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Preserving Our Relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ

By Tracy Y. Browning

Second Counselor in the General Primary Presidency

We can work to preserve our relationship with Them to stand strong in this world.

Not too long ago, while reading the scriptures, I came across the word preserve, and it struck me in a way that I hadn’t recognized previously. A small seed was planted in my mind. Subsequently, I felt like I was encountering this word everywhere.

I felt the Spirit invite me to contemplate three questions:

What does it mean to preserve something?
What am I trying to preserve in my life?
What are the observable steps I’m taking toward that preservation?

Question 1 led me, predictably, to the dictionary to look up preserve. I love the language that I found there. It helped me visualize the purpose of preservation. I learned, for example, that to preserve means:

To keep safe from injury or harm
To protect, to keep alive or intact
To safeguard, secure, defend, shelter, shield, and give sanctuary

Ultimately, this exercise clearly highlighted a few things for me:

Our desire to preserve something indicates its value in our lives.
We want to preserve these precious things because we know they are susceptible to harm, decay, erosion, or even destruction.
Just wanting to preserve something isn’t enough. We have to take observable steps to protect the things we value and to prevent any harmful corruption.

With this understanding, I was able to discern what the Spirit of the Lord was trying to tell me. He wanted me to assess, before all else, how I can preserve my faith in Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ and my relationship with Them.

This singular question called on me to apply all that I was learning about preservation to my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the covenants that I’ve made with Them. It led me to determine whether I had placed Them in the prevailing position on my personal list of values, allowing everything else in my life to flow from that most important relationship.

Their place in our lives helps us safeguard all our other relationships. Preserving our relationship with Jesus Christ helps us know how to apply righteous virtues in our pursuit of divine kinship with all of God’s children, making those values more Christ-centered.

I have also come to recognize that just as God asks us to place Him first in our lives, He does the same for me, you, and all of His children. In His own voice, God said, “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (Moses 1:39).”

In this and other scriptures (see 2 Nephi 29:9), God tells us that His top priority is us, His children. He wants us to share in His glory, to have the joy we were created to have (see 2 Nephi 2:25), and to obtain “eternal life, ... the greatest of all the gifts of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 14:7). In His Intercessory Prayer, Jesus said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

As I consider the observable steps God takes to preserve His relationship with me, I can discern a pattern that teaches me how I can preserve my relationship, reciprocally, with Him.

Four Ways God Works to Preserve His Relationship with Us

God Sent Us His Son, Jesus Christ, to Atone for Us

A loving and wise Father sent us Jesus Christ to redeem us from the effects of sin, ensuring that we would not be left in a perpetual state of estrangement from God. Instead, through our Savior’s gift of divine mercy, we are all unconditionally granted immortality and a return to the presence of God to be judged (see 2 Nephi 2:5–10; Helaman 14:15–17). In the Garden of Gethsemane and at Calvary, He used His power, given to Him by the Father (see Helaman 5:11), to suffer “for all, that [we] might not suffer if [we] would repent” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16). Then He hung upon that tree and laid down His life—for us (see 1 Peter 2:24).

What, then, would we do to preserve a relationship with Him, who so powerfully demonstrated what He was willing to do for us?

Will we more fully be His devoted disciples?
Will we more fully take His name upon us?
Will we be more accountable and repent when we fall short?
Will we nourish our testimonies?

God Has Sent His Word through Scriptures and Modern-day Prophets and Apostles

Another clear sign of how much God values us is that He gives us the preserving, protecting power of His word. As Nephi promised:

“Whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, ... would never perish; neither could the temptations ... of the adversary overpower them ..., to lead them away to destruction” (1 Nephi 15:24).

God delivers His living words to us through scriptural testaments but also by the mouths of living prophets and apostles. The Church of Jesus Christ has leaders chosen by Him and given the power and authority to declare His will to His people.

God’s word can cut through any of our natural inclination toward worldly “culture, habits, biases, preconceptions, and doubts.”¹ His word can speak directly “to the innermost part” of our hearts, regardless of our level of righteousness.² “God’s word can separate truth from error” and help us recognize and eliminate from our thinking any false teachings that could cloud our reasoning and understanding “by setting them up against God’s plain and precious truths.”³

What, then, can we do to preserve our faith in God’s words, as received through the scriptures and His chosen prophets and apostles?

Will we more intentionally “hearken” to their teachings?
Will we “hold fast” to God’s word when temptations, trials, or challenges come, so that we aren’t overpowered?

God Has Offered a Deepened Relationship and Salvation through Covenants with Him

The most important promises we make with God are the ones we make through covenants. These sacred agreements are the way God has worked with His children since the beginning of time. We see God show His commitment to His covenant children very early in the scriptures—beginning in the book of Genesis (see Genesis 6:18)—and continuing throughout scriptural history. Making and keeping covenants can be a powerful guide in the choices we make.

These “great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4) are associated with ordinances and covenants we make with God the Father through His Son, Jesus Christ. And God asks us to partake in them so that He can preserve us from the corruption in the world.

What, then, can we do to preserve our relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as we seek to honor our covenants with Them?

Will we seek more joy in being unified with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ through covenants?
Will we partake of the Lord’s sacrament in remembrance and renewal of our covenants?
Will we prepare ourselves to enter the house of the Lord and enjoy the covenants offered there?
Will we then return to the temple regularly?

God Sent the Holy Ghost to Be with Us

The Holy Ghost is the source of personal testimony and revelation. He can guide us in our decisions and protect us from physical and spiritual danger. Through His power we are sanctified—or set apart, or made holy—as we repent (see 3 Nephi 27:20), receive saving ordinances, and keep our covenants.

During the Savior’s Last Supper with His Apostles, as they felt concerned about their path forward (see John 14:5), Jesus gave them this promise:

“The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26).

That promise is extended to you and me as well.

What, then, can we do to preserve the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, the third member of the Godhead, so that we can receive the promised physical and spiritual protection?

Will we pray for the inspiration to know what God wants us to do and for the power and capacity to do it?
Will we better follow the spiritual promptings we receive in a way that will allow God’s voice to prevail in our lives?
Will we, with increasing sincerity and intention, seek the Spirit’s confirming witness of God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, of the truths of the gospel, and of the saving ordinances found only in the Savior’s Church?

My friends, I testify to you that God is always trying to talk to you—even when you are unable to perceive it. Most often He is trying to tell you that He loves you and that you are His priority. He has provided and will continue to provide many countless ways to demonstrate our value and priority. Let us joyfully return His love by making Him the prevailing priority in our lives. And then let us preserve that relationship by following Him faithfully as His disciples: holding fast to His word, making and keeping covenants with Him, and seeking the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

I testify that Jesus Christ is the living Son of God and that He willingly laid down His life to save ours and to offer us God’s greatest gift: eternal life. You are His work and His glory.