Happy New Year! This is a wonderful time of year that can teach us more about hope and faith. Many people celebrate the New Year by making new goals and commitments. For many people, these are goals they’ve set many times but have yet to fulfill these goals. Yet here they are another year setting the same goals. Others have fulfilled their goals and set new ones for the coming year.
Whichever category people find they are in, it still requires faith to set new goals for the New Year. After all what good is a goal or commitment if you don’t hope to succeed. So it is that year after year millions of people exercise faith by setting new goals for a new year.
The first thought that came to my mind as I started contemplating a blog entry for the New Year was the many other times in our lives when we make new commitments and goals. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this takes place on a regular basis. We recognize that we have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. As such we are constantly making new goals and commitments based around our relationship with Him. These new goals and commitments quite often come in the form of covenants (two-way promises in which we covenant to behave in a certain way in order to receive the blessings promised by our Heavenly Father for proper obedience to the laws of Heaven upon which the covenant is based).
The first of these covenants takes place when we are baptized to become disciples of Jesus Christ. At this time we make promises to take upon ourselves His name and live as He lived. This means we promise to succor those in need of help, uplift those how have heavy hearts and minds, care for the poor and the needy, look after widows, and genuinely care for the other members of the human race regardless of their ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, or background. This is how Jesus Christ lived His life, and this is how we promise to live when we are baptized. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the privilege of renewing this covenant and being cleansed of the sins we repent of every week by partaking of the bread and water that represents His sacrament.
Another wonderful opportunity for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to make covenants with our Heavenly Father takes place at the time we go to the temple. At the temple we make sacred covenants with our Heavenly Father again. Many of these covenants direct our lives towards closer discipleship with our Savior Jesus Christ, requiring us to live a life more in accordance with the way He lived His life.
The covenants made in the temple are covenants to live in accordance with celestial laws such as the law of chastity, which serves as a commitment to refrain from any physically intimate relationships unless they are solely between a man and a woman lawfully wed as man and wife. The Family: A Proclamation to the World was issued by the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1995 to proclaim to the world what the sacred celestial laws of chastity include.
Another set of covenants made by male members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes place over the course of many years starting at the age of 12. This sacred oath and covenant is connected with the Holy Priesthood of God. This priesthood gives to those who hold it the power to serve His children in the manner in which God would serve His children. It provides the ability to heal the sick and afflicted, perform in the sacred ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to conduct meetings under the authority and direction of Jesus Christ. Section 84 of The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlines the oath and covenant taken by those who hold this priesthood, while several other sections of the same book of scripture outline the various duties of the offices of this priesthood.
There are many other opportunities for covenants with God. At the same time, there are an infinite number of opportunities for people to make commitments and goals. Whatever the covenant, commitment, or goal is that you are making, there is an important thing to remember: it is always best to include the Savior Jesus Christ. If you are making goals that don’t align with righteous desires, such as a goal to steal from a bank or break the laws of chastity, you won’t be able to get His help. But in all other cases, Jesus stands ready to assist you in the goals and commitments you make.
You may find you are required to struggle through difficult times before He steps in to help you. You may find failure confronts you many times before your faith brings you the help from Heaven that you need to finally succeed. You may find God allows things to get worse before He finally steps in to bring you the aid you need. After all, Jesus didn’t come to His disciples upon the sea until after they had struggled all night. But He will come and He will give you the aid you need. You may count on that.
So as you make your new commitments and goals for the year, or renew your old ones from last year, remember to include Jesus Christ. You need His help in order to increase your chances of success. And remember to practice faith until you succeed. If you do these things, you will find success in whatever goal you set, just so long as it doesn’t violate celestial laws.
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