Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art andman's device.
Acts 17:29
We are the children of God. That doctrine is not hidden away in an obscure verse. It is taught over and over again in scripture. These clear examples from teh Bible: "All of you are children of the most High" Psalm 82:6. "And we are the offspring of God" Acts 17:29. Doctrinal truths are interrelaed. There is an old saying that if you pick up one end of a stick, you pick up the other end as well. If you concede that we are His children, you must allow that GOd is our Father.
Boyd K. Packer, in Conference Report, Oct. 1984, 82
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man. . . If the veil were rent today, . . . if you were to see him like a man in form--like yourselves in all the person, and very form as mam. . . It is the first principle of the GOspel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345-46
Further evidence that we are the literal children of God comes in the repeated statements that we were created in the image of God. Our bodies are not exalted like God's, but they are bodies, just like God has.
And God said, Let us make mand in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creepint thing that creepth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.The mere fact that God is our progenitor is important, but not as important as the knowledge that God loves us and guides us like a father. Many "fathers" fail in their responsibilities to their children and do not really deserve to be called "fathers." God the Father is the perfect father in every sense of the word.
Genesis 1:26-27
Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all men were created in teh beginning after mine own image.
Ether 3:15
God made man in his own image and certainly he made woman in the image of his wife-partner.
Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 25
Beloved, let us love on another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propititation for our sins.
1 John 4:7-10
Anre not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
Matthew 11:29-31
I want to tell you, each and every one of you, that you are well acquainted with God our Heavenly Father, or the great Elohm. You are all well acquainted with him, for there is not a soul of you but what has lived in his house and dwelt with him year after year; and yet you are seeking to become acquainted with him, when the fact is, you have merely forgotten what you did know. There is not a person here to-day but what is a son or a daughter of that Being. In the Spirit world their spirits were first begotten and brough forth, and they lived there with their parents for ages before they came here.
Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, 50
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