Covenant Marriage

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 President Joseph Fielding Smith prayed that we might have the spirit of love and peace in our homes, and he prayed that fathers and sons would work together in love and in the priesthood (Smith, 1970).

The spirit of love and peace can be in our homes, our homes can be like the holy temples that are placed into our lives, if we seek the Lord’s guidance and strive to follow our temple covenants.  To find this love and peace we must be willing to have covenant marriages, in which each spouse gives 100%, unlike contractual marriages where each spouse is expected to give 50% (Hafen, 1996).

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Elder Bruce C. Hafen talks about “wolves” that attempt to attack our marriage. He names three: natural adversity, an individual’s own imperfections, and excessive individualism.

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Natural adversity comes from life, it includes things like not being able to have children, miscarriage, loss of jobs, loss of health, being poor, and more. The imperfections each of us have can allow us to beat ourselves up if we are not perfect, they can also cause us to beat up our spouses (mentally) for their imperfections. Finally, excessive individualism is a tool that Satan is using today to make people feel like they don’t need anyone else and that they don’t need to please anyone except for themselves. These are things we must fight against. We can lean on our own spouses, church leaders, the words of the prophets, scripture, and the Lord Himself for help in beating these wolves.

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If we can successfully over come the adversities of marriage and keep our temple covenants we will be given the chance to enter the Celestial Kingdom. A place where we can prepare for this is in the temples mentioned earlier. President Ezra Taft Benson shares some amazing things we can gain from attending the temple regularly, the following are his words:

• You will receive the spirit of Elijah, which will turn your hearts to your spouse, to your children, and to your forebears.
• You will love your family with a deeper love than you have loved before.
• Your hearts will be turned to your fathers and theirs to you.
• You will be endowed with power from on high as the Lord has promised.
• You will receive the key of the knowledge of God. (See D&C 84:19.) You will learn how you can be like Him.
• Even the power of godliness will be manifest to you. (See D&C 84:20.)
• You will be doing a great service to those who have passed to the other side of the veil in order that they might be “judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (D&C 138:34.)

Such are the blessings of the temple and the blessings of frequently attending the temple” (Benson, 1986).

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I pray that I will find the time in my life to experience these blessings, and I hope that you will too.

References:

Benson, E. (1986). What I Hope You Would Teach Your Children About The Temple. Liahona, April, 1986.

Hafen, B. (1996). Covenant Marriage. Ensign, Nov 1996, p. 26.

Smith, J. (June, 1970). The Fulness of the Priesthood. Improvement Era, p. 65-66, or Conference Report, April 1970, pp. 58-60.