Lessons on the Temple
Lesson No. Sixty-Three
The Law of Consecration and the Church Welfare System
A local volunteer standing amidst a field grown under the benefaction of The Benson Institute.
The Benson Institute – For many years we supported the Benson Institute whose mission was to train local universities in the best agricultural practices. We traveled with them to many counties in South and Central America and Morocco. It eventually moved from BYU and became part of Church Welfare.
This is a wonderful thing because now priesthood leaders in the various countries administer this program. BYU was dependent on working with local universities and charities where there is a concern of longevity and continuity, and also where a large percentage of the donations go to overhead and administrative expenses. As part of the Church welfare system these concerns are not a problem.
The law of consecration is implemented today through the Church welfare system – In his April 2011 Conference Address President Henry B. Eyring taught us how we live the law consecration in our day:
“Because the Lord hears their cries and feels your deep compassion for them, He has from the beginning of time provided ways for His disciples to help. He has invited His children to consecrate their time, their means, and themselves to join with Him in serving others.
“His way of helping has at times been called living the law of consecration. In another period His way was called the united order. In our time it is called the Church welfare program.
“The names and the details of operation are changed to fit the needs and conditions of people. But always the Lord’s way to help those in temporal need requires people who out of love have consecrated themselves and what they have to God and to His work.
“He has invited and commanded us to participate in His work to lift up those in need. We make a covenant to do that in the waters of baptism and in the holy temples of God. We renew the covenant on Sundays when we partake of the sacrament” (Ensign, May 2011, emphasis added).
The temple makes us aware of the law of consecration, and we ponder how it is to be implemented. President Eyring provided the answer. "In our time it is called the Church welfare program."
Consecration and stewardship is Lord's way - The Lord gave a wonderful explanation of the doctrine of stewardship: "For it is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures.
"I, the Lord, stretched out the heavens, and built the earth, my very handiwork; and all things therein are mine.
"And it is my purpose to provide for my saints, for all things are mine.
"But it must needs be done in mine own way; and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints, that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low.
"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
“Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment" (D&C 104 13-19).
Testimony - We are so blessed to be led by living prophets that help us understand and apply the gospel in our lives. When I heard President Eyring's explanation that in our day we live the law of consecration through the Church Welfare system I knew immediately that what he said was true, and that this is what the Lord would have us do.
I reaffirm my testimony given in Lesson 21 - "Freedom and the Celestial Nature of Self -Reliance" found in my book Lessons on Freedom and Patriotism from the Book of Mormon that there is a spiritual goal of becoming self-reliant, and that goal is to use the freedom we receive from being self-reliant to keep the commandments of God, and with our surplus live the laws of consecration and stewardship.