I was asked to give a talk at church on Sunday. Here it is for your spiritual nourishment if you are interested! (It's 10 minutes long... but there are a lot of great quotes!)
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I was asked to give a talk on the covenants we make each Sunday when we partake of the sacrament and how we can remember them throughout the week.
This topic was a bit daunting because it is so important and essential to our Salvation. The Sacrament is truly the reason we meet each Sunday. It has the ability to change lives and provide miracles if we let it.
We need to not overlook the meaning of the Sacrament. It can sometimes feel repetitive, or for me, sometimes I think of it as quiet time that I can spend planning my next week’s schedule or something. But as I thought about where my thoughts are turned during the sacrament I realized that it is so easy to be selfish with that time. The Lord asks us to give those few short minutes of our time to Him. To remember Him and all He has done for us. Yet, it is so easily looked over. It is amazing to realize the countless blessing that we are throwing away each week just by simply taking that short time to be selfish, to be ungrateful for our loving Heavenly Father, who literally gives us EVERYTHING. We are simply taking Heavenly Fathers handouts all day, every day, and unless we are taking the time to mentally remember our Father and all He’s done for us and thank Him, are we worthy of His perfect service?
Elder David B. Haight questioned: “How are we doing as members of the Church in remembering our Lord and Savior, His sacrifice, and our indebtedness to Him? Are we providing in our services opportunity for meditation, reflection, reverence, repentance,
forgiveness?”
Those 5 things; meditation, reflection, reverence, repentance, and forgiveness is what the sacrament is for. We must use that time wisely, to prepare ourselves to partake of the sacrament.
Elder Featherstone said: “It is essential that we renew our covenants by partaking of the sacrament. When we do this with a sincere heart, with real intent, forsaking our sins, and renewing our commitment to God, the Lord provides a way whereby sins can be forgiven from week to week. Simply eating the bread and drinking the water will not bring that
forgiveness. We must prepare and then partake with a broken heart and contrite spirit. The spiritual preparation we make to partake of the sacrament is essential to receiving a remission of our sins.”
In the Ensign there was an article written called Reflections on the Sacrament Prayers by John S. Tanner, I will refer to this article multiple times throughout my talk. Elder Tanner states:
“The bread is blessed to the good of our souls; it is to feed our spirits. All of us make mistakes each week that sap our spiritual vitality. But when we approach the sacrament hungering and thirsting for righteousness, fervently desiring to recommit ourselves to God, we will be filled. Elder Melvin J. Ballard testified: “There is a spirit attending the administration of the sacrament that warms the soul from head to foot; you feel the wounds of the spirit being healed, and the load being lifted.”
There are 3 simple covenants we make each Sunday:
1) Be willing to take upon them the name of thy Son
2) Always remember Him
3) Keep His
commandments In return we are promised the greatest blessing:
1. To have His
Spirit to be with them
The first covenant is to be willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ. What does that really mean? What does the name “Jesus Christ” stand for? My fiancé has a poster in his room that lists the varying names of Christ and I always love the words that are used to describe Him. When we covenant to take upon ourselves the name of Christ we covenant to try and take on the perfect attributes of Christ. The names that are so magnificent should echo in our minds each day. If we take on Christ’s name we have His protection and strength.
· He is our Redeemer
· Our Savior
· Our Light
· Our way, Our truth, Our life
· Our Deliverer
· Our peace
· The Author of our eternal salvation
· Our advocate with the Father
· He is The Almighty One
John S. Tanner states: “In the prayer upon the bread we recommit to take upon ourselves the Lord’s name—an agreement we first make at
baptism. What a privilege to bear the name of Christ, and what a trust!”
“We who have taken upon ourselves the name of Christ, first at
baptism and then weekly with the sacrament, may also be worthy to be embraced by the Lord. But first we will have to make an accounting of what we have done with his name, the only name under heaven through which salvation comes.”
I love that he mentions that the Lord is putting His TRUST in us, that it is a PRIVILEGE to bear the name of Christ, and that we will be embraced by the Lord. Those are such beautiful truths.
Next we must always remember Him.
In Relief Society a few weeks ago we had a lesson on the talk Forget Me Not given by President Uchtdorf. I will share with you a story that he shared:
"As a child, when I would look at the little forget-me-nots, I sometimes felt a little like that flower—small and insignificant. I wondered if I would be forgotten by my family or by my Heavenly Father. Years later I can look back on that young boy with tenderness and compassion. And I do know now—I was never forgotten. And I know something else: as an Apostle of our Master, Jesus Christ, I proclaim with all the certainty and conviction of my heart—neither are you!”
“You are not forgotten.”
“Sisters (and brothers), wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love. Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!”
We must remember our Heavenly Father as He remembers us. If we are to take upon ourselves the name of Christ we must then remember and love as He does.
I’m going to read another great statement from the article Reflections on the Sacrament Prayers:
“Still, the divine imperative remains: to always remember. As we pursue normal weekday activities, with our conscious minds we must inevitably think of many things other than the Atonement (and this is proper; our faith does not idealize monastic and cloistered virtue). Therefore, if we are to always remember the Lord, we must remember him not simply with our waking consciousness, but also with our unconscious. His law must be written not only in our minds but on the “fleshy tables of the heart.” The sacrament invites us to fix our whole souls upon the Lord and his righteousness.
“If we covenant to always remember, the Lord promises, reciprocally, to always bless us with his Spirit. What a heavenly gift!
“As an aid to our memory, the Holy Spirit can help us fulfill the very condition upon which his presence depends: that we always remember. There is a marvelous spiritual synergism in the economy of heaven: the more we strive to do right, the more we are blessed to do it; the more we have, the more we are given; the more we try to remember, the more the Lord makes available to us that being whose calling it is to “bring all things to your remembrance.”
And finally we covenant to keep God's commandments.
Mosiah 2:41 reads: "And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness."
Of course it sounds easy to keep the commandments, we all know it brings happiness and blessings. Yet we all still struggle with it on a day to day basis. This is a quote by Thomas S. Monson that I like to remember throughout the week when I am tempted. It helps to put our life in a more humbling perspective; "We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that: created in the image of God. We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power."
God wants us to succeed, he wants to bless us, He wants us to keep His commandments. He will help if we remember Him and ask Him. When we come each week to partake of the sacrament we can start new, we can ask over and over again for forgiveness, strength, and guidance. The Lord will never grow tired of us asking for His hand.
Each week we have the opportunity to receive the promised blessing of always having His
Spirit to be with us. When we partake of the sacrament and make these weekly commitments to our Heavenly Father, in return, He renews his promise to us. This gift, of constant companionship with the Spirit, is an amazing gift, one of the greatest gifts we can receive in this life. Remembering this promised blessing will help encourage us to focus on our covenants each week and prepare us to take the sacrament.
Robert D. Hales testifies that: “The sacrament gives us an opportunity to come to ourselves and experience ‘a mighty change’ of heart—to remember who we are and what we most desire. As we renew the covenant to keep the commandments, we obtain the companionship of the Holy Ghost to lead us back into our Heavenly Father’s presence. No wonder we are commanded to ‘meet together oft to partake of [the] bread and [water]’ and to partake of the sacrament to our souls."
We are given a renewal each week, an opportunity to start fresh and try to be better. If we remember the strength that comes with focusing on Christ and the Atonement we will be able to make good choices and be prepared each week to renew our covenants.
