Photo by Lopez Robin
Going to the temple and attending sacrament meeting won’t guarantee us eternal life; blessings come when we make all times and all places holy.
If I attend the temple once a month and prepare to worthily partake of the sacrament each week, why do I feel like I’m living below my potential? One Sunday, as I was getting ready for church, I finally heard the words that changed my view of holy times and holy places. In the general conference talk “Exceeding Great and Precious Promises,” Elder David A. Bednar declares, “Sometimes we try to run so fast that we may forget where we are going or why we are running.” In his talk he outlines three places where we can learn about our divine identity and receive the blessings we’re promised if we obey God’s commandments.
- The Sabbath. The Sabbath day is a sacred time in which we are able to reset our lives to be more in tune with the Spirit and God’s will. Partaking of the sacrament allows us to renew our baptismal covenant to always remember him. The Lord has promised, “That thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up they sacraments upon my holy day” (Doctrine and Covenants 59:9).
- The temple. The temple is a sacred place where we’re able to remember the covenants that we’ve made and the sweet blessings that we’ve been promised. Attending the temple allows us to remove ourselves from the distractions of the world for a short time in order to be, as Elder Bednar says, “partakers of the divine nature.”
- The home. While we can’t attend the temple or go to sacrament meeting everyday, we can make our homes a place where the Spirit can continue to teach and guide us. Elder Bednar says, “Importantly, a home should be the ultimate combination of time and space wherein individuals and families remember most effectively God’s great and precious promises.”
As we daily keep the covenants we make on the Sabbath day and in the temple, Heavenly Father is able to fulfill his end of the bargain and grant us great blessings. Elder Bednar promises, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these he might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
Read “Exceeding Great and Precious Promises,” by Elder David A. Bednar, to learn more about how to to bring the blessings of the sacrament and temple attendance into your daily life.
Source: LDS General Conference
—Rebecca Flinders, Mormon Insights
feature image courtesy of lds media library
Find more insights
Read or watch Quentin L. Cook’s “The Lord Is My Light” to learn more about how you can receive promised blessings.
Take a look at Jess Verzello’s article “Spiritual Food Storage: Becoming Spiritually Self-Reliant.”