ANOTHER VIEW OF HEAVENLY FATHER'S PLAN

Over the years I have read in scripture and heard the Brethren speak in conferences about Heavenly Father's Plan which would bring to pass the immortality and eternal lives of his children while keeping inviolate the eternal principle of Agency, which constituted the major difference between His plan and the plan of Lucifer which would have supplanted Agency and substituted force and control as the pathway to immortality. A great fallacy in the Destroyer's plan, of course, was that he had zero ability or authority to bring his brothers and sisters into an everlasting state of immortality much less a state of eternal lives. As I have searched the scriptures and listened to and read the words of the living oracles I have heard the Father's Plan referred to as the Plan of Happiness, the Plan of Salvation or Redemption and the Plan of Exaltation, etc. These titles for The Plan have been used in such a manner that most of us have concluded they are synonymous terms and can be used interchangeably as we feel so inclined to use them. I'm not sure what I am about to say is the total answer for these differing titles, but it feels good to me and so for now I have taken it into my personal bank of stored truths as I currently understand them. With this introduction behind us I write my beliefs of what could be seen as "another view of Heavenly Father's plan".

I believe that 'The Plan of Happiness' can best be used to describe that part of Heavenly Father's plan which if followed will help us maximize our Joy during our sojourn in mortality. Stated in it's simplest form the Plan of Happiness tells us that we just have to do two things: First, we must do all that we possibly can to cast Satan and his philosophies out of our lives; Second,we must strive with all our might to live our lives in accordance with the teachings Heavenly Father has sent to us through his Apostles and Prophets, both those who have lived and those who are currently living. As with all things which bear the claim of being the simplest of ideas, they seem to become complicated in the details; but the details must be studied and practiced and reevaluated over and over again, because a first attempt will almost always leave us woefully short of maximizing our Joy in mortality.

I believe 'The Plan of Salvation or Redemption' and the attendant Joy which it produces can only come to us to the degree that we are willing to use our Agency to take upon ourselves the Name of Jesus Christ and all that He is and all that His mission represents. We will maximize the available Joy from this plan when we become true disciples of His, taking upon ourselves not only His discipline, but also becoming diligent in the commission that we are to invite all to come unto Him.

I believe 'The Plan of Exaltation' and the attendant Joy which will result as we strive to understand and inculcate this plan into our lives is found in the quest that Joseph Smith taught about to the School of the Elders and is found in the Lectures on Faith. Simply stated Joseph taught that the eternal fulness of Joy can only be received through the grace of God: First, we come to understand the Attributes, Characteristics and Perfections of Godliness; Second, we come to believe that God truly is a Being with these Attributes, Characteristics and Perfections; Third, we strive to become like Heavenly Father by trying to make the Attributes, Characteristics and Perfections part of our natures. Finally, King Benjamin taught that when we have been proven the Grace of God will wrought a mighty change upon us. I believe that this means that there can come a time when Heavenly Father can change our shifting degrees of Joy into an everlasting state and that degree by degree as we move toward receiving the Attributes, Characteristics and Perfections of Godliness, we must continue striving until the day when Heavenly Father will bestow upon us a Fullness of Joy which will be Everlasting. From John 17:3 the Lord declares through John, that Life Eternal is dependent on knowing God and His Son Jesus Christ and whom he has sent.