Repent and Enter into a Covenant

The Need for Repentance

Myth

Throughout my life, I've learned to appreciate the myths of different cultural groups around the world. Most people think that myth only means something that is false. But the other definition of myth is "a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people … and typically involving supernatural beings or events."¹ In a documentary I watched recently, I was struck by how important this kind of myth is. The host said:

We need myth. … When we don't believe, that gap, that vacuum, is filled with what's ruinous and terrible, both societally and individually.²

This transient world makes it difficult to focus on the transcendental. The ephemeral looms so much larger than the eternal. And so, while you've heard the myth I will recount many times, the belief in our foundational myth is critical to our lives here on this earth, especially as members of this Church.

Long ago, before we were born, we lived as spirit children with Heavenly Parents who loved us. They knew that “the elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy; And when separated, [we could not] receive a fulness of joy.” (D&C 93:33-34) The plan presented by our Father in Heaven, called the plan of happiness or the plan of salvation, was to have us receive the immortality and eternal life (Moses 1:39) that He enjoys through a mortal experience where we would have agency so we could learn to choose between good and evil with our connected body and spirit (2 Nephi 2:15-16). But this also meant that our wrong choices and the temporal nature of this state would separate us from our Heavenly Parents forever (Alma 42:9). Our Father proposed a Savior who could overcome sin and death and therefore prepare a way for us to return to His presence (2 Nephi 9:10-12).

Lucifer sought to take away the agency that God had given us and proposed his plan, which was to force everyone to do good. In return he wanted God's glory for himself. Our eldest brother Jesus Christ, offered to fulfill God's plan as our Redeemer and give the glory to His Father (Moses 4:1-2). We fought in the resulting war in heaven in support of our Father's plan and our own agency (Revelation 12:4-13).

Through Jesus Christ, God created the world and all that is in it, and placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Moses 3). There they were commanded not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because if they did, they would surely die (Genesis 2:16-17). Enticed by Satan, they partook of the fruit and their eyes were opened. Their innocence was lost, their access to the tree of life was blocked, and they brought about the Fall, which is spiritual and physical death (Genesis 3:17-24). This Fall separated them, and us, from our heavenly home forever and made it impossible to become like our Heavenly Father (Alma 42:5-9).

But when Adam and Eve learned that the Only Begotten of the Father, the one who offered himself as our Savior in the premortal realm, Jesus Christ, would redeem all mankind, as many as would come unto Him and repent, it caused them to express, as stated by Eve, "Were it not for our transgression we … never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient" (Moses 5:10-11).

The Lord Jesus Christ, through his example, and by laying down his life, descending below all things, opening the doors of spiritual prisons and then ascending beyond this mortality in resurrected glory, creates a path back to our Heavenly Father and shows us the way to become like Him through obedience to His commandments (1 Nephi 17:13).

After knowing this, Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters, teaching them that until you've learned what it means to be lost, you don't know the joy of being found (Moses 5:12).

Two Truths in One

And so, as told in this myth, the phrase "I am a Child of God" contains two truths in one. I realized this at girls' camp when I was thinking about their theme for the year, "Warriors of Worth", that expresses these same two truths. First is that our value, our worth, is inherent. We are children of deity and as such we have the seed of divinity in us (Romans 8:16-17, 21). This makes our worth great in the sight of God (see D&C 18:10-16). Second, because we are children of Heavenly Parents, we are meant to become as they are (D&C 88:107). This comes with an expectation, responsibility, purpose and meaning. The whole purpose of Christ's atoning sacrifice is not just to bring us back into God's presence, but to exalt us with the glory that He possesses (2 Nephi 31:19-20; D&C 93:1-40).

Satan attacks both of these truths. He makes us question our worth, our divinity. He also seeks to erase the expectation that we are meant to become something more than we are right now. He does this in many different ways such as causing us to feel there is no value in redeeming us, or minimizing the need to keep the commandments (2 Nephi 28:7-9). He deceives us by proposing that perpetual safety should override the need for salvation when the truth is misery without meaning is all we are rewarded. We must be aware and defend against these tactics.

