Post # 39 – The Plan of Salvation
Dear Family and Friends
For this post, I thought I would share with you the Plan
of Salvation. It is often referred to as the Great Plan of Happiness, or the
Plan of Redemption. The Plan of Salvation began when we all were still living
in our pre-mortal world with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This was His
plan for us to be truly happy in this world and in the world to come. We lived
in heaven with our Heavenly Father before we came to earth.
Our Heavenly Father introduced us to this plan for our
eternal happiness while we lived in the pre-mortal world. Through this plan each
of us would be able to become like Him and to live in His presence forever.
This plan includes the creation of the world., the Fall, the Atonement of Jesus
Christ.
Through Heavenly Father’s direction, Jesus Christ created
the heavens and the earth.
“The Son, the greatest of all, was chosen by the Father to carry
out the Father’s plan—to exercise the Father’s power to create worlds without
number (see Moses 1:33) and to save the children of God from death
by His Resurrection and from sin by His
Atonement. This supernal sacrifice is truly called ‘the central act of all
human history’” (Dallin H. Oaks, “The Godhead and the Plan of Salvation,” Ensign or Liahona, May
2017, 102).
There is a video that is called We Lived With God here:
Our Heavenly Father taught us about His plan
of salvation for us. Heavenly Father’s plan answers questions like “Where
did I come from?” “Why are we here, what is my purpose in this life?” “Where
are we going after we die?”
Have you ever wondered
why you are here? Who you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to do? The
funny thing about purpose is that you never know when you’re going to find
yours.
“In
the work of salvation, there is no room for criticism, comparison, or
condemnation. May we choose a righteous cause as valiant emissaries of our Lord
Jesus Christ.” —Carol F. McConkie, “Here to Serve a Righteous Cause,” Oct. 2015 general
conference
We are the spirit children of our Heavenly parents.
Before we were born to our earthly parents on this earth we lived as sons and
daughters – children of the Eternal Father. While we lived in heaven with our
heavenly parents we were very happy. We loved our time living with our heavenly
parents. We are His spirit children and
had spirit bodies while we lived with Him in heaven. We loved Him, and He loved
us.
We had only our spirit bodies while we lived there, our
spirit bodies did not have flesh and bones like our physical bodies do. Our
Heavenly Father loves us so much, He had a plan for us. He gathered us all
together and we were taught His eternal plan. All of us, including our parents,
our brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles were there together to learn of His
plan. if we make good and righteous
choices and follow His plan we can become like Heavenly Father.
We had learned so much that we had progressed as far as
we could in the spirit world without a physical body to experience our mortal
life. The plan was that we would have to
come to earth to gain a physical body of which we needed to live on earth.
We came here to prove that we would each be willing to keep His commandments,
we would need to learn this through our faith in our Heavenly Father.
We would
be tested during our life here on earth to see if we would choose to obey God’s
commandments. As we would have no knowledge of our life
with our heavenly parents in heaven – we would not remember anything that
happened in our pre-mortal life. Wow! and we agreed to come to earth and to do it without any knowledge of having lived with our Father in heaven and Jesus Christ, or of His great plan of Happiness. I wonder of we knew anything about what our earth life would be like before we came here to live. if we knew about the trials and difficulties that would come to us?
When we came to earth we gained our physical bodies, but
it is the spirit inside our bodies that give us life. We cannot see or touch
our spirits, but we can see and touch our physical bodies. We should be very grateful
for our physical bodies as it is a great blessing for us to have gained our physical
bodies. We must take good care of our bodies. I remember teaching my primary class about this concept using a glove. the glove depicting our body and my hand depicting our spirit. without the hand/spirit in the glove/body it cannot move, but once you put your hand/spirit into your glove/body you can move it everywhere and in anyway.
Heavenly Father
sent each of us to this earth which Jesus Christ created under His direction to
provide us a place where we could choose to follow His plan and someday return
to live with Him again after our mortal lives are over. In coming here to earth
we agreed to keep His commandments and to experience and grow through the
trials and challenges of our mortal life.’ When we heard Heavenly Father’s plan
in heaven we all rejoiced about it we were so happy. His plan of salvation provides a way for each of us to return to lie
with Heavenly Father again, if we keep his commandments.
Heavenly Father created our first parents - Adam and Eve and
put them on the earth in the Garden of Eden. While they lived in the Garden of
Eden they lived in our Heavenly Father’s presence. They could see Him and talk
with Him. During their mortal experience
they made choices for their lives as they tried to keep the commandments of
their Heavenly Father and in that course of their mortal life and as a result
of their Fall – they suffered spiritual death where they were cut off from the
presence of their Heavenly Father and they were sent out into the world to make
their way and provide for themselves. They would be made unclean by the sins
and temptations of their mortal life and they would be subject to physical death.
