Commitment to the Lord

This is an adaptation of an address I gave to a congregation so as you read it, keep in mind it was written for a specific audience. The ideas are more broadly applicable.

What motivated Abraham to lead his son up the slopes of Mount Moriah, to bind his son on the altar, and to lift that sacrificial knife? He had no idea that the angel would stop him, that the ram was in the thicket, and yet he went anyway.

What motivated Moses to lead the children of Israel through the wilderness when they fought him and disobeyed him and complained at every turn? He never actually got to see the Promised Land and yet he did everything the Lord asked.

What motivated the Ammonites to bury their weapons and to bow in prayer as the Lamanites came and butchered them? They could not have guessed that the hearts of the Lamanites would be turned and that, according to Mormon, “the people of God were joined that day by more than the number who had been slain” (Alma 24.26).

There are lots of things that motivate us. When I was younger, I struggled to be a good home teacher. One night, a member of the elders quorum presidency came to visit. He was very honest with me and told me that one of the families to which I was assigned had been asking where their home teacher was. They needed me. That certainly built a fire under me, but I’ll be honest and say that at least at first, a lot of the fuel for that fire was guilt. And while it was enough to get me to do my duty, I wonder if I would sacrifice my firstborn child or kneel and wait for an enemy sword simply because I felt guilty.

Guilt is not a commitment. Neither is fear. Or peer-pressure. Or culture. At the end of the day, none of these will motivate us to do what the Lord has asked us to do: “For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16.25).

But what is? What can motivate us to give up everything we have — our money, our attention, and especially our time, which is often our most valuable resource these days — to the Lord. What can motivate us to forgive terrible insults, to accept unpopular doctrines, or to serve in that one calling that we hate?

Covenant people, not volunteers.

The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. The simple answer is just this: We are motivated to do everything that the Lord asks when we choose to, instead of letting circumstances force us into it. Lehi calls this “acting” instead of being “acted upon” (see 2 Nephi 2.13–14).

The complicated part of that answer has to do with why we choose to follow the Lord, and how that “why” gives our choice the power to motivate us, to get us out of bed on those days when things look particularly grim, to put a smile on our faces, and to get out there and do the Lord’s work. So let’s talk about that choice and see if doing so helps us understand better our own commitment to the Lord.

Sometimes people say that the the Church of Jesus Christ is a “church of volunteers.” I think initially, this phrase was used to explain that we’re not paid for our ecclesiastical work in the same way clergy from other churches are. More recently, however, I hear it used like this:

“Hi there,” a leader says. “I’d like for you to do this.”

“No,” says the person. “I don’t want to. And after all, this is a church of volunteers and I would never volunteer for that!”

Despite the unpaid status of our clergy, we are not a church of volunteers. Instead, we are a church of covenant makers. This is the choice. Abraham made a covenant with the Lord. So did Moses and the Ammonites.

President Gordon B. Hinkley said, “We are a covenant people. The Lord has said that one reason for the Restoration was that His everlasting covenant might be reestablished….We are a covenant people, and great are the obligations which go with that covenant.”

When we make covenants with the Lord, we choose to act or be a certain way. And while the world may dull our memory of that commitment, it is still there because of our choice.

But again, our fulfillment of those covenants is often complicated. It really is easy forget our choice in the trenches of our daily life. And frankly this is made worse by the ways in which we sometimes talk about and think about our covenants.

Relationships, not transactions.

We tend to talk about covenants in a very transactional way — if I do X, the Lord will do Y — as if we were making a deal at the market. This way of talking about covenants is very common, and while it captures the sense of choice — we choose to enter into the deal — it fails to capture the motive behind that choice in any meaningful way.

 So how should we think about covenants?

The scriptures make it clear that the covenants we make with the Lord are of vital importance, certainly more than a simple handshake or even a signature. So what really are covenants?

I love learning about the scriptures and the ancient cultures that produced them and I was fascinated to learn that many scholars believe that the ancient Israelites saw the world very differently from us. To them, the world was like an island on a sea of chaos and darkness. To them, the covenant that they had made with the Lord was a physical barrier that surrounded the world and protected them from the darkness beyond.

When they sinned, they damaged that barrier and weakened it, threatening to bring in a tidal wave of chaos. In the scriptures, the Day of Atonement ritual described in the book of Leviticus — which is very obviously a foreshadowing of the Atonement of our Savior Jesus Christ — appears to have been designed to renew this cosmic covenant and repair the damage done to the barrier so that light and order could continue to reign.

Now, we obviously don’t see the world this way, but I find the imagery here fascinating: our covenants with the Lord as this encircling barrier, protecting us from evil. In the Book of Mormon, this same imagery shows up again, though in a much more personal way.

Consider these words of Amulek:

“And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal. And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which over powereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance. And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice, and encircles them in the arms of safety, while he that exercises no faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice; therefore only unto him that has faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.” (Alma 34:14–16)

All of the same elements are here, except instead of some impersonal wall holding together the world, we have the Savior’s arms surrounding us in love. Our covenants are not just some deal we make with God. They are an invitation for Him to come and embrace us, to protect us, to love us. A covenant is, in other words, an affirmation that we want to have a relationship with our Heavenly Father, that we love Him, and that want Him in our lives. I love the way Lehi says it: “But behold, (he says) the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.” (2 Nephi 1:15)

Keeping the commandments.

