Bound to Christ by Covenant

In my physics classes, sometimes we discuss paradoxes. These are situations that seem contradictory or nonsensical at first, but reveal something true when examined more deeply. I love a good paradox! Today, I’ll talk about a paradox from the gospel of Jesus Christ: we put constraints on ourselves through the covenants that we make with Heavenly Father, but they give us more freedom and ability to do what He asks. The Savior summed this idea up when he said, “Take my yoke upon you. … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” [1]

At first glance, it makes hardly any sense to believe that constraining ourselves could bring freedom, and there are several scriptural examples of people who didn’t believe that this could be true. In Lehi’s dream of the tree of life, those in the great and spacious building mocked those people who were pressing forward while continually holding fast to the rod of iron. [2] Korihor came at this idea from the same angle while preaching that there would be no Christ: “O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.” [3]

It’s tempting to believe, like Korihor taught, that following Christ binds us down, restricting us from being our best selves. However, the truth is that our covenants bring us real liberty, and today I’d like to illustrate three ways that this can be true:

Our covenants bring us:

• Power
• Protection
• Purpose

God can give us power as we keep our covenants, allowing us to do things and to become people that we otherwise couldn’t.

To illustrate this, I want to share an analogy. I’ll show you a short video in a minute. First, imagine this with me in the garden of your mind. Are you ready? On the green, rugged hillsides of the Lake District in England, helicopters from the Great North Air Ambulance Service are ready to help hikers in distress. First responders often hike to assess the condition of injured hikers and assist with first aid, deciding whether a helicopter should be called in to give support. In the scenario we’re imagining, it’s a practice operation, with a 10-year-old actor playing the part of an injured hiker high up on the hillside. It will take 25 minutes for a first responder to hike to the location of the person from the bottom of the hill and assess their injury. An ambulance pulls up to the trailhead, and a rescuer exits the vehicle. Here’s where it gets interesting: he starts strapping himself into a heavy, 80-pound pack (that’s 36 kilograms for my fellow fans of the metric system).

Don’t you feel like walking over to the ambulance and asking the guy, “Why do you yoke yourself down with such a foolish, heavy pack? Wouldn’t you be better off leaving it behind and climbing up to the injured person without such a heavy load?”

Well, he might reply that the 80-pound pack includes 20 pounds of jet fuel. You see, this is JetMed1, and the pack that he’s strapped into is a jet pack with five powerful jet engines. Over the whine of the jet turbines getting up to speed, he radios to the search and rescue crew that he’s taking off. The grass below him bends away from the downdraft and he lifts off and hovers about ten feet off the ground. That walk to the injured hiker, instead of taking 25 minutes, is turned into a flight up the side of the moor and it takes him less than two minutes to get to the person and start evaluating their injury—more than 10 times faster than walking!

The jet pack in this story is like the power that the Savior offers you as you make covenants with Him. Like the straps of the jet pack, the covenants you make bind you securely to Him, the most uplifting person to have ever lived, and He can help you get to places where you otherwise couldn’t go. I quite like this specific example because the jet pack is used to go and help others. The Savior helps us through our own trials so that we can find others who need help to get through theirs.

Referring to kites instead of jet packs, President Dallin H. Oaks said, “That essential string represents the covenants that connect us to God, our Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ. As we honor those covenants by keeping Their commandments and following Their plan of redemption, Their promised blessings enable us to soar to celestial heights.” [4]

I have a more mundane example for you, as well. My wife, Bryanna, and I love to hike in the Teton mountain range, and we do it year-round—even when the winter weather here makes it tempting to stay inside. Sometimes we are headed high enough on a mountain, where the snow is so soft and so deep that it would be difficult or impossible to travel wearing just boots. When we go somewhere like that, we bring snowshoes. Snowshoes don’t let you fly like a jetpack would, but they represent another great analogy of the Savior supporting us. As you look at this photo, please note that they literally let you walk on water! Before you accuse me of overselling this, I admit that yes, it’s frozen water, and of course it’s easier to have faith to walk on snow with snowshoes than it is to have faith to walk on the Sea of Galilee.

Sometimes, when Bryanna and I are in the parking lot strapping snowshoes onto our packs, I’ve seen people looking at us as we add this extra weight to our packs. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but some of them might be asking themselves why we yoke ourselves down with such foolish things. Why add weight to our packs? Snowshoes can be awkward to walk in, they are heavy on your feet, and they can be uncomfortable. But on snowshoes you can walk on water to places that I would describe as indescribably beautiful. It’s the same way with our covenants. They don’t always feel convenient or comfortable, and they might even seem to add challenges, but Christ is the only way to make it to our own promised land where we can have all that the Father has.

