The Importance of Covents

From very beginning, God has made covenant promises with His children. A covenant is a sacred promise or a two-way contract.  God promises blessings to His children and they, in return, promise to always remember Him and keep the commandments that He has given them. Covenants with God are always two-way promises.   When we keep our part of the covenant promises, we are blessed.  When we don’t keep our part of the covenant promises, we are no longer under the protection and blessings of the covenant. The Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith 

I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.    (D & C 82:10)

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There are many examples of covenants in the scriptures.

• God's Covenant with Noah was that if he and his family would keep His commandments, including the Law of Sacrifice, God would not destroy the earth again by flood.  He also commanded them to multiply and replenish the earth - the same initial commandments that God gave to Adam and Eve.

The Baptismal Covenant is that if we, the covenant keepers we will become His people, members of His Church.  If we will always remember Jesus Christ and keep His commandments, we will always have His Spirit to be with us.  

In the Book of Mormon, we are told that we also must comfort those in need of comfort, mourn with those who grieve and stand as a witness to Jesus Christ in all things, at all times and in all places.
(Mosiah 18:9)

• The Abrahamic Covenant asks the same thing of us – remembering and obeying – and the promises include an inheritance of land (blessing us in temporal things); posterity (the eternal promise of family) and priesthood (with the authority to act in the name of God.) James in the New Testament said that Abraham was a friend of God. I wonder what might change if we looked at our covenants as promises to a Friend? (James 2: 23)

There are countless examples mentioned in the scriptures of the cyclical nature of keeping and breaking of covenants. In the Book of Mormon, this is referred to as the Pride Cycle. Tomorrow we will discuss the Pride Cycle and what happens as a person or an nation cycles to the downward through pride to destruction.

©Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson 2019