Covenant Power

How do we access God's Power through making and keeping our covenants?

God has an infinite amount of love for His children. Because Our Heavenly Father's love is infinite, He can and does have an infinite love for each one of His children. He wants to share the infiniate power that He has, as God of the Universe, with us. How can He share that power with us? The only way that we can share in and be able to use that power is through the covenants that He makes with us infividually and as families.

In his talk, given in October of 2011, then Elder Russell M. Nelson, explained: "It is a sacred promise with God. He fixes the terms. Each person may choose to accept those terms. If one accepts the terms of the covenant and obeys God’s law, he or she receives the blessings associated with the covenant. We know that 'when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.'"

The most obvious example of this principle is when God, throughout the ages has made covenants with His children. His covenants occur throughout the entire plan of salvation and are therefore part of the fulness of His gospel. For example, God promised to send a Savior for His children, to be acle to return to live with Him, and He has asked us, in turn for our obedience to His law.

What about day-to-day power and blessings? It, actually, comes through the exact same method: His Son. We are given access to His power, through that blessing of Jesus Christ!

What power do they give us?

Through His atonement, we are each given Power over Death, Power over Sin, and Power to Do-More-than-we-otherwise-would-be-able-to-without-His-Power. So, we would each be resurrected in the final judgement and given perfect, immortal bodies--never to die again. We would be given the blessing of forgiveness and thus be able to become clean and able to enter into reive forgivness for our sins and mistakes as we show our Savior and Redeemer that we have repented and ask for His forgivenes.

The third power is what is oftentimes called "grace" in this world (although, each and every gift that is given to us by our Heavenly Father through His Son, Jesus Christ, can be called, "grace": Power over Death, through the grace of Jesus Christ, Power over Sin, through the grace of Jesus Christ, and Power to Do-More-than-we-otherwise-would-be-able-to-without-His-Power, through the grace of Jesus Christ).

Way back in 2014, Elder David A. Bednar gave a memorable talk regarding a friend who had decided he would cut and haul a supply of firewood for their home from a nearby forest with a newly purchased truck. Remember that talk? It is one of my favorites!

I quote from the talk:

"... [My] friend wanted to demonstrate the utility of the truck and validate his reasons for wanting to purchase it. So he decided he would cut and haul a supply of firewood for their home. It was in the autumn of the year, and snow already had fallen in the mountains where he intended to find wood. As he drove up the mountainside, the snow gradually became deeper and deeper. My friend recognized the slick road conditions presented a risk, but with great confidence in the new truck, he kept going.

Sadly, my friend went too far along the snowy road. As he steered the truck off of the road at the place he had determined to cut wood, he got stuck. All four of the wheels on the new truck spun in the snow. He readily recognized that he did not know what to do to extricate himself from this dangerous situation. He was embarrassed and worried.

Can't we all see ourselves in this or a similar situation? I know that I can!

My friend decided, “Well, I will not just sit here.” He climbed out of the vehicle and started cutting wood. He completely filled the back of the truck with the heavy load. And then my friend determined he would try driving out of the snow one more time. As he put the pickup into gear and applied power, he started to inch forward. Slowly the truck moved out of the snow and back onto the road. He finally was free to go home, a happy and humbled man."

It was the weight from the load that enabled the friend of Elder Bednar to escape his dire predicament. Without the weight from the wood that he'd just cut down from the trees, his truck would not have and could not have found the traction needed to move forward, to drive out of the forest, and to get back onto the road that would take him home.

I quote again from the talk: "Our individual load is comprised of demands and opportunities, obligations and privileges, afflictions and blessings, and options and constraints."

We all know that the obstacles of death and sin will keep us from returning to live with our families and with our Savior and Heavenly Father. All will be resurrected. All who want and have faith enough will receive forgivness as they ask for it. The power of Jesus Christ is essential and necessary for that. Elder Bednar reminds us or maybe points-out another obstacle that would keep us from returning to God, Christ, and our families, though (and for me, this was the first time I had actually recognized this obstacle): Christ's atonement gives me Power to Do-More-than-I-otherwise-would-be-able-to-without-His-Power!

In Matthew 11:28–30, the Savior said:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”.

Haven't we all, me included, felt our individual loads of demands from school and work and family obligations and financial stresses other obligations, afflictions from stress, other mental illnesses or fatigues, and even the weight that comes to us from our blessings and options? The weight that comes from constraints and even opportunities and privileges? Social weight?

Elder Bednar says, again,

A yoke is a wooden beam, normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals that enables them to pull together on a load. A yoke places animals side-by-side so they can move together in order to accomplish a task.

Consider the Lord’s uniquely individual invitation to “take my yoke upon you.” Making and keeping sacred covenants yokes us to and with the Lord Jesus Christ. In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His. As we trust in and pull our load with Him during the journey of mortality, truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

How have you felt power from your covenants in your own life?

JPS