God the Father
Joseph Smith was fourteen when he learned an important truth about God that had been long forgotten. He wanted to know which church to join, and, after reading in James 1:5 in the King James Version of the Bible that anyone who lacked wisdom could ask God and could would answer his questions, he put it to the test. Joseph went into the woods to learn which church to join. God and Jesus Christ appeared to him in person to answer his question. Although this isn’t how God normally answers prayers, He does do so when the cause is important, and this was very important. Someday, Joseph would be called on to restore the complete truth to the earth.
From this experience, Joseph learned that God and Jesus were not the same person. Jesus was, as the Bible said, God’s only begotten Son. They were unified perfectly in purpose, but were separate beings. Jesus often taught this in the Bible, saying that He came not to do His own will, but to do His Father’s will, and explaining that His Father was greater than He was. However, in the Nicene Council, long after the Savior’s death, it was decided to discard this knowledge and instead teach that God and Jesus are the same person.
Joseph also learned that God has a body like our own, but perfected and glorified. This makes Him a much more approachable God than we thought He was before we knew this. He really understands how things are for us because He is a perfected version of us.
What kind of God do the Mormons worship? Their God is loving and personal, always aware of their needs, always answering their prayers, always communicating to them what they need to know. He is an active part of their life and very literally their Father in Heaven, having created their spirits before their births. They love, honor, and respect Him accordingly.
Acts 17: 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
This scripture tells us God is always close by and very aware of everything we do and need.
Mormons know that they are God’s own child. This gives them a strong sense of self-worth. With such a divine heritage, how can we not be able to do everything God wants us to do? We’re special and important, and He knows each of us as individuals, even though He has a very large family. Mormons tell their little ones that God knows their name. Although He has a plan for His large family, He also has individual plans for each person, based on his very personal knowledge of who we are and what we’re able to do. He sent us here to earth with everything we needed to succeed or the ability to obtain what we need. We are nearly always far more than we understand, but as we build our relationship with God, we can learn who we really are and what God knows about us that we need to know ourselves.