Our Work

Two weeks ago, I dedicated my post to the answer that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offers for the question, “Why did God create the world in the first place.” This week, I’d like to discuss what we need to do in order to accomplish that purpose.

Just as God’s purpose is found in the scriptures (“For behold, this is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” Moses 1:39), our purpose is also found in the scriptures unique to the Latter-day Saints: “Behold, this is your work, to keep my commandments, yea, with all your might, mind and strength” (D&C 11:20). In order to accomplish the purposes that God sent us here for, we must do what He tells us to do.

Many people ask why God would go to all the trouble to create us just to tell us a bunch of things that we can’t do. I would ask the same question of the mother who scolds her small child for reaching up toward a boiling pot of water. That mother went through nine months of pregnancy, a long and painful labor, late nights feeding and soothing the baby, countless diaper changes and a list of other inconveniences, and then has the gall to go around saying to that child, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” Did this woman go through all of that just so she could have someone to boss around?

To the child it might seem that way, especially as he grows older. Those of us with a greater understanding, though, know that the mother is motivated by love. Her scoldings may be hard for the child to take, but it is in order to spare the child from painful burns that would result from pulling boiling water all over himself. It would be an unloving parent indeed who allowed a child to seriously harm himself for fear of damaging his ego with a scolding.

God is much the same way. Compared to His perfect understanding, even the wisest of men is a child. We don’t know what is good for us. We don’t know that much of what we naturally want--like the child’s curiosity for the boiling pot of water--is in reality very harmful for us. God does. So, he gives us commandments like, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” because He knows that infidelity will lead to our unhappiness. Even commandments that could be viewed as selfish when we look at them from an imperfect perspective, like, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me,” are actually for our own good when we realize that no other God but the true God can offer us salvation.

Jesus taught, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). So, if we want to accomplish the purpose God sent us here to accomplish--and if we believe that God loves us, then we should also believe that God’s purposes are the only way to achieve the greatest possible happiness--then we better follow the way that Jesus laid out for us. That means being obedient to God’s commands.

Christ laid out this path when He visited and taught the people on the American continent, as recorded in the Book of Mormon. “Now this is the commandment:” he said. “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” (Third Nephi 27:20). If we do those basic things, we will accomplish our purpose here, we will receive eternal life in the hereafter, which is life like God’s, life with God, and life with our families.