The Nature of God and Man

The disposition of idol and Man Utah V all in alley University uprise The constitution and relationship of matinee idol to macrocosm has endlessly been hu adult male characters much important question. As man is, theology once was as theology is, man whitethorn gravel. Lorenzo Snow. I restrain asked my egotism this statement umteen times. What is paragons reputation? What is mans nature? And human nature is paragons nature therefore, a study of immortals nature is concurrently a study of human nature. I will explain this statement and my beliefs or so human nature and how it operates. The Nature of God and Man I wasnt nice to other muckle.I was al steerings fighting, arguing, name calling with the neighbors, as well as my memorizeers. I steal from department stores, I lied to my p bents and coaches and teachers. I cheated on my homework and tests and my relationships. I hurt others in physical altercations. I would bully my peers vocally. I manipulated plural ity into to doing what I wanted. I employ drugs and alcohol illegally, I would drive drunk, and I disrespected my elders. I nominate brought embarrassment and shame to my family. I startnt always understood mans existence and purpose here in this biography.I collapse come to understand that my purpose, which is part of my God- habituated human nature, is to become like God. I have realized that truly slowly as the subject of many mis enquires and challenges. Some, maybe intimately, of the experiences from my which I have intentional nearly my naturewhich is all overly human naturehave been negative, yet, a few have been positive. A negative experience from which I short-changeed a peachy carry on was taking my first drink of beer at a party at my brothers apartment when I was sixteen. That drink soon led to my becoming an alcoholic.One of the true choices I made, and there have solitary(prenominal) been a few, was to leave collegeincluding my athletic dreams. I r eturned home after my sophomore year at college and intercommunicate with my mother near some of my bad choices. I now go to court appointed counseling for the bad choices Ive made. It feels like the delay 6 years of my look have been spent cleaning up the wreckage of my past. I have come acrossed that making decisions that violate unceasing article of faiths and laws that argon irrevocably decreed in heaven bring about in the flesh(predicate) botheration, anguish, and sorrow.That was true for me, and Im sure its true for every(prenominal) iodin. I have hornswoggleed from the bad experiences reported above that they lead to sorrow and misery. People told me that, exclusively I had to learn it my egotism. I have since begun to take the necessary steps to plant amends and repent of these behaviors. I have entered rehabilitation centers and have met with professionals to clean up my past and to debar those very(prenominal) behaviors. In other words, I have begun to list en to the God given voice inside of me that has always called me to become like God.I now have a better knowledge of my divine purpose and a greater sense of myself shame understanding the nature of God and the nature of man. And what is this fresh understanding? Gods nature is human nature. And human nature is Gods nature therefore, a study of Gods nature is simultaneously a study of human nature. Much of my new understanding is ground on two of Christian doctrines more popular statements which I have pondered at great length. The first is from the writings of chair Lorenzo Snow, As man is, divinity once was as god is, man may become. The arcsecond is that man is created in the image of god (see Doctrine and Covenants 2018). So, I am going to spend some time discussing Gods nature because (as I will show later) it is mans nature too. God was once as I am today, with both good and bad qualities and characteristics. He had flaws and character defects, but God was a man who tru std good whole kit and caboodle and self improvement. I do non profess to know all about God in fact I know very little. I dont know what God was like before He became God. God was somewhat like me and He figured out over time what mattered most to his progression and happiness.God was intelligent, patient, and meek. Although at times, he as well may have been frightened, angry, and alone. God has experienced some of the homogeneous, if not all of the resembling emotions and feelings humans experience. God sinnedpossibly scour as worldly concern have sinned. God became God by overcoming all his imperfections and discovering true happiness, and God desires to keep us from making some of the same mistakes. And he can do that because our nature and his nature are the same. God gave us commandments to help us to become like him. One of the most important things God acquire was the existence of thoroughgoing(a) principles.I guess that heart and soul that those eternal principle s existed before God did. It was through discovering and conforming to those eternal principles that God became who God is now. He learned that these principles have consequences, and when you abide by them you bid joy, happiness, and progress. When you violate them your reward is shame, guilt, and sorrow, and you quit making progressor become worse. One of the traits of Gods nature is the ability to change. Having learned about eternal principles, God continually strove to upgrade himself by conforming to them and increasingly realizing his potential.He continually progressed toward ultimate perfection. That is called eternal progression. The extremity to move toward perfection is an important part of Gods nature and of human nature. God wanted to progress and was willing to pay the terms for progress, God never gave up. He never quit growing, progressing, challenging himself, reaching his limitations, accepting help from others, receiving input and advice. God was willing to do any(prenominal) it took to overcome whatever stood in his way. God understood that it isnt where he was, but where He wanted to be that counted.Gods ability to change and His desire to progress are what eventually made him into God. God also had a physical structure, and that body was both a blessing and the source of many problems for him. It was a blessing because it seems that a spirit can only experience a limited amount, not enough to become perfect. Apparently spirits went as far as they could go as spirits, and without a body, spirits could make no more progress. That happened to God, and so somehow he was given a body. I said above that God kept learning, and one of the things he learned was that he had to control his body.His body was designed with a very basic nature to pursue fun and avoid pain. God learned that his body could not always pursue pleasure. God learned through his own experience that many physical experiences, including sexual gratification moldiness be controlled. He learned that sex is for a man and woman. It brings pleasure into the relationship, brings the couple closer to drop deadher, and allows room for intimacy and growth and procreation. When this eternal principle is violated, the spirit and the body go out of harmony. Any gratification which harms or interferes with others must be deferred.Any pleasure of the body which compromises eternal principals of ethics and piety must be deferred. These are examples of eternal principles which God learned about his body. God also learned that he could not