BYU NewsNet - Bott: We have what we need to pass the test

God doesn’t make mistakes.

That was the message of Professor Randy L. Bott to Education Week participants Tuesday in his address “Understanding the Divine Curriculum for All Mankind.”

In his discussion of the “divine curriculum,” which we each take part in through this mortal life, Bott went back to the beginning to learn of God and thereby get an idea of what we need to do to become like him.

First, God is love. As recorded in the New Testament: “Beloved, let us love one 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.” (1 John 4:7-8.)

Bott said each of us can start now to become like God in this aspect.

“I’m not perfect like God is perfect,” he said. “But I can love people… I can take one quantum step to become like God today.”

As Joseph Smith taught, God is also called God the First, the Creator.

“People in the world today would have you believe that you are an advanced organism formed from the scum off the top of a prehistoric pond,” Bott said. “They have it 180 degrees wrong. You are a child of God who has the opportunity to create and control your environment.”

Bott said it is easy to choose between good and bad. What’s difficult is choosing between good, better and best. Even more difficult is choosing between very good and very good. Fortunately, Bott said, we don’t have to go it alone.

He quoted D&C 42:61: “If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge.”

God is also merciful, Bott said, as the scriptures call him so four times. He is giving each individual everything in His understanding to make a person worthy to meet the divine curriculum.

Ultimately, God’s purpose, work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and the eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39).

To accomplish this goal God has given laws, and set forth a test. But considering we lived for an eternity before we came to Earth, the majority of the test has already been passed.

“This is the last page of the last test of an eternal curriculum,” Bott said. “We have so much done that look at those who don’t get to take the test and die before the age of accountability- they get automatic exaltation.”

However, there is opposition in all things, and the devil has been taking notes on each person for an eternity and knows just how to tempt you, Bott said.

“Why are you getting beat up? Because Satan doesn’t have a veil between you and your pre-earth life,” he said. “You may not remember who you are, but God does, and Satan does.”

Bott said the key to making it through the buffetings of the Adversary is to keep the eternal in mind while we sequence through mortality.

“There are no instant Christians,” he said. “But there are constant Christians.”