Knowing Who God Is

I was reading in Acts 17 last night, and one thing really stuck out to me: in order to really worship God, you have to know who He is.

During the Great Apostasy, many vital truths were lost to the world. Among these lost truths was the truth of who God is. As authority and revelation ceased, people began to build up their own ideas of what God was. They imagined Him as an un-embodied spirit, as a man with all of the worst of human passions, as an unknowable and unapproachable three in one thing. All of these ideas of the Lord made it difficult, if not impossible to truly worship the Lord. Some people began to worship saints and have them intercede for them before the Lord. Other people discounted religion altogether and opted instead for secularism and atheism.

When Joseph Smith entered a grove of trees to ask what church to join, God answered his question and revealed to the world once again His true nature. From the First Vision we learn that God has a physical, perfected body. We learn that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct individuals. We learn that God does exist, and that He is vitally interested in each one of us.

By understanding the nature of God, we are able to trust him and love him. Before coming to this earth we lived with our Heavenly Father, and we knew and loved him. When we came to this earth and veil was placed over our minds, but that relationship still exists. President Ezra Taft Benson spoke in a devotional at BYU in 1974 about this very thing. "Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us."