I have heard other church members struggle with scriptures where God or His prophets are… violent to the point of taking life. This disturbs many Christians. We need to recognize that God has two roles during Earth Life. We need to understand both those roles to understand Him.

In God’s second role, He is your loving Heavenly Father. You pray to Him, and you seek His inspiration. Hopefully you have a solid and tender relationship with Him. In church lessons and talks, we discuss the “Heavenly Father” role of God about 95% of the time that we talk about God. Our Heavenly Father is like an elderly grandfather with whom we can chat. The relationship is comfortable, like a soft blanket.

God’s first role, however, is of God the King. It is God’s responsibility that the Gospel plan proceeds as it was planned. In this role, God is the ultimate authority figure. Though his relationship with you is important – He has a planet-full of people for which He is responsible. Earth life is not fair – but eventually all will be made just. God will insist that we follow the demands of justice. He must! Because of its harsher edge, we rarely discuss the role of God as King.