WE BELIEVE: First Article of Faith

I am now doing a series on the 13 Articles of Faith of our Church. These 13 Articles of Faith will tell you just what we believe in in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These 13 Articles of Faith will be known as the "WE BELIEVE" Series. More will follow until all 13 have been made published here and spoken about.


The first article anchors our belief in God, our Eternal Father, in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. How grateful we are for a knowledge of Supreme Beings that rule and govern this world. Our belief does not come from the speculations of men about the existence and nature of God, but from firsthand experience from the Prophet Joseph Smith in the Sacred Grove. His experience clarified for mankind the existence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Thus to the world came the vision that three personages comprise this great presiding council of the universe and have revealed themselves to mankind as three separate beings, physically distinct from each other as demonstrated by the accepted records of their divine dealings with mankind. Elder L. Tom Perry

My Thoughts:
GOD: I have been taught and many of you may have been as well to pray to God. Everytime that I kneel down to pray, I could not imagine trying to pray to a being that cannot be comprehended, that does not have a body, parts, or passions. Who and what would I be praying to? An object? Because of my understanding of this beautiful Article of Faith and my own testimony that there are 3 separate Beings that govern the universes and galaxies as innumerable as they may be, that when I pray to God, my Father, I know that He is there and that he listens and answers my prayers.

JESUS CHRIST: Christ has asked us to follow Him and try to be as much like Him as possible. He knew that we would make mistakes, He also knew that some of us would simply do wrong and bad things by choice. Through His atonement the wonderful blessing that has come to mankind has been the fact that mercy was granted to us by giving up the opportunity to repent of those things that we have done that have been wrong and a universal resurrection for all mankind, which is freely given.

I have come to know that through the process of repenting that my guilt was swept away. Something that can only come through our Savior's atonement. Not having to live with guilt is such a wonderful thing and one can experience that through proper repentance and taking advantage of the Savior's mercy at this time.

HOLY GHOST: The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Through Him we can feel comforted, receive guidance in daily living, be taught by Him to our hearts as we have an open heart and learn and know truth. When one is baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, following baptism, one receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We are admonished to listen to this "still small voice" which can only be heard as we live righteously. When we do wrong, He withdraws his spirit from us and we are left along. Having him help to guide our lives is probably one of the best friends one can have!

We are admonished to take the spirit to be our guide for our lives. This I have tried to do. I am the happiest when I have listened to the Spirit.