The way of Jesus Christ is different. He enables the path of our potential, not only by making it possible, but by paying the price of our redemption (Matthew 20:28). He reveals to us our value (John 3:16). And in commanding us to love God and our neighbor, teaching us to obey His Father's law, and pleading for us to repent, he offers us purpose that overcomes pain, meaning that overcomes misery, and true safety in the embrace of His Atonement as we grow and live our Father's plan (Jeremiah 2:9; D&C 45:3).

Ways to Help Children Repent

The dual messages inherent in the phrase "I am a child of God" are important for all those who teach the youth, as is the sequence of them. God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance (Alma 45:16). There are standards to be met in order to receive our inheritance from God, our exaltation. But sometimes our youth (or us for that matter) may feel that if God loved them He wouldn't expect anything from them. The opposite is true: it's because He loves our youth that He wants them to have all that He does, and expects them to learn and grow here in this life as they desired in the pre-mortal life (Job 38:7; Abraham 3:21-23).

However, it is important that we lead with the first message of their worth and value first, before emphasizing the second. A story that touched me illustrates this point.

Maya Angelou, an author and civil rights leader was working on a movie set with a famous rapper that she didn't know named Tupac Shakur. When she first saw him, Tupac was very close to getting into a physical altercation with another man. Maya Angelou described the incident this way: “May I speak to you? He was cursing, but I said ‘Let me speak to you. When was the last time anyone told you how important you were? Do you know how people stood on auction blocks, they were bought and sold, so that you could stay alive today? Finally he heard me and stopped talking and began to weep. I put my arms around him and walked him back.’”³

At this point she was able to criticize him with love, not to tear him down, but to build him up.

Our youth benefit from the same approach. Make sure they know that you understand their value and see the divine that is in them. And then with love, give them the direction they need to be better, setting the expectations that God has for them. Help them know they were worth Christ's atoning sacrifice and then guide them to have faith in Jesus Christ unto repentance to be worthy (Alma 34:15-17).

Covenants

Connection Between Repentance and Covenants

This last two years the focus of our ward has been on faith in Jesus Christ and then repentance. Our themes will continue to follow and extend from the 4th article of faith. So what principle is behind baptism by immersion for the remission of sins? It is making and keeping covenants. Faith, repentance and covenants are intricately tied together. The Lord covenanteth with none save it be with them that repent and believe in … the Holy One of Israel. (2 Nephi 30:2)

In Alma 7:15-16 we read:

Yea, I say unto you come and fear not, and lay aside every sin, which easily doth beset you, which doth bind you down to destruction, yea, come and go forth, and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism. And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember … that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life.

Covenants are administered by priesthood ordinances that remind us of Christ. When we are baptized, we become members of His Church, and then are known as children of Christ because He is the Father of our newly born again selves (Mosiah 26:18, 20, 21, 22). We promise to take upon ourselves His name in this way, to keep His commandments, and always remember Him (D&C 20:77, 79). In return, the Lord has said He will not forget His covenant people, because they are graven on the palms of His hands (1 Nephi 21:16).

Being covenant-bearing children of Christ does not inherently increase our worth over our brothers and sisters who are not members of the Church, including the billions of people who have lived with no knowledge it even exists. Our Heavenly Parents love us equally, but being covenant children of Christ does come with the responsibility to serve Him by doing His work of strengthening our families, caring for the poor and needy, proclaiming the gospel, and redeeming the dead (Handbook 1:2).

Purpose of the Covenant Path

When we make a covenant, we agree and commit to follow the conditions God sets (Guide to the Scriptures: Covenant). In return God offers us his power and access to his glory, ultimately all that he has and all that he is (D&C 51:19; D&C 78:22). And thus, "if ye are faithful ye shall be laden with many sheaves, and crowned with honor, and glory, and immortality, and eternal life" (Doctrine and Covenants 75:5). And so, a covenant is our promise that we will strive to live worthy of the kingdom of God and the Father's promise that we will be exalted in it.

The sequence of covenants that we make, first at baptism and confirmation, then in the temple through ordinances of the washing, anointing, endowment and sealing, are important milestones on the covenant path. President Nelson has spoken frequently about this path.⁴ It is important to remember that while we make covenants in the temple to abide a celestial law and learn how to partake of the celestial glory that God enjoys (D&C 88:22, 24-25), the living and the keeping of covenants happens outside the temple every day of our lives (D&C 54:6). The covenant path is not a string of making covenants only. It is the constant striving to keep them. In doing this we bind ourselves to God and His purposes (Mosiah 5:15).

