God – What Do Mormons Believe?

God is our Heavenly Father

Happy Father’s Day today! It is important to realize and recognize that we are Children of our Heavenly Father. God is not only our Creator and our Ruler, but he is our Father in Heaven. He is the Father of our spirits. All men and women are literally the sons and daughters of God. And we, every person on earth, all who were born before now and all who will be born, are our spiritual brothers and sisters. Because we are the spirit children of God, we have inherited the potential to develop His divine qualities. God wants us to be happy and to have joy. He has created a way that through Jesus Christ, that we can be resurrected and live happily with God again.

Seven years ago I wrote a post on Father’s Day, you can read it in its fullness here:

I want to quote myself from that article. Speaking of watching my children,

“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?”

I know that there are so many times when we struggle, that we can pray and ask God for help and he will help us. He will answer our prayers. The way he answers isn’t always the way we expect or hope. He may not remove the trials and challenges that we are facing, but will give us the strength and ability to work our way through them. When we pray for assistance, he will help us in the way which will best help and benefit us to grow and to learn. Our Heavenly Father truly does love and care for us.

So when you call and talk to your Dad this evening on the phone, don’t forget to call upon your Heavenly Father too.

What do Mormons Believe about God?

We believe that there is a God. God is our loving Heavenly Father who knows us personally. We are all his children. He cares about us and knows the struggles that we go through. God is perfect, all righteous and all knowing. He is full of love, mercy, charity, truth, power and knowledge. All good things come from God and everything he does is to help us, His children, to become like him. He says, “Behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

It is important to know who God is and to have a personal relationship with Him. We can build this relationship with God by doing the following.

Believe that He exists and that He loves us (Mosiah 4:9)
We need to study the scriptures (2 Timothy 3:14-17)
Pray to Him (James 1:5)
Obey his Commandments (John 14:21-23)

As we do these things, we will come to know God and become closer to Him.

Question Box: I’m Angry with God

Question: “I’m angry with God. I’ve always been a good person, helped others, compassionate, loving and caring. I’ve endured much pain in my life and heartache. I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m asking when will all of the turmoil and loss stop?? I’ve truly had enough. I’m beaten down and broken. I’m tired of always being the “Do Gooder” When is God going to lighten the load? Help with my burdens or please just give me a break! I truly can’t continue on like this.”

Not knowing the specific circumstances of your current slump I can only give a general overview of the goodness of God and possible suggestions on how to find peace in your situation. After reading your plea and thinking about it during church, we sang the song , “How Gentle God’s Command” (pg 125 in the LDS hymn book), please allow me to quote the first and third verses of the song: “How gentle God’s commands! How kind his precepts are! Come cast your burden on the Lord and trust his constant care…..Why should this anxious load Press down your weary mind? Haste to your Heavenly Father’s throne and sweet refreshment find”

In the Old Testament Job was put through some testing when God gave permission to Satan to test Job’s resolve. After losing his fortune, his family, and his health, he was further plagued by his supposed friends who came over to question him about what he had done wrong to warrant such trials. After about 40 chapters of arguing, with his friends and even his wife urging him to “curse God and die”, the Lord himself interjects into the dialogue with what some might regard as a rather terse explanation. In Job 40:7-8 “Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee and declare thou unto me” “Wilt thou disannul my judgment? Wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? He then goes on to explain how we mortals can’t understand the majesty and design of God.

It seems to me that the path to greater peace in your life might be in turning MORE to God and trusting deeper in Him, rather than in being mad at him for the trials that are surrounding you. A suggestion is to go to the Lord in prayer and thank him for your trials. This might take a bit of a change in your thinking but from personal experience when I have tried this I have been given insight into what the bigger plan might be. His inspiration has also helped me recognize the source of the problem and given me insight as to how to deal with it. It also calms my troubled heart and allows me to caste my burdens on the Lord-and continue on with the job of doing good and helping others.

Keep up the good fight but rather than cursing God, hasten to his throne and be blest by his eternal goodness.

Question Box: What is the nature of God and the Trinity?

Q: What is the nature of God and the Trinity?

We believe that the Trinity (or Godhead, as we more commonly refer to them) is composed of three separate and distinct perfect Beings—God, the Father; his Son, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost (Acts 7:55-56; Article of Faith 1). We believe our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ have a body that is made of flesh and bones just like ours (D&C 130:22); however, they have bodies and are no longer subject to death, sickness, or pain. The Holy Ghost does not have a body of flesh and bones, rather he has a spirit body (D&C 130:22), but he looks like a normal person (1 Nephi 11:11). All three are perfect and can be spoken of as God collectively and separate gods individually. Their entire focus is to help each of us return to the Father, and become like Him (Moses 1:39).

Our Heavenly Father is the father of the spirits of all those who have, or ever will be born into this world (Abraham 3:22-23, Moses 6:51). He is Jesus Christ’s literal father. He oversaw and directed the creation of the world upon which we now live (Moses 1:32). To him, we pray and He answers our prayers in his own time and in his own way. He loves us and has provided a plan whereby, we, his spirit children, can come to earth, receive a body, experience adversity, and have the opportunity to return to Him (Abraham 3:23-27). He knew beforehand that we would make mistakes. These mistakes would make us imperfect and as he is perfect, we could not return to live with him again. So, he provided a way that our mistakes could be erased. To accomplish this he provided his son, Jesus Christ, to set right, everything that would prevent us from being perfect, our sins included (Moses 6:53-62).

Jesus Christ, is the literal Son of God and his mother was mortal (Luke 1:28-38, Alma 7:10). As such, Christ, was enabled to experience mortality as we do. He suffered sickness, pain, hunger, and temptation. Nevertheless, he lived a perfect life. This allowed him to suffer and ultimately die for our imperfections (Alma 7:11-13). In this way, he has the ability to set us at one with the Father again and allow us to return to live with the Father. As a free gift, through his atonement and subsequent resurrection, he provides every person born into this world a resurrected and perfect body. But, to return to the Father’s presence, Christ requires us to believe that He can in fact save us, repent of our sins, be baptized in his prescribed way, be given the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then endure in faith until the end of our mortal lives. If we do this with his constant help, we will be granted a place in the Father’s kingdom (3 Nephi 27:14-22).

To help us find Jesus Christ, accept his teachings, and then continue in his prescribed way, God provided the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is the third member of the Godhead. He has many functions, but he helps God’s children to return to Him by helping them find Jesus Christ, teaching them truth line upon line if they desire to learn more, and ultimately purifying and refining them in their journey of being a disciple of Jesus Christ (1 Nephi 10:17-19).

I am grateful for these immortal perfect beings. I know that I am the Father’s son and that he has provided a way for me to become like Him through his Son and that the Holy Ghost will help me in this endeavor.

Question Box: Is there only one God?

Question: “Is there only one God, or are there other Gods out there?” Thanks for the question. Paul said,

“For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6)

We believe that there may be other Gods like God the Father existing somewhere in the universe, but if so, they don’t interact with us or our world. The only God we have is Heavenly Father. His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, is our Savior and Redeemer. The Holy Ghost testifies of them and their work.

We also believe that the first of the ten commandments, “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3), means that God should be first in our lives. We can make ourselves other artificial gods, when we let other things become more important to us than following our Savior’s example and keeping His commandments.