Heavenly Father knew that we would need
help keeping His commandments and help to have our sins taken away, and to
return to Him we would need resurrected bodies.
Heavenly Father had known of their Fall and had provided
ways that they and they and we could overcome all of the obstacles that our mortal life
would bring to them and to us. This separation
from being able to see and talk with our Heavenly Father is known as the Fall –
it is a spiritual death, then they were sent into the cold world and would experience many trials and difficulties and eventually face physical death. We cannot
take away our own sins or resurrect ourselves, so we would need a Savior to take
away our sins and to provide a resurrection for us.
As part of His plan Heavenly Father had already chosen
Jesus Christ from the foundation of the world to be our Savior. He loved us so
much that He sent Hi Only Begotten Son who agreed to come to the earth and be an example for us and show us
the way that we could get back to our heavenly home to live with Him and our Father
in heaven. Jesus loved each of us so very much that He willingly suffered for
our sins. He suffered in His innocent mortal body for our sins and then died and was resurrected so that each of us can be resurrected too. Jesus Christ became our Savior.
There was another son who wanted to be our savior too, it
was Lucifer who became Satan. He did not love our Heavenly Father and he did
not love us because he wanted to make changes to Heavenly Father’s plan and he
also wanted to have all the glory and power of Heavenly Father for himself. He was
being very selfish. Satan convinced a lot of Heavenly Father’s spirit children
to believe that his idea was the best, which made our Heavenly Father very sad.
Heavenly Father made Satan and all of those of His spirit children who chose to
follow Satan leave heaven. Satan and those who chose to follow him want us to
sin and follow them and now choose to follow Heavenly Father and keep His commandments.
It all began with God the Father, who created the Great Plan
of Happiness, He instructed His Son Jesus Christ in the creation of the world.
He made the sun, moon and the stars. He then put plants, trees, and animals on
the earth. He made the earth beautiful for us in His creation .and everything
else that is in the world. Now that the earth was done we then had a place to
come to where we would receive our physical bodies of flesh and blood.
As people come to
earth as babies and as they grow, some choose to obey Heavenly Father’s commandments,
and some chose not to. The prophets of old or ancient times have always taught
people about our Heavenly Father’s plan and about our Savior Jesus Christ. The prophets
taught that Jesus Christ came to earth as a baby – Heavenly Father was going to
be his father and Nary was going to be His mother and her husband Joseph would
be Jesus’s earthly father. Jesus Would be born in a town called Bethlehem.
In the scriptures it tells us that the prophets told us
that there would be many people who would not believe that Jesus was the
Savior, because He would look like other people and He would not be rich and
there would be many people who hated Him too. The prophets also told us in the
scriptures about John the Baptist who would come before Jesus to prepare the
people for His coming, and John would be the one to baptize Jesus. The scriptures
tell us of the prophets who said that Jesus would be kind to the people and He
would perform many miracles for the people.
Also, the prophets said that before Jesus died He would
suffer for the sins of the world – for each of us, so that we would not have to
suffer as He did – but we would need to repent. There were many prophets who
knew that Jesus Christ, who was our Savior, would be killed or crucified. The people
who hated Him would nail Him to a cross and He would willingly give His life
for each of us. He hung and suffered there on the cross then He died.
The prophets taught us about how after three days Jesus
would be resurrected – His spirit would come back into His body and bring Him
back to life—He would be resurrected and because He was resurrected, we too
will all be resurrected someday. Now that we knew of Heavenly Father’s plan we
needed to know about the three members of the Godhead. Namely the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. They are mentioned by the Apostle Paul in the New
Testament.
2 Corinthians 13:14 “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the communion [or fellowship] of the Holy Ghost, be with you all”
As President
David O. McKay taught that “the first fundamental truth advocated by Jesus
Christ was this, that behind, above and over all there is God the Father, Lord
of heaven and earth. Then ”5Elder
Bruce R. McConkie wrote just before his death: “In the ultimate and final
sense of the word, there is only one true and living God. He is the Father, the
Almighty Elohim, the Supreme Being, the Creator and Ruler of the universe. ”He is the God and
Father of Jesus Christ, as well as of all of us.
We learn about our Heavenly Father and the nature of His
being from His Son Jesus Christ throughout His earthly ministry. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland has taught, one of the paramount
purposes of Jesus’s ministry was to reveal to mortals “what God our Eternal
Father is like, … to reveal and make personal to us the true nature of His
Father, our Father in Heaven. The Bible
contains an apostolic witness that Jesus was “the express image” of His
Father’s person (Hebrews 1:3), which merely elaborates Jesus’s own teaching that “he that
hath seen me hath seen the Father”
Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the
express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power,
when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on high.
