This Life and our Purpose Here

In answering the question of what our purpose is here, there are often many answers given. The most common that we hear are: to be tested and tried; to grow; to become like God; to gain a body; and to have joy. Now, while all of these are true, they are only part of the deeper answer to why we are really here.

For eons of time we grew in light and truth as intelligences. As we were obedient to divine law we gained additional intelligence and light. During the spiritual creation process of this earth, when it came time to populate the earth with gods-in-training God probed the space of the deep to gather together the intelligences that had become noble and great through their obedience (Moses 2 and Abr 2). To these choice intelligences he gave the opportunity to become his sons and daughters with the ability and power to govern all the other creations in his kingdom. Once we were born spiritually we were given opportunities to grow and learn to master our spirits, so that they would become one with our intelligence. As we exercised our obedience to divine law we grew in additional light and truth. While we grew in God's presence there were some who sought for the glory and honor of God quicker than was being given to them.

(Now it is important to note here that to continue to reside in God's presence as we were doing, we had to remain pure and innocent. Any deviation from divine law immediately required we received justice for our actions and removal from the presence of God).

Lucifer openly rebelled against God by seeking God to give him his honour, and convinced a third part of the hosts of heaven that he was in the right and to follow him. This open rebellion required God to administer justice and cast Satan and those who followed him out of the celestial realm.

With the spirits that remained, God offered them the opportunity to receive the second half of the test of becoming a god. This part of the test involved receiving a temporal body where our spirits could learn mastery of temporal matter through the gift of a physical body. To become a god and have dominion over the intelligences and power to control spiritual matter and temporal matter requires that we know how to how to act in a sphere where our both our bodies are perfectly united with our intelligence and are obedient to divine law. Now to become such masters of ourselves, we had to be given the opportunity to make mistakes and learn and grow and repent without receiving immediate justice for our wrongdoings.

This brings us to the real purpose of this earth-life. We are here to learn how to be obedient in a sphere where justice is suspended--where we are free to act according to our wishes, desires, wants, and passions and choose for ourselves the path we want to take (2 Ne 2:27). With this freedom it is entirely our choice if we choose to obey divine law or not. Thus obedience to divine law is not required for us to remain in this sphere (as it was in the celestial realms). Instead, obedience to divine law is only required if we wish to complete our training for godhood. Obedience must become our quest if we are to become a god. Only in this way is it possible for us to be given the power to govern the intelligences. If obedience is not our quest, then as a god it would be possible to fall and loose the honor and respect of the intelligences. Since the life of a god includes walking a razor thin line everyday, obedience to divine law must become woven into the very fiber of our beings, both temporal and spiritual. Thus the real purpose of mortality is laid out. We must learn to be obedient because we want to, and not simply because we are required to. God has to be sure that we want to obey and have a quest for obedience and that disobedience is removed from our character before endowing us with his creative power. This is the real purpose of mortality. This is what it means for it to be a testing and proving grounds.

Now in order for obedience to occur, a unity between flesh and spirit must occur. And where there is unity, there joy is also. This is one of the great secrets to this life: true happiness and joy are gifts of obedience. God wants us to have joy: "Men are that they might have joy" (2 Ne 2:25). Therefore, as the will of our flesh aligns with the will of our spirits we receive joy. We receive more joy the more obedient we are. Joy is the mark of completion, and wholeness. It is not just a temporal blessing, but is a spiritual blessing. Thus, in order for a man to receive a fullness of joy in this life and in the life to come he must be connected by an inseparable bond to a woman. For neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord (1 Cor 11:11). That is what this means. Woman completes man and makes him whole. Neither is complete nor whole without the other. Thus, a fullness of joy is only available to a couple bound together in the laws of matrimony in this life, and sealed together by the holy spirit of promise for the next life. (This is why children born into the bonds of matrimony causes true joy (Because the flesh and spirit are acting in unity, and in obedience to God's law), while children born without only result in pleasure).

True joy is two-sided. It involves the unity between spirit and flesh. To only have one of these is not truly joy, but instead is pleasure. If we act in such way as to only please our temporal frames, we are only experiencing a temporal pleasure. And in the words of James E. Talmage: “Mere pleasure is at best but fleeting; happiness is abiding, for in the recollection thereof is joy renewed. Supreme happiness is not an earthly attainment; the promised “fullness of joy” lies beyond death and the resurrection.” ... “Happiness includes all that is really desirable and of true worth in pleasure, and much besides. Happiness is genuine gold, pleasure but guilded brass, which corrodes in the hand, and is soon converted into poisonous verdigris. Happiness is as the genuine diamond, which, rough or polished, shines with its own inimitable luster; pleasure is as the paste imitation that glows only when artificially embellished. Happiness is as the ruby, red as the heart’s blood, hard and enduring; pleasure, as stained glass, soft, brittle, and of but transitory beauty.

“Happiness is true food, wholesome, nutritious and sweet; it builds up the body and generates energy for action, physical, mental and spiritual; pleasure is but a deceiving stimulant which, like spiritous drink, makes one think he is strong when in reality enfeebled; makes him fancy he is well when in fact stricken with deadly malady.

“Happiness leaves no bad after-taste, it is followed by no depressing reaction; it calls for no repentance, brings no regret, entails no remorse; pleasure too often makes necessary repentance, contrition, and suffering; and, if indulged to the extreme, it brings degradation and destruction.

“True happiness is lived over and over again in memory, always with a renewal of the original good; a moment of unholy pleasure may leave a barbed sting, which, like a thorn in the flesh, is an ever-present source of anguish.

“Happiness is not akin with levity, nor is it one with light-minded mirth. It springs from the deeper fountains of the soul, and is not infrequently accompanied by tears. Have you never been so happy that you have had to weep? I have.”—James E. Talmage, Improvement Era, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 172, 173 (As also found in Jesus the Christ).