He also calls upon all people to follow the example of Jesus Christ. Service, to be acceptable to the Savior, must come from willing minds, ready hands, and pledged hearts.” Thomas S. A position of responsibility may not be of recognized importance, nor may the reward be broadly known. … Membership in the Church calls forth a determination to serve. The New Testament teaches that it is impossible to take a right attitude toward Christ without taking an unselfish attitude toward men.” President Monson encourages Latter-day Saints to “reach outward. Ours is the opportunity to build, to lift, to inspire, and indeed to lead. This truth inspires the familiar charge, ‘Go forth to serve.’ Try as some of us may, we cannot escape the influence our lives have upon the lives of others. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is more than a divine truth. “There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor’s wretchedness. “We do not live alone-in our city, our nation, or our world,” President Monson says. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy.” As we look heavenward, President Monson says we will inevitably learn of our responsibility to reach outward. “No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Priesthood blessings heal, comfort, counsel.Ĭovenant marriage becomes supernal and eternal as we daily choose the happiness of our spouse and family before our ownĪs we bless each other across a lifetime of forgetting ourselves, we find our hopes and joys sanctified in time and eternity.Įverything good and eternal is centered in the living reality of God, our Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, and His Atonement.“To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves,” President Thomas S. Priesthood can bless literally from cradle to grave-from an infant’s name and blessing to a grave dedication. God’s priesthood and His ordinances sweeten relationships on earth and can seal covenant relationships in heaven. The Book of Mormon is evidence we can hold in our hand of covenant belonging. However often we stumble or fall, if we keep moving toward Him, He will help us, a step at a time. He waits ready to embrace us, even when we are “yet a great way off.” He invites us to come or return to the covenants that mark His path. God’s ordinances provide guideposts on His path of covenants.Ĭovenant belonging centers in Jesus Christ as “mediator of the new covenant.” All things can work together for our good when we are “sanctified in Christ … in the covenant of the Father.”Īlong life’s path, we may lose faith in God, but He never loses faith in us God’s ordinances and covenants are universal in their requirement and individual in their opportunity. We are not meant to wander in existential uncertainty and doubt but to rejoice in cherished covenant relationships “stronger than the cords of death.” Our Heavenly Father wants us to receive God’s greatest gift-His joy, His eternal life. These comfort the hurt, loneliness, injustice we experience in mortality. God, our Heavenly Father, loves us more and knows us better than we love or know ourselves.įaith in Jesus Christ and personal change (repentance) bring mercy, grace, forgiveness. It produces faith unto life and salvation.ĭivine covenants become a source of love for and from God and thereby for and with each other When we covenant all we are, we can become more than we are.Ĭovenant belonging gives us place, narrative, capacity to become. In losing our worldly self through covenant belonging, we find and become our best eternal self-free, alive, real-and define our most important relationships. When we come to God’s great commandments to love Him and those around us by covenant, we do so not as stranger or guest but as His child at home. When we put aside the masks, pretense, crowd-sourced likes and dislikes, we yearn for more than fleeting veneer, ephemeral connection, or the pursuit of worldly self-interest. So much seems transitory and superficial. This world is full of mirage, illusion, sleight of hand. With infinite love, He beckons us to come believe and belong by covenant. Heavenly Father does hear every child’s prayer. To belong with God and to walk with each other on His covenant path is to be blessed by covenant belonging.
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