undefined undefined Come Take Your Place as Covenant Women
Transcript

Sisters, please recall with me President Russell M. Nelson’s prophetic direction concerning our identity. He said, first, we are daughters of God.

Second, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are children of the covenant. And third, we are disciples of Jesus Christ.

The first and President Nelson said the most important identifier is one possessed of all people. We are all daughters and sons of Heavenly Parents.

The second and third identifiers are ones we choose.

We choose to make covenants with God at baptism and in the house of the Lord and become covenant women.

We choose to be disciples of Jesus Christ in following

the Savior's example. His disciples stand in holy places and are not moved.

Let's spend our time together this evening focused on what it means to be a child of the covenant. What does it look like? How does it feel? And importantly, what are the blessings associated with being a covenant daughter of God? Sisters, come take your place as covenant women.

Like Eve, we entered the covenant path at baptism.

Of course, a covenant is a promise with God, but it is not a transactional promise. I’ll pay you $50 if you give me a haircut. My hair will grow out.

Instead, think of our covenant promises as transformational.

At baptism, we witness our willingness to take the Savior's name upon us, and we promise to serve God and keep His commandments.

And in return, He promises His Spirit will always be with us.

The promised blessing is not of short duration or limited. It is everlasting.

His Spirit will always be with us. It will transform us.

President Nelson has explained, “Once we make a covenant with God, we leave neutral ground forever.

God will not abandon His relationship with those who have forged such a bond with Him. Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us.

Each of us has a special place in God's heart. He has high hopes for us.

Every man and every woman who participates in priesthood ordinances and makes and keeps covenants with God has direct access to the power of God.”

Sisters, this direct access to the power of God is a gift which He generously shares with His children. His divine power flows to all those who make and keep priesthood covenants.

We move forward on the covenant path, strengthening and deepening our relationship with God, when we make covenants in the house of the Lord, an essential and glorious part of our journey back home.

President Nelson has declared, “Those who are endowed in the house of the Lord receive a gift of God's priesthood power by virtue of their covenants. The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God’s power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood.” The blessings of keeping our temple covenants include love and merciful patience; learning how to ask for God’s angels to attend us; learning how to better receive direction from heaven; power that strengthens us to withstand our trials, temptations, and heartaches better; and power that eases our way.

Sisters, that is precisely what we need.

Remember, we must never disconnect the power from its source. This priesthood power is God's power.

God blesses those who keep priesthood covenants with extra strength and guidance, as promised in their covenant.

It is not about me having power. It is about Him having power. I am a redeemed soul whom the Savior is changing and working through.

I am ordinary Camille Johnson, but when I keep my covenants,

God blesses me. My spiritual gifts and attributes are amplified and I am strengthened to fulfill my responsibilities as wife, mother, grandmother, sister, daughter, friend, and General Relief Society President.

Sisters, each of us has the opportunity to make sacred covenants with the very God of heaven.

We make these covenants as we participate in priesthood ordinances, and as we keep these covenants, He blesses us with His power.

What is this power which flows from keeping the covenants we make through priesthood ordinances look like in your day-to-day life? How does a covenant woman draw upon this divine power?

I hope a personal example will be of help to you as you do these spiritually invigorating work to learn for yourself what it means to be endowed with God's power.

On April 3, I received a text message from my daughter-in-law, Amy:

“Say a prayer for Dot.” Dorothy, named after my mom and affectionately known as Dot or Dottie,

hadn't slept the night before.

Amy had been up all night with her, and my son Connor was traveling for work and not scheduled to be home with them for another two days.

Amy said Dottie was feverish. She'd taken the pajamas off of her in the night and given her ibuprofen, but she was hot and restless.

When the light of morning finally arrived, Amy found Dottie's lips blue.

Her hands were likewise blue and cold to the touch.

Amy immediately had the impression: Get Dottie straight to the pediatrician.

Without hesitation, she heeded that prompting and loaded Dottie and four year old Goldie into the car.

She called the pediatrician's office and was assured they would get Dottie right in.

The pediatrician's office is only five minutes from their home and across the street from my mom's house.

Amy felt impressed to just pull down the lane and found my mom working in her yard and happy to take Goldie while Amy took Dottie to the pediatrician.

It was an answer to Amy's concern about having to keep track of Goldie and attending to Dottie at the same time.

The pediatrician promptly excused himself from seeing other patients and attended to Dottie, who had pneumonia, likely from aspirating on bathwater a few days earlier.

Dottie was treated with antibiotics and spent the rest of the day in her mother’s arms, elevated to open her airways and ease her breathing, avoiding emergency hospitalization.

I was little help that day as I was involved in preparation for meetings around general conference. My mom, Amy’s mom, my daughter-in-law Lexi, they all helped Goldie during the day so that Amy could attend to sick little Dottie.

I offered to pick up some dinner on my way home and Amy let me, for which I was grateful.

I wonder how Amy had managed a sleepless night, the stress of a very sick toddler, the worry as she held her elevated all day, the need to attend to Goldie.

I walked in their home with the sack of takeout food and found Amy and the girls peaceful. There was a spring in Amy's step and light in her countenance. She was calm, even facing another night alone with sick Dottie.

She wasn't afraid. She was confident. It was a peace that defied understanding.

I really just wanted to sit in the moment and soak it in.

Amy strives to keep her covenants with God and is blessed by His strengthening power.

The Spirit had prompted her to take the action she did to care for Dottie and attend to Goldie, and the Lord's power enhanced her capacity to address her family's needs in patience and love and with a calm reassurance that all would be well.

Even her response to Connor’s text—“I feel terrible I’m gone”—was composed and confident. Amy wrote back, “Don’t feel bad. Because of your work, we’re able to get the proper care Dottie needs.”

Sisters, this is the blessing of God's covenant power. It sits with us. It transforms us. It strengthens us. It calms us, gives us confidence, brings us peace, and increases our capacity to fulfill our divinely appointed responsibilities as women. Being covenant women is liberating, not limiting.

My dear young women and women, I invite you to keep the baptismal covenants you have made. Let the covenant relationship transform you as you are blessed by receptivity to the Spirit and the capacity to receive personal revelation.

I invite you to prepare to make additional covenants in the house of the Lord, being endowed with His power.

If you have already made covenants there, be diligent in keeping them and stay recommended to the Lord with a current temple recommend.

Worship in the temple, performing baptisms and initiatory and endowment ordinances.

Time in the temple will help us catch a vision of what it means to be covenant women.

In His counsel to Emma Smith and all of us, the Lord said, “Lift up thy heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made.”

When we cleave to our covenants, we hold fast to the promises we have made, and we remain faithful to God, who always keeps His promises.

I love you, dear sisters. I know that the blessings of a covenant relationship are available to us because of the Savior's atoning sacrifice.

It is because of Jesus Christ and His infinite atonement that our Heavenly Father can fulfill His promises to each of us, His covenant daughters and sons.

I testify that Jesus is the Christ in His sacred name, amen.

Come Take Your Place as Covenant Women

Description
President Camille N. Johnson teaches at the 2024 BYU Women’s Conference what it means to have a covenant relationship with God.
Tags

Related Collections