Covenant Quotes
"I speak of the importance of keeping covenants because they protect us in a world that is drifting from time-honored values that bring joy and happiness. In the future this loosening of moral fiber may even increase. The basic decency of society is decreasing. In the future our people, particularly our children and grandchildren, can expect to be bombarded more and more by the evils of Sodom and Gomorrah."
President James E. Faust, "Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart", Gen. Conf., April, 1998
"When we enter into the covenant of the gospel and become one with Christ, we create a new corporate entity, a partnership, that is immediately profitable and immediately justified through the infinite merits of the Savior (the only really profitable enterprise). As long as we don't dissolve the partnership we are justified by his merits in that unique relationship. As an individual, I may have no hope, but as a junior partner in a joint venture with Christ, I have every assurance of success."
Stephen E. Robinson - "Believing Christ" p 28-29
"In a world where we and our families are threatened by evil on every side, let us remember President Hinckley's counsel: 'If our people could only learn to live by these covenants, everything else would take care of itself.'" (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, p. 147)
President James E. Faust, "Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart", Gen. Conf., April, 1998
"An oath can be one-sided, but a covenant must contain mutual obligation - "if you do A, I will do B." ... God is bound by his word to keep the terms of his covenants as long as we keep our part of the bargain. (D&C 82:10)"
Stephen E. Robinson - "Believing Christ" p. 36
Being fully taught in the ways of God also means we must make and keep necessary ordinances and sacred covenants.
President Boyd K. Packer has said: "Ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into [God's] presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime. To keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality" (Ensign, May 1987, 24).
Mary Ellen Smoot - "The Possible Dream" - BYU Women's Conference, Spring 1998
"There are those hours on Sunday and in a family home evening on Monday the opportunity to combine genuine caring, teaching the gospel, and the bearing of testimony. Across the earth there are families who love and understand their covenants who do that. There is a caution I would give and a promise I would offer about such choices of how to use family time. For a person not yet a member of the Church, to fail to provide such moments of love and faith is simply a lost opportunity.
But for those under covenant, it is much more. There are few places where it can matter more for those for whom we are accountable. For members of the church, my caution is that to neglect those opportunities is a choice not to keep sacred covenants. Because God always honors covenants, I can make a promise to those who in faith keep the covenant to create experiences of giving love and bearing testimony with their families.
They will reap a harvest of hearts touched, faith in Jesus Christ exercised unto repentance, and the power to keep covenants strengthened. I bear solemn testimony that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ, in which the ordinances and the covenants are offered, which if accepted and honored produce peace in this life and assure us eternal life in the world to come."
Elder Eyring - A Voice of Warning - (Ensign, Nov. 1998 p. 30)
"If you ponder the scriptures and begin to do what you covenanted with God to do, I can promise you that you will feel more love for God and more of His love for you. And with that, your prayers will come from the heart, full of thanks and of pleading. You will feel a greater dependence on God. You will find the courage and the determination to act in His service, without fear and with peace in your heart. You will pray always. And you will not forget Him, no matter what the future brings."
Henry B. Eyring, "Prayer," General Conference, October 2001; Ensign, November 2001, p. 17
"One important aspect of a gospel covenant is that it commits the individual to the work of the Lord. A person making and keeping a covenant with God must sort out his values and actually work toward salvation, which is a much more involving process than mere intellectual assent. Furthermore, because gospel covenants are revealed from heaven, they are specific indicators of what God would have us do. Without revelation, we would not know how to please God--we would not know that we should be baptized, pay tithing, observe the Sabbath and the Word of Wisdom, be ordained to the priesthood, fast, pray, partake of the sacrament, or do ordinances for our dead. These are not the kinds of things men and women would do naturally. They require conscious and deliberate and willfull obedience. Divine covenants mark the path of duty and commit us to walk in it. They more fully distinguish the way of the Lord from the way of the world. They are the only way in which the saving ordinances of the gospel are administered to man, and the most sacred of these can be received only in the temple."
Robert J. Matthews "Our Covenants with the Lord" "Ensign," Dec. 1980, 35
"A covenant made with God should be regarded not as restrictive but as protective."
Russell M. Nelson, "Prepare for Blessings of the Temple," Ensign, March 2002, 21--22
"We are a covenant-making people. We make covenants at the waters of baptism. We renew those covenants each week as we worthily partake of the sacrament. We take upon ourselves the name of Christ; we promise to always remember Him and to keep His commandments. And in return He promises us that His Spirit will always be with us. We make covenants as we enter into the temple, and in return we receive the promised blessings of eternal life--if we keep those sacred covenants."
Sheldon F. Child, "As Good As Our Bond," General Conference, April 1997
"The fruit of keeping covenants is the companionship of the Holy Ghost and an increase in the power to love. "
Elder Henry B. Eyring - "Witnesses for God" - Ensign, Nov. 1996, 32
"Baptism into this Church is a serious thing. It represents a covenant made with our Heavenly Father. It is much more than a right of passage. It is a gateway to a new manner of living, and a new road on which to walk that leads to immortality and eternal life. It was never intended as a dead end. It was intended to open a glorious and wonderful way of life to all who would walk in obedience to the commandments of God."
President Gordon B. Hinckley
"We are never required to make convenants except in a setting where Divine grace, the extension of Christ's atonement, is promised to assist us in fulfilling them. With the covenants of baptism comes the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. With the covenant of sacrament comes the promise of his Spirit to be with us 'always.' With the oath and covenant of the priesthood and its heavy responsibilities comes the conferral of priesthood gifts. With the solemn covenanting of temple worship comes 'an endowment of power.'"
Truman G. Madsen, "The Temple and the Atonement" (in the book Temples of the Ancient World - a F.A.R.M.S. publication)