REXBURG—In the last devotional of BYU-Idaho's Spring Semester, the devotional speaker encouraged students to find meaning in their covenants through Christ.
Jon Paul Johnson, a physics professor at BYU-Idaho, loves hiking and snowshoeing with his wife, Bryanna. Oftentimes hikers will have to carry their snowshoes on their packs, adding more weight. However, this burden allows hikers to go farther up the snowy mountain where boots would only sink.
“I try to make the point that I feel like covenants are that way too,” Johnson said in a BYU-Idaho Radio interview. “You know, Jesus says, ‘My yoke is easy, my burden is light.’”
Students may consider at times covenants to be restricting and burdensome like the weight of snowshoes on a hike. However, Johnson reminds students how covenants with Christ increase their abilities and strengthen them.
“The truth is that our covenants bring us real liberty,” Johnson said.
In his devotional address, Johnson taught that covenants can bless the lives of disciples of Jesus with power, protection and purpose. It is only through keeping covenants that students can access His power.
“If you keep your covenants and your relationship to the Savior central to your decision-making and the way you view the world, you will see things in a way that help you make better decisions and help you to have more freedom ultimately,” Johnson said in the interview.
It can be difficult to live a covenant life, but each person can look for ways to increase their discipleship to Christ. One of the ways students can work on this is through Johnson’s list of challenges given during the devotional.
- Accept a calling in the Church.
- Get to know and love the people we are assigned to minister to.
- Examine your traditions and weed out any that are contrary to the gospel.
- Watch for and help people around you that are carrying burdens
- Carefully monitor what you pay attention to and turn away from things that can’t satisfy your soul.
- Personally prepare to take the sacrament each week.
- Work to change habits, ambitions, or comforts that pull your heart away from people around you.
- Love your enemies.
- Ponder the names of the Savior and how they relate to you personally.
- Prepare for an eternal marriage or nurture your marriage if you’ve been sealed in the temple.
“Each challenge we overcome can make us better able to help others now and, in the future,” Johnson said.