God has made a covenant with us that allows us to receive all of His blessings. But as part of that covenant we are required to do certain things. One of the most important covenants we make with God is that of being baptized. When we are baptized we promise God that we will keep His commandments, always remember Christ, and we promise to take upon ourselves the name of Christ. When we do this we are promised a remission of our sins and the Holy Ghost.
We are only asked to do these simple things and in return our Father in Heaven has promised us salvation through His Son. It isn't much that God asks of us for all of these things, but every week we mess up. We break a commandment, we forget about Christ, or we do something that just isn't very Christlike. At this point we have broken our covenant with God and are no longer clean from sin. It would seem at this point that we are lost and that there is no hope for us as humans to live with God. But there is a way that we can remain worthy of the blessings of God.
That way is the Sacrament. Every week as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints we have the importunity to partake bread and water in remembrance of Christ's Atoning sacrifice. When we do this we renew the covenant we make at baptism and become clean from sin.
It took me a long time to see how the Sacrament did this and why it was important to partake of it every week. It wasn't until I was a Priest in the Aaronic Priesthood that I first came to see what the Sacrament really is. When I became a Priest I was given the opportunity to bless the Sacrament on Sundays. Because of years of acting I made sure as I gave the Sacrament Prayer to take my time and to enunciate. People were always telling me thank you for the way I gave the Sacrament Prayers. They were thankful for the time they had to ponder on the words and let them sink in.
I didn't understand what these people meant and so I took a look at the Sacrament Prayer to see why it was so important. It said:
O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen.
As I pondered over the prayers I picked out several promises that we make to God when he partake of the Sacrament. First we remember Christ and His sacrifice. Second we promise to take upon ourselves the name of Christ. Third we promise to keep the commandments. It began to take form in my mind that this was the same promise that I had made when I was baptized and the cool thing was I was receiving the same promise in return from God. I was promised to be cleansed from sin and to receive the Holy Ghost. As I thought about this I thought about how it cool it was and how I could be baptized every week. Ever since then the Sacrament has been very important to me.
Our Heavenly Father wants to give us everything and He is willing to give us everything if we keep his commandments and the covenants that we make with Him. But because we mess up He has provided us with the Sacrament so we can seek to be perfect every week. It is one of the greatest blessings we can have. So I invite everyone to attend a Sacrament Meeting this week at their nearest LDS Chapel and partake of the Sacrament. Feel of the Spirit and learn for yourself and always remember God always keeps His promises.
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