In holy places, we covenant and re-covenant to:

Take on the name of Christ
Always remember Him
Keep His commandments
Understand and live the gospel
Obey
To sacrifice
Live the law of chastity
Live the law of consecration
Love our spouse and the Lord as we are bound together with our posterity in a sealing⁵

We should desire to keep these covenants not only for the blessings we will receive but also because we desire to show our love of the Lord. As He said: If ye love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15). Time is too short in a talk, but during this year we will talk more about all aspects of covenants and how we can better keep them.

Blessings of Covenants

You might be wondering, what does God gain from these agreements, these covenants? The shortest answer is joy. We are his work and his glory. He experiences great happiness when we learn to access and wield the power that he desires us to have (2 Peter 1:3; D&C 84:20-21). Just as anyone who loves a child thrills to see them grow and develop into their own person, our Father only wants our joy to be as great as His.

We may look at others who are "good people" who do not walk the covenant path and wonder, isn't that enough? Elder Christofferson in his recent conference talk titled "Why the Covenant Path" listed how blessings of this path are different from a "covenant-consistent" path only, including committed obedience, being bound to God, receiving divine help, gathering with the covenant people, and inheriting the covenant promises.⁶ These should alone be enough to warrant our diligence and appreciation of being a covenant people.

But even if many who do not walk the covenant path now or in the past eventually repent later or just accept the gospel in the spirit world gain all of the blessings that our Father wants them to have in the celestial kingdom, we should realize not only the responsibility we have now as a covenant people (Jacob 1:19), but also the advantage we have in experiencing the joy of serving God and doing His work now, rather than at a later time only (John 16:22; Alma 29:9; D&C 66:11-12). The Lord promises "How great will be your joy if you should bring many souls unto me" (D&C 18:16).

I know very well how the difficulty of the covenant path can sometimes overshadow the joy we should feel because of it. Following the covenant path is not meant to be easy. There will be sorrow, pain, and hardship, but the promise is that the joy of Christ will swallow it all (Mosiah 16:8). And in moments you feel in your service of His work you've stretched past the heart, might, mind and strength you had to give, when you offer your broken heart to the Lord, He will show you the joy of being bound with loved ones, the joy of serving Him, and the joy in His embrace.

Challenges

Brothers and sisters, great challenges are ahead of us, greater than ones we have ever faced before. We must prepare ourselves and we must prepare the children and youth for the coming days. We must always be ready for the coming of the Lord, with our lamps trimmed and lit with oil (D&C 33:17). There is no better way to do this than turning to the Lord with broken hearts and contrite spirits, then diligently striving to keep the covenants you have made with Him (3 Nephi 9:20; D&C 20:37; D&C 109:68). I want to issue two challenges to you that I've felt impressed will help you.

Book of Mormon as Covenant

The first is to individually read the Book of Mormon in addition to your regular Come, Follow Me study beginning next month and completing in August of next year. The Book of Mormon is itself a covenant, a promise that the Lord will write His law in our hearts, which, if we abide by this law, we will know Him and our sins will be remembered no more. But as it says in the Doctrine and Covenants:

… your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received— Which … have brought the whole church under condemnation … even all And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written.

As you read, look for the beautiful and clear explanations of the Atonement of Jesus Christ (2 Nephi 2; 2 Nephi 9; Jacob 4:11-12; Alma 34; Alma 42). Learn the principles of faith, repentance, keeping covenants, receiving revelation and enduring to the end. Focus on what you can do to repent and keep your covenants more fully. I promise you will experience great joy if you set aside time to accomplish this.

Improvement

My second challenge is to think of one thing you are not doing or not doing fully, how can you more diligently consecrate, sacrifice, live the law of chastity, or obey the law of the gospel?