Not every constraint on us is helpful. The devil does what he can to convince us that real freedom looks like making choices with no thought for the consequences. In reality, some poor decisions we make will limit our future freedom, perhaps allowing ourselves to be bound down with what Lehi referred to as “awful chains.” [5] When we do find ourselves in that situation, the Savior offers us help in breaking those bonds [6] so that we can bind ourselves to Him instead, take His yoke upon us, and let Him share our load. Lehi said it so clearly: “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.” [7]

It’s a stark choice: If we want the power that God offers us through the Savior, we need to make and keep the covenants that They offer us.

Another blessing our covenants bring us is protection.

I told you that Bryanna and I love to hike. Let me tell you a story about one memorable hike and the misery that followed. It was a lovely, sunny June day, and we thought we might find patches of snow in the mountains where we were hiking. But we didn’t bring sunscreen, and there was a snowfield that stretched for miles that we had to cross on our way up the mountain and again on our way down. We found out the hard way how much the reflected June sun would burn our exposed faces and necks from below. We were in agony for days afterward as our skin blistered and peeled. It’s an experience I never want to have again. The sunscreen, which we have never forgotten since, is like our covenants with Jesus Christ. Covenants protect us when we encounter spiritual danger, even unexpected danger.

President Russell M. Nelson taught:

Each covenant we make with the Savior involves outward promises we make in front of witnesses, which strengthens our inner commitment to Him. The covenants we make with God require specific commitments and come with promised blessings when we obey them. One theme of the scriptures is that the promises of God are sure. Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 says “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” [9] So, our covenants’ constraint goes both ways; if we fulfill our part, God is bound to fulfill His promises to us.

One of the trickiest questions I’ve ever wrestled with is, “What should I be doing with my life?” Many of you are at a crossroads where small decisions now could make profound differences in your future life. Our covenants also offer us purpose as we go through life. If you are hoping for a meaningful life, I promise you that there is nothing more meaningful than being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Through covenants, we sign ourselves up for the most fulfilling challenges available anywhere.

President Dallin H. Oaks was recently asked what message he would give to the rising generation. His response was, “You have a Heavenly Father who loves you. He’s provided a plan for you, and it’s best in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where we have an explanation for the purpose of life, challenges, and activities that lead you along what we call the covenant path to a heavenly destiny. Trust in the Lord. Come and enjoy His blessings with us.” [10]

Now, I’d like to list some specific challenges that we might encounter on our path of discipleship. I compiled this list while reading the messages from the April 2026 General Conference looking for the invitations given to us there. I pared it down from 40 to 10. (You’re welcome!) If you can, get out your phone right now. My invitation today is to pick one of these challenges that we could focus on individually over the next weeks and months and then text it to a trusted friend or a family member so they can see what we’re going to work on and, perhaps, follow up with us about it.

• Accept a calling in the Church.
• Get to know and love the people we are assigned to minister to.
• Examine our traditions and weed out any that are contrary to the gospel.
• Watch for and help people around us that are carrying burdens (grief, illness, conflict, loneliness, anxiety, or unanswered prayers).
• Carefully monitor what we pay attention to and turn away from things that can’t satisfy our soul.
• Personally prepare to take the sacrament each week.
• Work to change habits, ambitions, or comforts that pull our hearts away from people around us.
• Love our enemies.
• Ponder the names of the Savior and how they relate to us personally.
• Prepare for an eternal marriage or nurture our marriage if we’ve been sealed in the temple.

If you’re single, be careful about texting that last one to your mom. She might jump to conclusions!

Some of the challenges on this list are more inconvenient than others. President Oaks’s invitation to love our enemies (or adversaries) might be the most challenging invitation I mentioned. Forgiving someone when they’ve done something to hurt us doesn’t mean we believe that their actions were justified, but it does allow us to continue to heal and move on. Forgiving someone is a healthier way to deal with the pain that we’ve experienced than ruminating on that pain.

For fans of true crime, here’s a personal story related to forgiving our enemies. I love riding bikes. I love the feeling of riding on my own power wherever I want to go. I love the challenging physics involved as well, but I won’t subject you to that today. The first bike I ever bought was a forest green mountain bike that I got when I was about 14 years old. I rode it every day. One day, I took it to a youth activity and parked it outside our church building. When the activity ended, I went outside and saw that someone had stolen that beautiful, green bike. I felt gutted. I don’t remember if I cried, but I probably did. I could not understand why anyone would do something that hurt me like that, and I remember being so angry as I slowly walked home from the church that night. I try not to make enemies, but during that bitter walk home, I’m sure I considered that thief my enemy.