always avoid pain. How did he learn that? He learned it from the temptations, struggles, disappointments, and failures discussed earlier. God surely tangle pain he plausibly still feels it. We know that he weeps over lost souls. But even so he doesnt just yet them anyway in their lost state. God has learned that he cant, so He has also learned to bear the pain.God learned that the pain of perseverance and hard work is a to ol to strengthen us and teach us valuable lessons. God learned about the pain of wrong that comes from a broken heart or the dying of a admire one, the pain of separation from the Holy Spirit, the pain of disappointment that may rootage from family life and close relationships, the pain of failure from school or from a goal not accomplished. God learned that while some pain can be avoided, very often pain must be endured. God learned that it is the price he must pay for progress. another(prenominal) thing which God learned or notice was the love of others.He discovered that joy comes from thinking about and serving others. At first selfishness probably seemed best to meet his needs, but God eventually discovered that self seeking didnt really meet his needs. What he discovered was that when a person cares for another person, they care for the person in return, and even if they dont care for the person in return, theres a feeling of joy that comes from helping them, and that see ms to be another one of those eternal principles. When God discovered how to achieve joy, he immediately experienced love. He wanted to share his knowledge with others.This is like Lehi who upon tasting the fruit of the guide of life (joy), immediately thought to share it with others. Gods love for others became his work and his rain cloud which is to bring to pass the eternal life of mankind. (see Moses 139). If, as President Snow observed, As man is, god once was as god is, man may become, the description of Gods nature is a description of human nature. The same eternal principles that God discovered withstand as well to me and you. The principles exist and if we conform to them we get happiness, and if we dont, we get misery.At first, it didnt feel graphic, not part of human nature, to conform to eternal principles. God calls our desire to resist change the natural man and the natural man has to learn to conform to those principles. Humans can either learn eternal principles from God by following his commandments, or they will learn those principles the way God did, which was the hard way. I had to learn a great many of them the hard way. I was told on many occasions that the way of life my life was headed would lead me to heartache. I have since discovered, the hard way, that those people were right.God shows us those eternal principles in the form of commandments. What God discovered about life he reduced to rules called commandments so simple people can run low them. If we live the commandments, we learn and live eternal principles, if we ignore the commandments we are on our own. When Abraham Maslow developed his concept of self-actualization, he chanced upon one of those eternal principles mentioned above. A result of the years which God spent struggling, learning, failing, repenting, etc, was that he learned that he could only be happy when he was realizing his potential to be perfect.It is not an misfortune that when Maslow set out to study hu man nature by perusing how healthy humans act, he discovered self-actualization. Every human desires to achieve his potential, to become all he can be. Concluding that the nature of every human being, is to strive and progress to become like God. Everything Maslow said about self actualization is true. Maslow called it self-actualization I call it eternal progression. God purposefully placed each human being here on this primer coat to receive a body. God discovered that a physical body is necessary in order to have joy. But humans also need to learn to control their physical bodies.God learned that the body cannot always have pleasure and that it must endure some pain. Healthy people learn the same thing. Bodies are a great blessing if they are controlled. Humans cant have pleasures all the time they must be controlled. Controlling pleasures is not the same as denying pleasures we have to learn from God what an appropriate expression of physical pleasure is and what it isnt. God learned that you cant avoid all pain. We feel growing stock through emotions that are not always understood by us. in that respect are the pains of labor from working on projects and tasks that might not be very successful.We must endure the pain of sickness and death that may arrive without notice. These are all the types of discomforts which God understands from his own in-person experience. Humans are social beings who instinctively, which means by their nature as humans, need to be with other people and to feel love in order to feel fulfilled and complete. The importance of social needs and familiarity are greatly misunderstood. Humans needs for friendship creates humans own self image how a human is accepted by peers determines to a large degree their own view of their personal worth.I call in a good example of friendship and how it can influence others for good. I was struggling with some directional decisions. A friend of my brother befriended me at the local gym and af ter many conversations, he convinced me to gaming football with him and others. Through his friendship and mentoring I grew to better understand the need for good positive friends. Humans needs are such that social fundamental interaction and love drive us to each other. Humans need love and interaction to give them a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, and a sense of homeostasis.Just like God, most humans learn that loving others works better than selfishness. Humans are created in such a way that human beings need nourishment, constant stimulation through verbal and non verbal communication from other people. During infants beginning growth they need constant seize with their parents and others, giving them the opportunity to grow and begin learning. Throughout childhood and into adolescences and on to adulthood, humans need and want other humans in their life to give them a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.Physical embraces are common in all of lifes relationships for example, in athletics high-fives and pats on the backside to pluck one another for a job well done. Sporting teams creep up before and during, as well as after games, in order to come together and experiences their physical and emotional state of being. It is public in many cultures to embrace one another with hugs and kisses upon greeting one another. Man is as God once was, and God is as man may become. In addition, man was and is created in the image and likeness of God.Ive used these two well known Christian doctrines to argue that investigating Gods nature is the best way to understand human nature. I dont pretend to say that my ideas are Christian doctrine, but they are what I have come to believe as a result of my own personal struggles and their relationship to those two doctrines. When the day comes that I will be seated across from others, counseling them, I hold to treat them as people who are struggling, just as god may have once struggled. And it will be my job as a counselor to help them see their potential to become gods or goddesses. ? ? ?