Having knowledge is not sufficient for happiness or salvation. In life you are given a puzzle to solve. You have forever to solve it. When you do, you become like God. However, you have a problem—you don’t have the ability to solve the puzzle alone.
Are you free?
Freedom is knowing the truth. The truth will set you free (John 8:32). Free from what? Free from mortality and free to live an exalted life.
What is truth? Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come (D&C 93:24).
Consider the scenario of a man who is considering the option of committing adultery. He is trying to decide whether to have an affair or not. He is free to make a choice but he doesn’t see the scenario (puzzle) in its entirety. Which does he choose, the wife or the secretary? Since he does not see the truth, he is in bondage.
You can imprison the body or you can imprison the mind. You are not free in either case. If you imprison the body, you subject it to vices, chemicals, or behaviors that it cannot control. This is called addiction.
When you imprison the mind, you dumb it down and numb its senses and capabilities. You neglect its God-like and God-given power. You permit the internal addictions of fear, doubt, idleness, pornography, gambling, and anger to find fertile ground and increase.
Watching TV, gaming, or engaging in electronic activities that are designed to bring about pleasure is wasting your God-given time and pushing away the Spirit. You once promised to seek truth and the Face of God. Anything you do that is not engaged in seeking His face is a violation of your premortal covenants.
Agency is then diminished and the power of the Priesthood and the power of the Atonement are both relegated to a passing interest and replaced by the god of the natural man, who cannot save.
The god of the natural man declares you can do what you want to. Are you free now?
