The Importance of Covenants

As I was teaching the Laurels today about exaltation and the necessary covenants we need to make to gain it, I had a thought concerning temple work that I shared with them. We all know, or hopefully understand, that in order to live with our Heavenly Father again, there are ordinances and covenants we need to make. Those include baptism, confirmation, initiatory, endowment, and then temple marriage. Of course, when all those are completed we still have to live righteously and endure to the end. But what struck me during my lesson was the importance of each of those covenants.

Anyone who has done temple work can testify that it takes time. Why? Because one has to do every ordinance for each person. Proxies are needed for baptism, confirmation, initiatory, endowment, and marriage sealing for each person. Not to mention if they had children one needs to also do proxy sealings of their children. Since most of us don't have days to dedicate solely to temple work, it can take months or years to get it done for one individual. It's a big, timely, but rewarding undertaking.

As I reflected on this I thought about how each ordinance and covenant must be performed for the dead. There is no lumping it all together into a short ceremony to make it easier and faster because the person is dead. Each individual step is crucial to obtaining exaltation on many levels. Knowledge is gained, promises made, and blessings given with every covenant made. The proper order must be followed for the path back to the Savior to be completed. Nothing can be skipped.

Thinking about temple work for the dead put the covenants the living make in a new perspective. It helped me to better understand the importance and significance of each covenant we make. One cannot stop at baptism and assume exaltation awaits. One cannot call it quits at any point along the way. And since we are living, one also has to live worthy of those covenants throughout his whole life. If they are so sacred that we take the time to perform each one for the dead, then these covenants are equally important to us and must be treated as such. There is an order to all things and when we follow that order, we, like those for whom we work in the temple, will gain all the blessings the Lord has in store for us. There are no shortcuts to exhaltation for anyone.