What weapons of sin do you need to bury deep in the earth? (Alma 24:17) What sign of faith and love for your Savior do you still hesitate to show Him? Or as Elder Renlund advocated in his talk, Unwavering Commitment to Jesus Christ, "Throw your old ways into deep, churning waterfalls. Completely bury your weapons of rebellion with no handles sticking out. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, making covenants with a real intent to reliably honor them will bless your life forever."⁷

Personal Example

A story from my own life may help you think of how assessing the diligence by which you are living true to your covenants and more faithfully abiding by them will bless your lives. A couple of years into the time that Mee and I were living in Taiwan, we realized that we had become very complacent in our church attendance. We had plenty of excuses, such as the fact that we didn't speak Chinese sufficiently to participate or even understand much in our branch and we had two young daughters who made it difficult for us to go. Work for me was 6 days a week Monday through Saturday and I wanted a true day of rest. Mee and I talked and we both felt something was missing from our lives; we felt ourselves slipping slowly away from the promises we had made and with it the loss of God's power and joy. It was obvious to me that I was not showing my love of the Lord or love of my wife by allowing pride and selfishness into my life. Together we decided to recommit ourselves.

We learned of a ward much further away that had an English unit where we could participate more fully. To attend, we had to take a taxi ride for 35 minutes each way, so it was an extra investment for us. In this ward, we had the opportunity to serve in nursery and Primary where I played the piano, and teach Gospel Doctrine, all to very small groups. We look very fondly back on these wonderful experiences that strengthened us and helped us reconnect to the purpose of our covenants. It wasn't easy, but the increased confidence it gave us to stand worthy before the Lord, knowing that we were diligently striving to keep our covenants was worth every effort. This experience solidified in us how we needed to strive to live ever since.

Examples

This story is just an example, it is up to each of you to examine your own lives and prayerfully determine where greater diligence in keeping your covenants is required. Other possibilities may include:

working on attributes of Christ in your own life to take on his name more fully,
diligence in prayer to help you always remember Christ,
keeping a commandment that you've previously seen as unimportant,
a more substantial sacrifice of your energy placed in your callings or ministering or spiritual teaching of your children,
reading the scriptures regularly to learn the law of the gospel,
adhering to the law of chastity by eliminating certain media in your life,
consecration of your earnings by paying a full tithe,
or honoring your sealing to your spouse by serving your family with greater love.
All of us would benefit from striving to attend the temple and attending to family history work

What I am asking you is not easy, but this challenge is not meant to overwhelm or cause you to run faster than you have strength. It is meant to invite diligence that you might win the prize, a prize with more value to you than anything else (Mosiah 4:27). It may be wise to divert energy from one task to another instead of trying to do one more thing.

Testimony

I bless you that through these two challenges, to understand and live by the covenant of the Book of Mormon, and diligently living your covenants more fully, you will receive greater joy in your life. You will experience the glory of God. You will feel the sustaining and healing power of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, in hardship and pain of the challenges that are sure to come (3 Nephi 25:2; D&C 88:22, 24-25). You will feel the confidence to stand in his presence, clothed in the robes of his glory, and as your advocate he will present you to the Father as one worthy to enter into His presence (1 John 2:1). Your callings at home and at church will become more meaningful and purposeful as you see what small and simple things you seem to do are actually great and provide you a window in how God experiences his joy through helping others to have faith, repent, and keep their covenants (Alma 37:6). The celestial world will be unveiled to you in ways that will help you follow the light of all worlds (D&C 67:10; D&C 78:7; D&C 101:23). You will be bound to God, and sealed to your loved ones through generations (D&C 43:9, 31; D&C 82:10, 15).

Our original myth is true. Our Heavenly Parents love us so much they want our joy to be as great as their own. This entire plan of salvation, the plan of happiness, is for us. God gave His only begotten Son for us, to mark the covenant path with His Son's precious blood, for us to have the way back to Him and the way to change to become more like Him.

I testify of these things to you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Footnotes

1 New Oxford American Dictionary: Myth ↩

2 Curt Jaimungal ↩

3 Maya Angelou's Conversation with Tupac Shakur ↩

4 President Russell M. Nelson, "Come, Follow Me", April 2019 General Conference; Let God Prevail, October 2020 General Conference; Hope of Israel, June 3, 2018, Worldwide Devotional ↩

5 About the Temple Endowment ↩

6 Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Why the Covenant Path, April 2021 General Conference ↩

7 Elder Dale G. Renlund, Unwavering Commitment to Jesus Christ, October 2019 General Conference ↩