Valiant K. Jones grew up in Utah, Indiana, and Idaho, and he attended Brigham Young University where he received a BS degree, summa cum laude with honors, followed by an MS degree, both in chemical engineering. He worked for over thirty-two years in the chemical industry, and he authored many research and technology reports during his career. Brother Jones enjoys using his analytical skills in the study of Latter-day Saint scripture and doctrine. He has served in a variety of callings in Church, including a mission in the Cordoba Argentina Mission, temple worker, branch president, and a high councilor. He has also served in civic and community roles. Brother Jones resides in central Michigan where he enjoys the beautiful outdoors, camping, biking, and snow skiing. He and his wife, the former Lori Ransom, are the proud parents of five children and have a growing number of grandchildren. Valiant’s book, The Covenant Path: Finding the Temple in the Book of Mormon can be found at www.cedarfort.com or Amazon. This article includes excerpts from The Covenant Path: Finding the Temple in the Book of Mormon by Valiant K. Jones (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, Inc., 2020). Used by permission.
Enter Valiant…
As an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving Being, God does not need guidance on how to lead. He does not need to attend leadership forums to hone His skills. He does not need to read the latest books on leadership nor subscribe to Leading Saints. (Sorry Kurt!) God inherently knows how to lead, and He has many leadership tools at His disposal. Perhaps the most prominent of these is revelation. He reveals his will through His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7), through scriptures (which are records of the prophets and apostles), through prayer, and by direct inspiration through the Holy Ghost. Through each of these means, God leads His children on the earth.
However, God does not only use top-down, directive leadership through revelation to achieve His purposes. Like all good leaders, He wants to develop leadership skills in others, and to achieve this He uses many methods. One of these is the model of perfect leadership He gave in the life and ministry of His Son, Jesus Christ. President Spencer W. Kimball once discussed this in a talk he gave titled, “Jesus: The Perfect Leader.” God also uses other leadership development tools, two of which I will highlight: councils and covenants.
Learning Leadership through Councils
In the premortal world, God used councils to establish His plan for our happiness (see Abr. 4:26, Job 38:4–7, D&C 121:32, D&C 138:56). When God restored the fulness of the gospel in the latter days, He established a governing pattern through the use of councils, including the Council of the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles. A Council of Fifty also played an important role in the early days of the Church. This pattern of leading by council continues on the local level today with stake and ward councils. In fact, each organization presidency also forms a council. No calling in the Church is carried out in isolation.
President Stephen L Richards, first counselor to President David O. McKay, said:
“The genius of our Church government is government through councils. I have had enough experience to know the value of councils. Hardly a day passes but that I see … God’s wisdom, in creating councils … to govern his Kingdom. … I have no hesitancy in giving you the assurance, if you will confer in council as you are expected to do, God will give you solutions to the problems that confront you.”
Councils bring together people of different backgrounds with diverse life experiences. Councils stimulate dialog and result in better solutions to problems. The discussions that occur in councils can open people to new perspectives, changing minds and hearts, so that a unity can develop in the decisions of the council. Councils also validate people as each council member’s opinion is heard and considered.
President Russell M. Ballard has suggested that “counseling invites revelation, increases unity, and brings power.” On another occasion he said:
“This is the miracle of Church councils: listening to each other and listening to the Spirit! When we support one another in Church councils, we begin to understand how God can take ordinary men and women and make of them extraordinary leaders. The best leaders are not those who work themselves to death trying to do everything single-handedly; the best leaders are those who follow God’s plan and counsel with their councils. “Come now,” said the Lord in an earlier dispensation through the prophet Isaiah, “and let us reason together” (Isa. 1:18). And in this dispensation, He repeated that admonition: “Let us reason together, that ye may understand” (D&C 50:10).
Leading Saints has provided several good resources to help us lead through councils. The following are available:
- Motivation & Building Teams in Latter-day Saint Councils, Guest Post by Blake Dalton, Aug 6, 2019.
- Conflict During Church Lessons & Councils: Does it Belong? by Ryan Gottfredson, May 31, 2018.
- Ward Councils Gone Wrong & Purpose of LDS Disciplinary Councils by Leading Saints. Jan 24, 2015.
Learning Leadership through Covenants
Another tool God uses to develop us as leaders is covenants. It is amazing that God would choose to make covenants with us. A covenant is a contractual agreement between two or more parties. It implies reciprocity and therefore equality on some level. Yet, we are not equals with God; we are His creations. King Benjamin said, “Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth” (Mosiah 2:25), later adding that we should remember our “own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures” (Mosiah 4:11).
