February: Our Life on Earth

"Our life on earth is an opportunity and a blessing" (Preach My Gospel, pp. 50).It is a time where we can learn and grow and prepare ourselves to return to live with our Heavenly Father again. We have our agency, the gift that our Heavenly Father has given us to be able to choose right from wrong. This gift helps us to learn and progress. Using our agency to make good choices helps us draw us closer to our Heavenly Father and helps us become more like him. When we use our agency to make bad choices, we distance ourselves from Heavenly Father and from our divine potential to become like him.

The purpose of our life on earth is to experience joy and happiness. We learn from the Book of Mormon that "men are, that they might have joy"(2 Nephi 2:25). We experience joy and happiness when we follow the plan that our Heavenly Father has for us.

Because of the Fall of Adam and Eve, there are two obstacles in our lives that prevent us from returning to live with Heavenly father and becoming like him:

Mortality (Physical Death)
" In mortality we live in a condition where we are subject to both physical and spiritual death. God has a perfect, glorified, immortal body of flesh and bones. To become like God and return to His presence, we too must have a perfect, immortal body of flesh and bones. However, because of the Fall of Adam and Eve, every person on earth has an imperfect, mortal body and will eventually die. If not for the Savior Jesus Christ, death would end all hope for a future existence with Heavenly Father..." (Preach My Gospel, pp. 50)

Sin and Transgression (Spiritual Death):
"... While we are in mortality, we have experiences that bring us happiness. We also have experiences that bring us pain and sorrow, some of which is caused by the sinful acts of others. These experiences provide us opportunities to learn and to grow, to distinguish good from evil, and to make choices. God influences us to do good; Satan tempts us to commit sin. As with physical death, we cannot overcome the effects of sin by ourselves. We are helpless without the Atonement of Jesus Christ." (Preach My Gospel, pp.50)

The reader will notice that in both cases, these two obstacles can only be overcome through the atonement of Jesus Christ. He was the only perfect person who has lived and ever will live on the earth, and therefore the only person able to lay down his life to atone for our mistakes and our sins. He was the first person to be resurrected after being laid in the tomb for three days. Because Jesus Christ was resurrected, so shall we overcome physical death by being resurrected one day. Because Jesus Christ took it upon himself to atone for our sins, we have the opportunity and possibility to repent and overcome spiritual death.

A further explanation about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how it blesses our lives will be given in next month's posts...