GIFTS: The plan of salvation is not so we can live WITH God (again), but LIKE Him!

"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time" (T.S.Eliot, Little Gidding).

This lovely thought from T.S.Eliot has great meaning for Latter-day Saints with their knowledge and understanding of a life before we came here to Earth --- not a reincarnation (The Prophet Joseph taught that is a false idea, see Teachings, pages 104--5). Nor is Eliot the only poet to echo the idea.

William Wordsworth's famous lines are well known among us: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; / The soul that rises with us, our life's star / Hath had elsewhere its setting / And cometh from afar; / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory do we come, / From God who is our home" (On Intimations of Immortality).

It is strange to realize that of all the world's religions only one possesses and teaches this great truth of the premortal existence and career of the soul. And yet, so it is. What a blessing to us the Prophet Joseph was and is! Praise to the man!

We come from God. He is the literal Father of our spirits, the eternal part of us. Our purpose here is to gain a body and the experiences and knowledge that will teach us how to be like Him, and gain with Him a fullness of joy. This is known in scripture and in eternity as the plan of salvation, or the plan of our God, or the plan of redemption, or the plan of happiness. In one place in the Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith he refers to it as "the plan of ordinances" (page 167).

This last idea --- a plan of ordinances --- has great insight for us, as it is the purpose of the Church to perform the ordinances of salvation for all accountable souls (over the age of eight) who have ever lived on the Earth. It is through the ordinances that we put upon us the knowledge and intelligence and glory that eventually will bring us to be like God our Father.

The subject is too vast to do justice to here, but it is worth introducing at least. When I was a boy my dream was to play football (soccer) for England. With the World Cup in South Africa coming up next month, and no phone call of invitation, now in my 63rd year I fear my chances to play for England may be slim. I have often fantasized on what it would be like to play on the same team as Sir Bobby Charlton, to play with the same team as George Best and Denis Law or David Beckham. I confess that playing with those stellar artists I would be embarrassed and too timid to perform. But if a way could be found for me to play like these stars of the past, that would be an entirely different ball game, as they say in America.

If I were to live with God in my present natural, fallen capacity I confess I would be embarrassed and too timid to look Him in the face. But if a way could be found whereby I might become like Him, then that is a different ball game entirely.

Now here is the point --- the very point of doctrine --- the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Prophet Joseph Smith, centered and revolving around the ordinances and covenants of salvation found in the holy place under the keys of the priesthood IS the way to become like Him.

President Joseph F. Smith, sixth President of the Church (1901--18) taught: "We are destined and foreordained to become like God, and unless we do become like Him we will never be permitted to dwell with Him."

How is it done? . . . More later on how we have found the path, the one and only way to becoming like God.

Your thoughts and comments and questions are always welcome.

Steve