I told my friends to keep their eye out for my stolen bike. Weeks later, I got a knock on my door. Two of my older sister’s friends had seen their neighbor riding a bike that matched my description. When they followed him home and confronted him about it, he admitted that he had taken it. They gave me my bike and revealed the identity of the thief. He was someone I knew. He was a member of the church, and I was friends with his little sister. Even though I was relieved and happy to have my bike back, I was still angry with him. Not long after, there was another knock on my door. I opened it to find the thief—my enemy—on the doorstep. He seemed nervous—even on the verge of tears; he said he was sorry and asked me not to call the police. I don’t remember if I had even considered doing that, but I told him that I wouldn’t report it to the police. Then, I was surprised to hear myself say that I forgave him and I was even more surprised to feel like I meant it. He seemed relieved, thanked me, and left. I don’t remember ever talking to him again. I’m convinced that God gave me the help I needed to frankly forgive this person who had caused me so much grief. I promise you that He will also provide a way for you to accomplish whatever He asks of you.

Here’s a twist ending to my bike story: five years later, while I was a student here at Ricks College, I learned that the guy who stole my bike had died. He was only 20 years old. I remember feeling profound relief that I had been able to forgive him when he had asked me to; I didn’t have any regrets or doubts about the way I had responded to his apology.

One tragic story that President Jeffrey R. Holland shared involved a person from St. George, Utah—his hometown—who had been bullied as a youth and had made some decisions that made his later life difficult, including that he had stopped going to church. After moving away from St. George, he had found the importance of the gospel in his life, come back to church, and started a family. However, when he moved back to St. George, the people who had grown up with him seemed unable or unwilling to let the past go and give him a second chance. He ended up moving away again and, tragically, dying young.

President Holland said, “When a battered, weary swimmer tries valiantly to get back to shore, after having fought strong winds and rough waves which he should never have challenged in the first place, those of us who might have had better judgment, or perhaps just better luck, ought not to row out to his side, beat him with our oars, and shove his head back underwater. That’s not what boats were made for.” [11]

I’d like to add: that’s not what jet packs were made for, either.

Even when His invitations are simple, Jesus Christ doesn’t ask us to do easy things. The good news of the gospel, though, is that He does give us the power to accomplish anything He expects us to do. The Savior said it clearly to the people of Alma when they were in bondage: “Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.” [12]

Life isn’t meant to be easy—it’s meant to convert us into the people that God wants us to become. [13] We can also help others as they choose to follow the Savior and receive liberty and eternal life through making and keeping covenants. Each challenge we overcome can make us better able to help others now and in the future.

You are so great, and the Lord has made wonderful promises to you. I’m excited to think of the adventures you’ll have. So, grab your jet pack or your snowshoes and strap in for a lifetime of fulfilling adventure. Let’s covenant to follow the Savior and to help people the way He would. I testify that as we do, he’ll be there to help us and to help those we love. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Notes

[1] Matthew 11:29-30.

[2] 1 Nephi 8:26-30.

[3] Alma 30:13.

[4] Dallin H. Oaks, “Following Christ,” Liahona, Nov. 2024, 24.

[5] 2 Nephi 1:13.

[6] See Psalm 2:3.

[7] 2 Nephi 2:27.

[8] Russell M. Nelson, “Prepare for the Blessings of the Temple,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2010, 49.

[9] Doctrine and Covenants 82:10.

[10] Dallin H. Oaks, “Thoughts for the Rising Generation,” YouTube Shorts, Oct. 19, 2025, https://youtube.com/shorts/Km78mQcFmE8?si=XavIACKabIV0m2d5.

[11] Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Robe, a Ring, and a Fatted Calf” (Brigham Young University devotional, Jan. 31,1984), speeches.byu.edu.

[12] Mosiah 24:13.

[13] See Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Ensign, Nov. 2000.

About Jon Paul Johnson

Jon Paul Johnson was born in Provo, Utah and grew up in Paradise and Sandy, Utah. He earned an associate degree in engineering technology from Ricks College, a bachelor’s degree in physics from Brigham Young University, and a PhD in physics from the University of Utah. He has been a member of the physics faculty at BYU-Idaho since 2010.

Brother Johnson served in the Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission and has held a variety of Church callings. He currently serves as bishop.

Brother Johnson met his wife, Bryanna, while they were students at BYU. The first time they met, he was picking her roommate up for a date. Together, they have three children. As a family, they enjoy spending time outdoors, especially hiking, golfing and rock climbing.