Sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise

Maintain Your Spiritual Credentials Through Faithfulness

Elder Bednar compares spiritual credentials to a passport whose integrity requires ongoing care. Receiving ordinances opens opportunities for eternal blessings, but continued faithfulness matters. He carefully distinguishes covenant-breaking choices from adversities that occur through no fault of our own.

The lesson of this story is quite simple: the integrity of a passport must be maintained over time.

Holding a valid passport provided the opportunity for the man to enter the country, but the passport alone did not guarantee he actually would be allowed to enter the country.

Unlike damage to a physical passport, the adversities and afflictions we experience through no fault of our own do not diminish God’s promises to us or invalidate our covenants.

• Receiving sacred ordinances is essential, but receiving them alone does not guarantee eternal blessings.
• Ongoing covenant faithfulness maintains the integrity of our spiritual credentials.
• The passport analogy has limitations: suffering and adversity do not themselves invalidate covenants.
• A message about covenant responsibility also needs to convey God’s reassurance to those who suffer.

• What experience with travel, identification, or preparation helps you explain the difference between having an opportunity and fulfilling its requirements?
• What everyday practice helps you give continuing attention to your covenants?
• What experience helps you distinguish adversity from personal unfaithfulness?
• How does a difficult season deepen your confidence that God’s promises remain available to you?

Receive Ordinances and Honor Sacred Covenants

Covenants are solemn, enduring commitments between God and His children, with conditions established by Him. Priesthood ordinances have spiritual purpose and eternal significance and teach the nature of these commitments. Honoring covenants aligns our lives with God’s will and brings divine purpose, direction, and strength.

A covenant is a solemn promise—an enduring commitment between God and His sons and daughters.

God establishes the conditions of all gospel covenants, and His children exercise their moral agency to learn about and consent to what He asks them to do.

The covenants and ordinances of the Savior’s restored gospel are spiritual credentials that can open wide the heavenly windows of opportunity to receive in our lives divine purpose, direction, and strength.

Ongoing faithfulness is required for those credentials to be valid and for promised blessings to be received.

• God establishes covenant conditions; His children exercise agency in learning about and accepting them.
• An ordinance is a holy act performed by priesthood authority.
• Ordinances teach us about the covenants we accept.
• Receiving ordinances and making covenants help align our hearts, minds, and lives with God’s will.
• God promises blessings to those who honor their covenants.

• What experience helps you understand a covenant as an enduring commitment rather than a single event?
• How does preparing for baptism or a temple ordinance help you understand what God asks of you?
• What choice to honor a covenant brings greater direction or strength into your life?
• How does your participation in the sacrament help you focus on your relationship with Jesus Christ?

Seek the Holy Spirit of Promise’s Ratifying Seal

The Holy Ghost acts as the Holy Spirit of Promise by confirming righteous acts as acceptable to God. Gospel ordinances and covenants require His ratifying seal to have eternal efficacy. This blessing typically comes over time through sincere repentance, covenant keeping, and yielding our hearts to God.

The Holy Ghost is also described in scripture as the Holy Spirit of Promise, who ratifies or confirms as acceptable to God the righteous acts of His children.

Ultimately, all gospel ordinances and covenants must be sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise.

When sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise, an ordinance, vow, or covenant is binding on earth and in heaven.

Receiving this ratifying sealing by the Holy Ghost typically is not a one-time event; rather, it comes over time as we repent sincerely and consistently, honor our covenants, and yield our hearts unto God.

• The Holy Ghost is a member of the Godhead and a witness of and messenger for the Father and the Son.
• The Holy Spirit of Promise ratifies righteous acts and confirms their acceptability to God.
• The eternal efficacy of ordinances and covenants depends on this ratifying seal.
• This sealing is conditional during mortality and can be forfeited through unrighteousness.
• Consistent repentance and covenant faithfulness matter more than seeking a single dramatic experience.

• What experience helps you appreciate the Holy Ghost’s role in guiding you toward faithful discipleship?
• How does consistent repentance change your heart and your relationship with God?
• What gradual spiritual growth helps you understand the importance of faithfulness over time?
• What practice helps you yield your heart to God when His will differs from your preferences?

Understand Both Dimensions of the Temple Sealing

Elder Bednar describes temple sealing as a crowning covenant and ordinance with two related dimensions. The lateral dimension unites a husband and wife eternally, while the vertical dimension seals them into God’s eternal family and links generations. Both dimensions are vital to understanding the ordinance and its promised blessings.

The sealing of a man and a woman in the house of the Lord is a crowning covenant and ordinance of the Savior’s restored gospel.

The sealing ordinance includes two fundamental and related parts: (1) the eternal union of a man and a woman in marriage—what may be understood as a lateral sealing—and (2) the sealing of the husband and wife into God’s eternal family and the linking of humankind through all generations—what may be understood as a vertical sealing.

Both elements of the ordinance are vital.

The intended and prayed-for outcomes of a temple sealing between a man and a woman include a lifetime of spiritual growth, marital devotion, fidelity, working together to overcome the uncertainties and challenges of mortality, and enduring happiness.

• Temple sealing concerns both marriage and belonging to God’s eternal family.
• The lateral dimension concerns the eternal union of husband and wife.
• The vertical dimension concerns connection to God’s eternal family across generations.
• The intended fruits of sealing include fidelity, spiritual growth, cooperation, and happiness.
• Understanding both dimensions helps clarify the reassurance Elder Bednar offers faithful individuals.

• What experience with temple worship strengthens your sense of belonging to God’s family?
• How does family history work help you appreciate connections across generations?
• What example of marital devotion helps you explain the intended blessings of a temple sealing?
• How does an eternal perspective influence the way you nurture family relationships today?

Trust God’s Promises Despite Another Person’s Choices

Another person’s unrighteous exercise of agency cannot ultimately deprive a faithful disciple of promised eternal blessings. Elder Bednar acknowledges the real sorrow caused by broken covenants while testifying of the Savior’s infinite Atonement. He distinguishes certainty about God’s promises from unanswered questions about precisely how and when those promises are fulfilled.

However, unrighteousness by one person cannot hinder or thwart the flow of God’s love, strength, and blessings to another person.

The power of the Lord’s infinite and eternal Atonement can overcome all things, all the time, everywhere, for every person who holds fast to their covenants with Him.

A faithful spouse who honors covenants and presses forward in faith remains worthy to receive for himself or herself the ratifying seal of the Holy Spirit of Promise for the vertical aspect of the sealing ordinance and to receive all other associated individual blessings.

I do not know and cannot explain precisely how and when promised blessings are received. But I do know promised blessings will be received.

No faithful disciple will ultimately be deprived of any eternal blessing God has promised because of another individual’s unrighteous exercise of moral agency.

• A spouse’s unrighteous choices can cause profound heartache, but cannot cancel God’s promises to a faithful covenant keeper.
• A spouse who violates covenants without repentance relinquishes the opportunity for the ratifying seal for both dimensions of the sealing ordinance.
• A faithful spouse remains worthy of the ratifying seal for the vertical dimension and other associated individual blessings.
• Revealed doctrine does not explain every detail of how or when these blessings come.
• The Savior’s Atonement provides the foundation for confidence in God’s promised blessings.
• King Benjamin teaches that those who remain faithful to the end receive eternal happiness with God.

• What experience helps you trust God when another person’s choices affect your life?
• How does Jesus Christ provide strength or hope when family circumstances differ from your expectations?
• What unanswered question gives you an opportunity to rely on God’s character and promises?
• What experience can you share without exposing another person’s private struggles or assigning blame?
• How does Mosiah 2:41 help you recognize present blessings while trusting God for eternal ones?