John 14:9 He
has a body of flesh and bones just as we do, we were created in His image. We are
His spirit children.
The Son – the Only Begotten Son of the Father is the one
member of the Godhead that is most visible to us through the scriptures. A great doctrinal statement by the First
Presidency in 1909 declares Him to be “the firstborn among all the sons of
God—the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh.”7 The Son, the
greatest of all, was chosen by the Father to carry out the Father’s plan—to
exercise the Father’s power to create worlds without number (see Moses 1:33) and to save the children of God from death by His
Resurrection and from sin by His Atonement. This supernal sacrifice is truly
called “the central act of all human history.”8 (APRIL 2017 |
3 Nephi 11:14 It is Jesus Christ, Jehovah, the Lord
God of Israel, who is the one who speaks with and through the prophets. When He
came to the American continent He introduces Himself to the Nephites as ‘the
God of the whole earth.’
So it is that Jesus often speaks to the
prophets of the Book of Mormon and to the Latter-day Saints as “the Father and
the Son,” a title explained in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve’s
inspired doctrinal exposition just 100 years ago. APRIL 2017 | By
Elder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
The third member of the Godhead – the Holy Ghost has a
body of spirit; therefore He is often referred to as the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of the Lord, and the Comforter. He is the member of the Godhead from
which personal revelation is received. In Doctrine and Covenants 130 verse 22
it tells us: The
Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also, but
the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones but is a personage of Spirit. Were
it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ
communicate with us through the Holy Ghost. There are several scriptures that teach us
that it is the mission of the Holy Ghost to testify of the Father and of the
Son, here are just a few:
John 15: 26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from
the Father, he shall testify of me:’
3 Nephi 28::11 And the Holy Ghost beareth record of
the Father and me; and the Father giveth the Holy Ghost unto the children of
men, because of me..
And in the
Doctrine and Covenants 42 verse 17 For, behold, the
Comforter knoweth all things, and beareth record of the Father and of the Son.
Our Savior
Jesus Christ promised that He would send us the Comforter to teach us all
things, and to bring all things to our remembrance as well as to guide us into
all truth. The Holy ghost is the one member of the Godhead that helps us to
discern between the truth and falsehood, He guides us in our major decisions in
this life and also helps us through our trials and difficulties in this life of
mortality– as found in these verses of scripture:
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but
whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to
come.
The Holy Ghost also cleanses and purifies us from our sins when we repent of those sins and transgressions as taught us in these verses:
2 Nephi 31:17 Wherefore, do the things which I have
told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this
cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know that the gate by which
ys should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission
of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.
3 Nephi 27:20 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.
Moroni 6:4 And after
they had been received unto baptism, and were wrought upon and cleansed by the power
of the Holy Ghost, they were numbered among the people of the church of Christ;
and their names were taken, that they might be remembered and nourished by the
good word of God to keep them in the right way, to keep them continually
watchful unto prayer, relying alone upon the merits of Christ, who was the
author and the finisher of their faith.
As President Thomas S. Monson taught us in our last general
conference:
“Essential to the plan [of salvation] is our Savior, Jesus
Christ. Without His atoning sacrifice, all would be lost. It is not enough,
however, merely to believe in Him and His mission. We need to work and learn,
search and pray, repent and improve. We need to know God’s laws and live them.
We need to receive His saving ordinances. Only by so doing will we obtain true,
eternal happiness. …
“From the depths of my soul and in all humility,” President
Monson declared, “I testify of the great gift which is our Father’s plan for
us. It is the one perfect path to peace and happiness both here and in the
world to come.”
We have the truth of the Godhead and our relationship to each of
Them, we know the purpose of life, and the nature of our eternal destiny. With all
of this information we now have “the ultimate roadmap and assurance for our journey
through mortality. We know whom we worship and why we worship them. We know who
we are and what we can become.” (APRIL 2017 |
Doctrine and Covenants
93:19 I give unto you these sayings that you may understand and know how to worship,
and know what you worship, that you might come unto the Father in my name, and
in due time receive of his fulness.
We know who makes
it all possible, and we know what we must do to enjoy the ultimate blessings
that come through God’s plan of salvation. How do we know all of this? We know
by the revelations of God to His prophets and to each of us individually.
Attaining what the
Apostle Paul described as “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”
(Ephesians 4:13) requires far more than acquiring knowledge. It is not even
enough for us to be convinced of the
gospel; we must act and think so that we are converted by it. In
contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something,
the plan of salvation and the gospel of Jesus Christ challenge us to become something.
(APRIL 2017 |
No comments:
Post a Comment