God Is Our Father

                You and I are literally spirit children of Heavenly Father and are members of His large family.  We lived with Him in our pre-earth life and were taught of His plan for our happiness.  He taught us how to advance and progress until we could become like Him, and he prepared a way for us to return to His presence.

                President Joseph Fielding Smith explained, “We are taught in the Scriptures that God is literally, and not in a figurative sense, our very eternal Father.  The words of our redeemer spoken to Mary near the tomb from which he had risen and gained the victory over death, are most sublime and filled with glorious meaning:  `Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father:  but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.’ [John 20:17.]  In these words the truth of the Fatherhood of God is emphatically pronounced by his only begotten Son, who declares that he is our Brother and that we have the same eternal Father.”

                President Smith continued, “I am grateful that the knowledge of God and his laws has been restored in our day and that we who are members of the Church know he is a personal being and not, as some sectarians have said, `a congeries [a disorderly collection] of laws floating like a fog in the universe.’  I am grateful that we know he is our Father in heaven, the Father of our spirits, and that he ordained the laws whereby we can advance and progress until we become like him.  And I am grateful that we know he is an infinite and eternal being who knows all things and has all power and whose progression consists not in gaining more knowledge or power, not in further perfecting his godly attributes, but in the increase and multiplying of his kingdoms.”  (See Teachings of Presidents of the Church – Joseph Fielding Smith, p. 40.)

                As children of our Heavenly Father, each of us is a royal child who was born with the potential to become like our Father.  Each of us has the seed of divinity in us.  Our Father loves each of us and desires us to return to Him.  For this reason, He sent His Son, even Jesus Christ, to earth to live as man and then to die as only a God could die.  I love my Heavenly Father and my Elder Brother, Jesus Christ.  I desire to keep their commandments in order that I might one day merit a return to Their presence.