Lessons on the Temple
Lesson No. One
Blessings of Temple Preparation and Regular Temple Worship
Preparation is essential – We have instructed many people who are about to receive their own endowment. We can tell the difference between those who are prepared and those who are not. Preparation makes a great difference in the experience a person has the first time they come to the temple. Also, preparation often determines how a person feels about the temple in the future.
President Ezra Taft Benson gave an inspired sermon entitled What I Hope You Will Teach Your Children about the Temple (Ensign August 1985). His purpose was to ensure that when people, especially our own children, go to the temple for the first time they will be prepared. President Benson explained: “A proper understanding or background will immeasurably help prepare our youth for the temple. This understanding, I believe, will foster within them a desire to seek their priesthood blessings just as Abraham sought his” (Ibid).
President Russel M. Nelson often emphasizes the importance of regular temple worship – After speaking of the extensive renovation of the Salt Lake Temple he said:
“My dear brothers and sisters, these are the latter days. If you and I are to withstand the forthcoming perils and pressures, it is imperative that we each have a firm spiritual foundation built upon the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ. So I ask each of you, how firm is your foundation? And what reinforcements to your testimony and understanding of the gospel are needed?
“The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual fortitude because the Savior and His doctrine are the very heart of the temple. Everything taught in the temple, through instruction and through the Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. His essential ordinances bind us to Him through sacred priesthood covenants. Then, as we keep our covenants, He endows us with His healing, strengthening power. And oh, how we will need His power in the days ahead.
“We have been promised that ‘if [we] are prepared [we] shall not fear.’ This assurance has profound implications today. The Lord has declared that despite today’s unprecedented challenges, those who build their foundations upon Jesus Christ, and have learned how to draw upon His power, need not succumb to the unique anxieties of this era” (The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation, Liahona, November 2021).
President Ezra Taft Benson detailed the blessings that come from regular temple worship – “When you attend the temple and perform the ordinances that pertain to the house of the Lord, certain blessings will come to you:
You will receive the spirit of Elijah, which will turn your heart 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 heart 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. You will learn how you can be like Him. Even the power of godliness will be manifest to you. See D&C 84:10-20.
You will be doing a great service to those who have passed to the other side of the veil. Your work will enable them to 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” (What I Hope You Will Teach Your Children about the Temple, Ensign, August 1985).
Testimony – We count it a great blessing that each of our children holds a temple recommend and attends the temple as their circumstances permit. We pray that our grandchildren will be carefully prepared for the temple, and that they will also make the temple a central part of their lives.