Gospel Principles for Kids Lesson 4: Freedom to Choose

Freedom to Choose

Agency Is an Eternal Principle

God has told us through His prophets that we are free to choose between good and evil. We may choose liberty and eternal life by following Jesus Christ. We are also free to choose captivity and death by following Satan. The right to choose between good and evil and to act for ourselves is called agency.

Agency Is a Necessary Part of the Plan of Salvation

When we choose to live according to God’s plan for us, our agency is strengthened. Right choices increase our power to make more right choices.

We began to make choices as spirit children in our Heavenly Father’s presence. Our choices there made us worthy to come to earth. If we keep His commandments and make right choices, we will learn and understand. We will become like Him. 

This is the angle I took with my young children:

Heavenly Father wants us to make good choices and so he has given us some guides.

I drew a simple drawing of paths going off in different directions and had the girls choose a guide to help them choose the correct path.  Each path had something bad or something good such as 

a. There is a scary alligator that chases you or b. You see a good friend.

a. There is a dark forest and get lost or b. You see the temple.  

a. There are mean kids who throw things at you or b. You see your family in your yard.

A friend of mine asks her kids who is smiling right now after they make a choice, is it Satan or Jesus?  This is an easy measure for whether we've made a good choice or bad.

This video shows that when confronted with a choice, we can make good decisions and help others do the same.

For older kids, I like this video too.

Quoted material, titles and headings come from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Gospel Principles manual unless otherwise noted. Click here for the full lesson.

Gospel Principles for Kids Lesson 2: Our Heavenly Family

Our Heavenly Family

We Are Children of Our Heavenly Father

Review that Heavenly Father is a dad to us all.  Everyone on earth is a child of our Heavenly Parents.  We are all spirit brothers and sisters.  

We Developed Personalities and Talents While We Lived in Heaven

We were personally taught and trained by our Heavenly Parents.  We grew up as children do in their presence.  We grew up to spiritual maturity.  We are all unique as siblings on earth are unique having their own talents and abilities.  When we had learned what we could learn while being in their presence, they presented the next step in our progression.

Our Heavenly Father Presented a Plan for Us to Become Like Him

"Our Heavenly Father knew we could not progress beyond a certain point unless we left Him for a time.  He wanted us to develop the godlike qualities that He has.  To do this, we needed to leave our premortal home to be tested and to gain experience."

We wanted to be like our Heavenly Parents.  We were different in lots of ways.  

I found pictures to help demonstrate these things and just discussed them using the pictures.  

 These pictures are pulled from LDS.org.  This is what is said about the use of their pictures, fyi- "you may post material from this site to another website or on a computer network for personal, church-related, noncommercial use unless otherwise indicated."

To become like Him, we needed to come to earth.  We also needed a Savior--someone who could help us be forgiven for the mistakes we would make and allow us to be redeemed from both physical and spiritual death.  "We learned that if we placed our faith in Him, obeying His word and following His example, we would be exalted and become like our Heavenly Father.  We would receive a fulness of joy."

Here is a supplemental video of I Lived in Heaven.  To stick to the material presented in the lesson watch only the first half.

Lesson Rating: Well received.  So glad my kids can begin to understand these abstract/difficult topics!

Quoted material, titles and headings come from the Gospel Principles manual published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Click here for the full lesson.