Love is bound into the eternities through saving ordinances.
Love is patient, love is kind, love is binding. Christ teaches us to love one another under all circumstances, regardless of one’s religion, ethnicity, political views, sexual orientation, or other potentially dividing differences. This belief is surely a tenet of many religions; however, Christ intends that this love exists not only in this life but in the life hereafter as well.
In “Mormonism’s Social Heaven,” University of Richmond professor Terryl Givens expounds on a unique revelation of love found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “We have a vision of a vast marriage banquet to take place at the last day, where our Father wants no empty places. Think of our practice as an attempt to put everyone’s name on the guest list. Not everyone will come—but we think all should be invited.”
When Givens mentions our “practice,” he is referring to the vast numbers of deceased that are baptized, confirmed, and endowed by proxy in holy temples as a result of the family history work done by members of the Church. These ordinances are performed in behalf of those who have died so they can be sealed to their families for all eternity.
The commandment to “love thy neighbor” surely takes on new meaning if we imagine the celestial web of family and friends that will surround us in the eternities. God has prepared a perfect plan of happiness, a plan in which every child of God is included. Because love is the law of our nature, we search for ancestors, bring their names to the temple, and keep our covenants.
Read “Mormonism’s Social Heaven” to find out more about how these sacred ordinances were revealed to Joseph Smith.
Source: The Wheatley Institution
—Sydney Cobb, Mormon Insights
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Find more insights
Read an address given at RootsTech Family History Conference by Elder Neil L. Andersen, “Find Our Cousins,” in which he discusses searching for information about our ancestors and doing temple work for them.
Take a look at Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk “The Joy of Redeeming the Dead” for additional information about family history.
This is a really cool point to remember. When we act in proxy at the temple, we know only the basic information of the individuals—names, important dates, and important places. We know enough to do the work and allow the individuals to choose to accept the work. All of the other details don’t matter because we can love those individuals even with the bare minimum of information.
I’m excited to meet my ancestors someday. Articles like these really give me the motivation to work on my family history because I want to get to know those who came before me and do temple work for them. I want to be sealed to all of my family for time and all eternity, and keeping this perspective in mind will remind me of that eternal goal.