You don’t know how the Father would actually live in your place, but your estimate of how he would grow in breadth, depth, and accuracy as you live up to your best present belief.
While you cannot receive the blessings of being like Jesus beyond the extent to which you are like him, you can be free from the moral punishment of sin by living up to how you currently believe him to be. The gospel provides a way for you to be forgiven for the inadequacies and errors of your model of how God is as long as you live according to how you understand him to be, try your hardest to learn more about him, and respond correctly to invitations to improve it.
Those who know something about God cannot sin by following their idea of what he would do in their place. Doing what you sincerely believe is right will always bring you closer to God, no matter how wrong you actually are.1
You can and should confidently live as you believe Jesus would in your place. However, the confidence you have in what you presently understand does not excuse you for ignoring the evidence that something better is needed or rejecting potentially better ideas or actions when they are presented to you.
You should desire to know more about God all of the time,2 but you should never be worried about what you can’t yet see or understand.3 God precisely orders reality to provide the ideal circumstances to all people at all times in order to provide the greatest opportunity for all to come to him as much as they are willing to.4
Footnotes
- 1. Verily, if a man be called of my Father, as was Aaron, by mine own voice, and by the voice of him that sent me, and I have endowed him with the keys of the power of this priesthood, if he do anything in my name, and according to my law and by my word, he will not commit sin, and I will justify him. (D&C 132:59) For behold, a bitter fountain cannot bring forth good water; neither can a good fountain bring forth bitter water; wherefore, a man being a servant of the devil cannot follow Christ; and if he follow Christ he cannot be a servant of the devil. (Moroni 7:11) ↩
- 2. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6) ↩
- 3. Don’t preoccupy yourself with what you can’t yet understand nor long for what you don’t yet have. Those things will fulfill their purposes in their sphere as you must in yours. What you already see, understand, and experience provides everything you need to accomplish the Father’s purposes each day. (Matthew 6:34, Author’s Reflection) ↩
- 4. Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. (Exodus 16:4) ↩