Elder Adeyinka A. Ojediran of the Seventy said in the Sunday afternoon session of April 2022 general conference:
A powerful king desired for his son to rule over one of his kingdoms. The prince had to learn and grow in wisdom to sit on the throne. One day, the king met with the prince and shared his plan. They agreed the prince would go to a different town and gain experiences. He would face challenges as well as enjoy many good things there. The king then sent him to the town, where the prince was expected to prove his faithfulness to the king and demonstrate that he was fit to receive the privileges and responsibilities the king had in store for him. The prince was given the liberty to choose to receive these privileges and responsibilities or not, depending on his desires and his faithfulness. I am sure you want to know what happened to the prince. Did he return to inherit the kingdom?
Dear brothers and sisters, each of us is a prince or princess. We have been sent to mortality by a loving Heavenly Father to enjoy the blessing of a body that would become immortal through the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are expected to prepare to return to God’s presence by proving that we will “do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God shall command [us]” (Abraham 3:25).
To help us, the Savior came to redeem us and show the path to return to God. God’s children are invited to come to the Savior and be perfected in Him. In the scriptures, we find the invitation for us to come to the Lord repeated over 90 times, and more than half of these are personal invitations from the Lord Himself. Accepting the Savior’s invitation means partaking of His ordinances and keeping our covenants with Him. Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and He invites us “all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him” (2 Nephi 26:33).
Our gospel learning and teaching deepen our conversion to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and help us become more like Them. Even though not all things have been revealed concerning “the precise time and manner in which the blessings of exaltation [will be] bestowed,” we are nonetheless assured of them (M. Russell Ballard, “Hope in Christ,” Liahona, May 2021, 55).
Alma the high priest, teaching in the land of Zarahemla, recounted a profound invitation by Jesus Christ:
“Behold, he sendeth an invitation unto all men, for the arms of mercy are extended towards them, and he saith: Repent, and I will receive you.
“Yea, he saith: Come unto me and ye shall partake of the fruit of the tree of life” (Alma 5:33–34).
The Savior Himself invites us to come unto Him and take His yoke upon us that we may have rest in this tumultuous world (see Matthew 11:28–29). We come unto Christ by “exercising faith in [Him], repenting daily, making covenants with God as we receive the ordinances of salvation and exaltation, and enduring to the end by keeping those covenants” (General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1.2.1, ChurchofJesusChrist.org). The path to perfection is the covenant path, and Jesus Christ is the center of all ordinances and covenants. . . .
The doctrine of Christ helps us find and stay on the covenant path, and the gospel is so arranged that the Lord’s promised blessings are received through sacred ordinances and covenants. God’s prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, admonished us in his January 16, 2018, telecast to “keep on the covenant path. Your commitment to follow the Savior by making covenants with Him and then keeping those covenants will open the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere. … The end for which each of us strives is to be endowed with power in a house of the Lord, sealed as families, faithful to covenants made in a temple that qualify us for the greatest gift of God—that of eternal life” (“As We Go Forward Together,” Ensign or Liahona, Apr. 2018, 7).
For Elder Ojediran’s complete talk, click. . . ‘The Covenant Path: The Way to Eternal Life’