This way of looking at covenants makes our motives crystal clear. We keep the commandments not only because we love Him in some abstract way, but because we know Him, we have an actual relationship to Him, and we are committed to helping him do His work. And by making these covenants, our relationship to Him changes. In fact, our whole purpose in life changes.

King Benjamin makes this clear in this epic sermon to the Nephites:

“And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.” (Mosiah 5.7)

So when we make these covenants with the Lord, we are literally changed. We become the sons and daughters of Christ. We are literally born again. Paul explained to the Galatians how this change should affect us:

“Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all…Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”  (Galatians 4.1, 3–7)

In other words, before we enter into a covenant with our Savior, we are just children, who are no better than servants. But when we make that choice, when we make that covenant, we become joint-heirs with Christ of all the Father has. And with that choice, our lives take on a new purpose.

“But now, after that ye have known God,” Paul says, “how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?”

This is very similar to the words of Alma to the people he is about to baptize in the Waters of Mormon:

“Now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life — Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?” (Mosiah 18.8–10)

In other words, when we make covenants with the Lord, first at baptism, and then each week with the sacrament and on through the temple, we are pulling ourselves deeper into those encircling arms of our Father’s love. We are putting a stake in the ground, declaring to the heavens whose side we are on, declaring that simple obedience is no longer enough, that we want to be active participants in the Lord’s work and His glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men (see Moses 1.39).

Consider the famous words of the Savior: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11.28–30)

Notice that He very clearly does not say that He will take our yoke upon Him. He is inviting us to join Him in doing His work and when we make our covenants, this is exactly what we’re doing. We’re choosing to bind ourselves to Him. We’re stating clearly that we want His work to be our work, not because He needs our help, but because we want to be like Him because we love Him.

Making ourselves remember.

Now this all sounds great and inspiring, but we all know the reality. As I said before, we make our covenants and then the world hits. We make our choice and then we are bombarded with distractions, with confusion, with depression, with everything the devil has to make us forget what we’ve done.

So what do we do? How do we stay in the encircling arms of the Savior? How do we remember what we really want, what we really chose, who we really want to be, when the world around us is so blatantly designed to make us forget?

The answer is that we have to make ourselves remember. We have to consciously and proactively do everything that we can to remember. And luckily, the Lord has given us the tools we need to do so.

Prayer, scripture study, church attendance, service, temple attendance, and so on. These cannot be simple, rote actions that we take mindlessly. We need to cling to these things as though they were life preservers because in reality, they are. If we are not surrounding ourselves with the things of heaven, then the world will make us forget.

But if we do surround ourselves with these things, then we can ever deepen our relationship with our Father and with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For example, when we pray, do we truly seek to know His will and do we go honestly and openly before Him or do we simply rush through the words, saying them only because they’re habit? When we read our scriptures, do we use them as the starting point of a conversation with the Lord about His work in the world, or do we simply read passively, letting the words of the ages waft over us without passing into us?

True commitment to the Lord doesn’t come from blind obedience. That may be a good place to start, as may guilt or fear. But sooner or later, commitment built on these will fall. If we are not seeking every day to deepen our relationship with Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ, then sooner or later our commitment will falter.

“I would that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts,” says King Benjamin, “that ye are not found on the left hand of God, but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called, and also, the name by which he shall call you. For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?”  (Mosiah 5.12–13)

When we have this kind of commitment, founded on our relationship to God, then the storms of life, the struggles, the temptations, the darkness, and even the simple business will break against us.

“Night is nothing more than a shadow,” President Uchtdorf said in the priesthood session of the October 2017 general conference. “Even in the darkest of nights, the sun does not cease to radiate its light..

“When the darkness of night falls, we do not despair and worry that the sun is extinguished. We do not postulate that the sun is not there or is dead. We understand that we are in a shadow, that the earth will continue to rotate, and that eventually the rays of the sun will reach us once again…. In a very similar way, spiritual light continually shines upon all of God’s creation….

“Every time you turn your hearts to God in humble prayer, you experience His light. Every time you seek His word and will in the scriptures, the light grows in brightness. Every time you notice someone in need and sacrifice your own comfort to reach out in love, the light expands and swells. Every time you reject temptation and choose purity, every time you seek or extend forgiveness, every time you courageously testify of truth, the light chases away darkness and attracts others who are also seeking light and truth.”[ii]

The Lord never gives up on us. He is always reaching out to us, always wanting to encircle us in the arms of His love. Each of us who has been baptized has already made the choice to be in those arms. The challenge for us is to remember what we chose and why. As we actively and persistently seek to remember, our relationship with God will grow stronger. His light will become a part of us and will begin to shine through us, and the distractions of the world will fall away. His work will become our work, not out of obligation or guilt, not because of cultural pressure or fear. Because we want His work to be our work. Because that’s what we chose.