The following is excerpted from the Church News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE. 

When a person makes a covenant with God, their relationship with Him changes and they “leave neutral ground forever.”

“All those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. In the Hebrew language, that covenantal love is called hesed (חֶסֶד),” writes President Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in an article titled “The Everlasting Covenant” published in the October 2022 Liahona magazine and online at ChurchofJesusChrist.org. It was also previously shared at a general conference leadership meeting on March 31, 2022.

There isn’t an English equivalent for hesed, and translators of the King James Version of the Bible often used “lovingkindness.” Other translations also use “mercy” and “goodness.”

Hesed describes a covenant relationship where both parties are loyal and faithful to each other.

“Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together,” President Nelson said. “Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God’s heart. He has high hopes for us.”

The everlasting covenant

“The new and everlasting covenant” (see Doctrine and Covenants 132:6) and the Abrahamic covenant are essentially the same — two ways of phrasing the covenant God made with mortal men and women at different times.

“The adjective everlasting denotes that this covenant existed even before the foundation of the world,” President Nelson said.

The plan that was laid out in the council of heaven included being separated from God’s presence, and God promised He would provide a Savior who would overcome the consequences of the Fall. When Adam and Eve accepted the ordinance of baptism, they began the process of being one with God. “They had entered the covenant path,” President Nelson wrote.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.