forgiveness. More than that, He also suffered for all of our hardships - including pain, sickness, and sadness. He knows what your going through and is the best source for guidance and comfort because He went through it for you.
This life, then, is all about growing personally and preparing ourselves to be with God again. Today is the day to be proactive, obedient, repentant, and trying to live like Christ. If we live life in this manner we will be incredibly happy and prepared to comfortably meet our Father and our Savior afterwards.
Life after death starts as a waiting period, where those who lived and accepted the gospel get a chance to teach those who didn't - allowing those who hadn't heard the glad message a chance to accept the gospel and have it change them. This gives everyone a chance to accept Jesus Christ and His teachings. After that, everybody, regardless of whether they accept Him or not will be resurrected. Then we will have earned our place in one of three Kingdoms: the Celestial Kingdom for those who chose to accept Christ and live obedient lives will get to live with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, the Terrestrial Kingdom for those who chose to not accept the fullness of Christ's teachings, but nonetheless lived good lives, and the Telestial Kingdom for those who didn't accept Christ or live particularly good lives even after all have had the chance to learn and accept Him and His teachings.
We believe in the creation of the earth, that it was created from existing materials, and that it was created ultimately to be our home for our growth and was to be under our care. It is important to note that we do not believe in the absolute timeline of the Bible but that a day in God's time may be significantly longer than a day is to us. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no official position on evolution and evolution is actively taught in biology courses in its private universities. As both a scientist and a man of faith, I like to tell people that science and religion do not have to be mutually exclusive - you choose to make it that way or not.
We also believe in Adam and Eve but that their Fall was a part of God's plan and was essential to our own growth and progression. So their actions in the Garden are not seen as original sin, but rather something to be celebrated that allowed the rest of us to be here.
The Savior came to this Earth to fulfill the Atonement. Because of His suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary, we can be forgiven for our sins by forsaking them and turning to Him to accept His grace and forgiveness. More than that, He also suffered for all of our hardships - including pain, sickness, and sadness. He knows what your going through and is the best source for guidance and comfort because He went through it for you.
This life, then, is all about growing personally and preparing ourselves to be with God again. Today is the day to be proactive, obedient, repentant, and trying to live like Christ. If we live life in this manner we will be incredibly happy and prepared to comfortably meet our Father and our Savior afterwards.
Life after death starts as a waiting period, where those who lived and accepted the gospel get a chance to teach those who didn't - allowing those who hadn't heard the glad message a chance to accept the gospel and have it change them. This gives everyone a chance to accept Jesus Christ and His teachings. After that, everybody, regardless of whether they accept Him or not will be resurrected. Then we will have earned our place in one of three Kingdoms: the Celestial Kingdom for those who chose to accept Christ and live obedient lives will get to live with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, the Terrestrial Kingdom for those who chose to not accept the fullness of Christ's teachings, but nonetheless lived good lives, and the Telestial Kingdom for those who didn't accept Christ or live particularly good lives even after all have had the chance to learn and accept Him and His teachings.
OBEDIENCE TO LAWS & ORDINANCES
THE WORD OF THE LORD
We believe in an open cannon. The Bible is the word of the Lord and has some great teachings. But God loves everyone and has communicated with all His children throughout the ages. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ to the people of the ancient Americas. It was translated by Joseph Smith and is a great way to learn of the truthfulness of the Restoration. Since Joseph Smith, the words of the Prophets have been continually given us the words of the Lord to let us know what He would have us do. Today that Prophet is Thomas S. Monson and he guides us today. So grab yourself a copy of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or a conference talk and see how it makes you feel!