It seems that God should not have to ask us to enter into any sort of reciprocal agreements with Him. He should simply command and we should obey. Since we are His subjects and His creations, why didn’t He just create us in such a way that obedience was programmed in us? Or, at least He could have established a world where consequences were so immediate and swift that we would want to behave no matter what. But wait—that was Satan’s plan. He wanted forced compliance.
God does not compel us to obey. Instead, He gave us our agency (see Moses 7:32). He created an environment where we would be free to choose, and one of the things we can choose is whether or not to enter into covenants with Him—righteous agreements whose terms have been set by God and whose purposes are to bless and lift us to become like Him. That is where the reciprocity comes in—not in any current equality with God, but in our potential to become like Him if we keep our covenants. He uses covenants to lift us to His level. We are His children and He wants us to return to His presence and receive all that He has. All faithful covenant keepers are promised, “All that my Father hath shall be given unto him [or her]” (D&C 84:38). That is one reason why the endowment culminates with entrance into the celestial room, symbolizing a return to God’s presence. Covenants are required to attain that reward.
God wants us to return to live with Him eternally because He loves us. His work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39), and He said that “men are that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). God loves us so much that He realizes His greatest glory when He sees us experience joy. Isn’t that just like any good parent? God knows we only experience true joy when we are on the path to eternal life. Covenants keep us on that path.
God not only loves us, but He also respects us. He respects us as individual beings created from intelligences that existed eternally (see D&C 93:29). He respects us so much that He wants us to receive all that He has. He is not threatened by the thought of lifting us to His level—He is further glorified by it. His covenants are designed to help achieve this. Maybe that is why He has so often called us His friends (see D&C 84:77; 88:3, 62; 94:1; 97:1; 98:1; 103:1).
President Russell M. Nelson wrote, “Our Heavenly Father wants us to come home, but He gives us the dignity of choosing to come home.” That dignity is a sign of His love and respect for us, and these are manifest through His covenants.
Our covenants are designed to bless us. Every covenant is associated with a saving ordinance, and the Lord has said that in the ordinances of the priesthood “the power of godliness is manifest” (see D&C 84:19–20). This occurs in at least two ways. First, each of the saving ordinances comes with a covenant promise of godly power: Baptism and confirmation come with the promise of power from the Holy Ghost, ordination to the priesthood brings the promise of God’s authoritative power, and the endowment and temple marriage include promises of eternal divine power. Second, every ordinance of the priesthood includes the pronouncement of blessings: If we keep our covenants, God will bless us, and these blessing are another manifestation of His power.
Elder Marcus B. Nash wrote,
“It is through the priesthood ordinances that the power of godliness is manifest in our lives—but only to the extent that we keep the associated covenants. The covenant activates, or gives life to, the ordinance, just as an engine activates a car and enables it to transport its occupants from one place to another.”
God also uses covenants as a test to see who will follow in His path. Who will rise above the influences of the world and keep their covenants in spite of the natural man? Who has it in them to stick to the commitments made by covenant? We might even enter into these commitments before we fully understand them, but maybe that is part of the test. Do we have enough faith in God and in the goodness of His covenants that we will accept them, in spite of our limited understanding, and see what God will make of us through these covenants? If so, we are on the path to becoming like Him.
President Boyd K. Packer wrote,
“We are a covenant people, and the temple is the center of our covenants. It is the source of the covenant. Come to the temple. . . . Be faithful to the covenants and ordinances of the gospel. . . . Do this and you will be happy. Your lives will then be in order—all things lined up in proper sequence, in proper ranks, in proper rows. Your family will be linked in an order that can never be broken. In the covenants and ordinances center the blessings that you may claim in the holy temple. Surely the Lord is pleased when we are worthy of the title: A keeper of the covenants. . . . If we will . . . enter into our covenants without reservation or apology, the Lord will protect us. We will receive inspiration sufficient for the challenges of life. . . . So come to the temple—come and claim your blessings. It is a sacred work.” (Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (1980)
Leadership Conclusion
God’s glory is magnified by our growth and development as His children and potential heirs to all He has. He wants us to become like Him, including the development of the leadership skills He possesses. Two of the tools He uses to do this are councils and covenants. Learning more about these tools will make us better leaders in His kingdom and draw us nearer to Jesus Christ.
