Purpose of Life

Most of my opinions go back to what I believe is the purpose of life.  Which of course requires some background.....

The Nature of God


I believe that God, or Heavenly Father, is an exalted man.  Meaning, he is perfect.  He has a perfect understanding of all things, including universal laws.  He has a perfected body that is tangible.  He is the literal Father of my spirit.  We are all his children.  When I say that he is literally our Father, I also believe that we have a Heavenly Mother.  I believe that they work together in creation.  I believe that they love us and desire our joy.

Pre-Mortal Life


I believe that we lived with God before we were born on this earth.  We were spirits, we looked much like we do now, however, we did not have physical bodies.  We desired to be like our Heavenly Parents, however, we lacked a perfect body and the perfect understanding and experience that they had.  We could not attain that while in this pre-mortal realm.  Heavenly Father presented a plan by which we could come to Earth to gain a body and experience through our choices.  However, our bodies would not be perfect, nor would we be perfect in our experiences or the choices we made.  A Savior was chosen to Atone for us.  He would be not only the Son of God in spirit but in body as well.  He would then lay down his life as a sacrifice for us.  This would allow us to be resurrected into a perfected body and to be forgiven for the mistakes that we made as long as we were repentant of those mistakes.

Lucifer, or Satan, opposed this plan.  He wanted to take away the ability to choose so that no one could make a mistake and therefore no one would be lost.  However, this plan could not work, because then we would not have gained experience and learned how to make correct choices, we would have been mindless drones.  Satan was cast out, and a third part of the spirits followed him.  I believe that they are on this earth in a spirit form and tempt us to make decisions that remove us from God.

Purpose of Life


With these fundamentals in mind, I believe that, as the Prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon states, "This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God."  But not only meet God, but to become exalted like God.  To receive a perfected body (which I believe is a free gift to all because of Christ's Atonement), and to learn how to use our body to make divine choices that will help us to become like God.   After we die and have been resurrected to our perfected forms, we will stand before God to be judged of our actions.  If we have repented and accepted the Savior we will be forgiven for our mistakes and will be allowed back into the presence of God where we will continue to progress to the point where the Doctrine and Covenants states, "Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."


So, in short, I believe that the purpose of life is to become like God who has a perfect body, is perfect in understanding and experience, makes perfect choices, and is in fact married so as to create eternal creations. 




Disclaimer:  I can not present all of my ideas as the official doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   These represent my understanding based on the doctrine of the Church and do not feel that any of them oppose any official doctrines.


If you would like to read the official information from the Church on these subjects please see the following references:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/132?lang=eng
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng
http://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-4-freedom-to-choose?lang=eng
http://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-47-exaltation?lang=eng