The Need for a Redeemer

Fine are print on archival matte paper

This quote helped heal a deep misconception I had about my Heavenly Father, one that was hindering my ability to believe in Him at all. I used to think that because God is omnipotent, everything that happens on earth must somehow be His will. But that’s not true. Wickedness, cruelty, injustice—these are not in harmony with God’s will.

God’s will is fulfilled when we choose to follow Him, when we use our agency to further His work and live like Christ. But He will never force us. He “impels no man toward sin; He compels none to righteousness” (Jesus the Christ, James E Talmage). He has gifted us with the divine birthright of free agency, and with that freedom comes the possibility of both great good and great evil.

A lost soul is someone who has deliberately turned away from Heavenly Father, further subjecting them to the influence of the adversary. “The loss of a soul is a very real and a very great loss to God. He is pained and grieved thereby, for it is His will that not one should perish.”(Jesus the Christ, James E Talmage) If God had His way, the horrors we see—the things His children do to one another—would cease. But that will only happen when we, by choice, use our agency to make it so.

God’s omniscience means He sees all that will happen, but His foreknowledge is not a form of control. The future unfolds as a result of human choice, not as something He has arbitrarily willed. He is not absent or indifferent. He is all-knowing and all-loving. And because He foresaw the darkness we would face, He provided the way to overcome it.

With incomprehensible love, our Heavenly Father gave His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, so that through Him, we could overcome the natural man and return home. This painting is my testimony of that truth.