“Living a Consecrated Life,” Ensign, August 2017
Visiting Teaching Message
Living a Consecrated Life
Prayerfully study this material and seek for inspiration to know what to share. How will understanding the purpose of Relief Society prepare daughters of God for the blessings of eternal life?
“To consecrate is to set apart or dedicate something as sacred, devoted to holy purposes,” said Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “True success in this life comes in consecrating our lives—that is, our time and choices—to God’s purposes.”1
Elder Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “We tend to think of consecration only as yielding up, when divinely directed, our material possessions. But ultimate consecration is the yielding up of oneself to God.”2
As we consecrate ourselves to the purposes of God, our faith in Jesus Christ and in His Atonement will increase. As we live a consecrated life, we can be made holy through those actions.
Carole M. Stephens, former First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, said:
“Elder Robert D. Hales taught, ‘When we make and keep covenants, we are coming out of the world and into the kingdom of God.’
“We are changed. We look different, and we act different. The things we listen to and read and say are different, and what we wear is different because we become daughters of God bound to Him by covenant.”3
Consecration is the covenant God makes “with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). Living a consecrated life is in harmony with God’s plan for us.
Additional Scriptures and Information
1 Thessalonians 1:3; Doctrine and Covenants 105:5; reliefsociety.lds.org
Faith, Family, Relief