Part 2: Our Worth...

It is often asked what is the worth of a soul is to God. We don’t obey His will all the time. We sin. We are messy and carnal. So, why does God care so much? Why would God love us so much that he would send His son to save us?

First, let me preface my answer to these questions with a few things in mind. I am writing this blog for people who are not Mormon. I am trying to write to people who are Christians who have an open understanding of the nature of God and His relationship with us. We Mormon’s already have a clear understanding of our worth to our Father in Heaven. We are God’s children, we are God’s greatest creation and we have the potential to become like God. God’s job is to exalt us.

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

For my non-Mormon friends, let me talk about the worth of our souls to God in three ways.

First, we are eternal just as God is eternal. The earth will someday be just a memory to us. Our solar system, galaxy and even our universe will someday be just a memory to each of us. One soul is more important to Our Father in Heaven than all the gold and diamonds in the whole earth. One soul is worth more than the entire world to God. We are eternal, everything else isn’t. Christ gave his life to bring souls back to God so we could dwell eternally with Him. Hopefully we take advantage of Christ sacrifice. Christ wants every soul to dwell with Him and his Father eternally.

Let me try to quote C.S. Lewis – ”you have never met a mere mortal”.

Second, we are created in His image. Not only are we eternal just like God is eternal we also can be an image of Him in everyway. If we let Him, we can be polished to reflect God’s light perfectly. A diamond can only shine so much. We can shine with a light beyond the sun if we allow Christ to change us into beings like Him.

Third, we are agents unto ourselves. When Adam and Eve fell we became like God in another way:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil...

This may sound strange God knows the difference between good and evil and He could choose evil. God always chooses the good. When Jesus was on the earth he was tempted but he never yielded. God has a choice and he always chooses good.

We are just like God in this way also. We are faced with good and evil choices everyday God wants us to choose the good but often we choose evil. We call this Sin. God will never take away our right to choose between good and evil. God made us agents unto ourselves. We are free to act. We may not like the consequences of our actions but we always have the right to act.

This agency or knowledge of good and evil sets us humans apart from all of God’s other creatures. A bird, as fish or a dog doesn’t know any thing about being good or being evil. Therefore, all other creatures created by God are less than humans because they have no agency. You can have a well trained dog or a tame cat but the animal itself is neither good nor evil.

We are just like God these three ways: we are eternal, we are in His image and we have agency. Because we are like God and God is like us we are of great worth to God. God loves us because we have the potential to have all of God’s attributes. This is our worth to God. This should be our worth to each other.

Another topic for a future blog: What the deal with agency? Why are we free to choose? Why does God let us choose evil?