Alva Tsai - Art Thou Convinced of the Power of God?

Do We Need to Rise up in Strength to Keep the Covenant?

Sister Bonnie Oscarson said, “We live in ‘perilous times.’ It will take concerted effort to be converted and to keep our covenants. To do so, we need to be girls and women who study the essential doctrines of the gospel and have an unshakable testimony of their truthfulness.”

1.    We need to acknowledge the centrality of God our Eternal Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, to our faith and salvation.
2.    We need to understand the need for the restoration of the doctrine, organization, and keys of authority in these latter days.
3.    We need to study and understand temple ordinances and covenants.
If we do not strengthen ourselves, our families and friends will be deceived by the increasing secular condition of our world.
Do You Know When You Keep the Covenant You Will Receive Blessings and Power?

Sister Carole M. Stephens, the First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, said:
Priesthood ordinances and covenants provide access to the fulness of the blessings promised to us by God, which are made possible by the Savior’s Atonement.

1.    When we keep our baptismal covenants, we will always have Holy Spirit to be with us.
2.    When men and women go to the temple, they are both endowed with the same power, which by definition is priesthood power. The endowment is literally a gift of power.
3.    When we are sealed in the temple, we will have the blessing of being together with our family forever.
When you obey the covenants, you obey the commandments associated with the covenants.  When you obey the commandments, you will receive blessings and power in life.
What Is A Covenant?

Within the gospel, a covenant means a sacred agreement or mutual promise between God and a person or a group of people. In making a covenant, God promises a blessing for obedience to particular commandments. He sets the terms of His covenants, and He reveals these terms to His prophets. If we choose to obey the terms of the covenant, we receive promised blessings. If we choose not to obey, He withholds the blessings, and in some instances a penalty also is given.
For example, when we join the Church we make several covenants with God.
Alma taught, when we are baptized we covenant to:
1.    Come into the fold of God;
2.    Bear one another’s burdens;
3.    Stand as witnesses of God at all times in all things and in all places; and
4.    Serve God and keep His commandments.
When we are baptized and keep the baptismal covenant, God promises to:
1.    Forgive our sins (Acts 2:38, D&C 49:13);
2.    Pour out His Spirit more abundantly upon us (Mosiah 18:10);
3.    Give us daily guidance and help of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:38, D&C 20:77);
4.    Let us come forth in the First Resurrection (Mosiah 18:9); and
5.    Give us eternal life (Mosiah 18:9).
As we partake of the sacrament, we renew sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father:
We covenant to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, always remember Him, and keep His commandments.  The Lord promises that if we keep our covenants, we will always have His Spirit to be with us. (D&C 20:77-79)
When we receive temple ordinances, we make other sacred covenants and are promised exaltation for faithful obedience.
Why Make and Keep Covenants?
1.    Covenant keeping strengthens, empowers, and protects.
Lucy Mack Smith’s counsel to the first Relief Society sisters is more relevant today than ever before: “We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”7 This is covenant keeping and visiting teaching at its finest!
2.    Keeping covenants is essential for true happiness.
President Thomas S. Monson taught, “Sacred covenants are to be revered by us, and faithfulness to them is a requirement for happiness.”
3.    Keeping our covenants demonstrates our love for the Savior and our Father in Heaven.
“If we fully appreciated the many blessings which are ours through the redemption made for us, there is nothing that the Lord could ask of us that we would not anxiously and willingly do.” According to this statement by President Joseph Fielding Smith, covenant keeping is one way to express our love for the incomprehensible, infinite Atonement of our Savior and Redeemer and the perfect love of our Father in Heaven.

The Savior said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”