“Divine Love in the Father’s Plan,” For the Strength of Youth, May 2022.
Sunday Afternoon Session
Divine Love in the Father’s Plan
Excerpts
In the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a unique understanding of our Heavenly Father’s plan. This gives us a different way of viewing the purpose of mortal life, the divine judgment that follows it, and the ultimate glorious destiny of all of God’s children. …
… The revealed doctrine of the restored Church of Jesus Christ teaches that all the children of God—with exceptions too limited to consider here—will finally wind up in a kingdom of glory. …
… The highest of these is exaltation in the celestial kingdom, wherein we may become like our Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. …
… The mission of the restored Church is to help all the children of God qualify for what God desires as their ultimate destiny. …
Fundamental to us is God’s revelation that exaltation can be attained only through faithfulness to the covenants of an eternal marriage between a man and a woman. That divine doctrine is why we teach that “gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose” [“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org]. …
… We affirm that the family proclamation, founded on irrevocable doctrine, defines the kind of family relationships where the most important part of our eternal development can occur. …
… We must seek to share these truths of eternity with others. But with the love we owe to all of our neighbors, we always accept their decisions. As a Book of Mormon prophet taught, we must press forward, having “a love of God and of all men” [2 Nephi 31:20].