Understanding Your Endowment

A review copy was provided

Understanding Your Endowment

by Cory Jensen

For many members of the church, the temple endowment remains something of a mystery. Yet when understood, the temple can function in our lives as a modern day Liahona, giving us our bearings in our mortal journey back to our Father. “Understanding Your Endowment” is packed with insights and keys, which can help you unlock the temple’s purpose and meaning in your life. It will help you understand the blessings the Lord offers His children through His temples and will enrich your personal temple worship.

“Understanding Your Endowment” examines topics such as covenant ceremonies, the initiatory ordinances, the endowment, and temple sealings in a manner that is plain and easy to understand while still respecting their sacred and confidential nature. Whether you are preparing to enter the temple for the first time or already attend regularly, your temple worship will be enhanced by reading this book.

Excerpt
Do you ever feel like there is something more to the temple, but you aren't quite getting it? Perhaps, at times, you have even found yourself distracted or bored in a temple session. It doesn't need to be that way.

Coming to understand our own endowment is a personal, sacred journey, one largely between us individually and the Lord. No one, other than the Lord, is really qualified to unfold everything, and much of that will come quietly through the Spirit. Part of the beauty of the temple's ordinances and teaching lies in the fact that the Lord can personalize them to whatever stage we are at in our individual growth. The path to understanding requires time, effort, and experience. Sometimes it may seem a bit overwhelming. We may need some help, or at least a foundation form which to begin.

The intent of this book is to help lay that foundation and enrich your temple experience. It is written for believing Latter-day Saints who would like to better understand their own temple endowment.

President David O. McKay once stated:

I have met so many young people who have been disappointed after they have gone through the House of the Lord. They have been honest in that disappointment. Some of them have shed tears as they have opened their hearts and expressed heart-felt sorrow that they did not see and hear and feel what they had hoped to see and hear and feel. I have analyzed those confessions as I have listened to them, and I have come to the conclusion that in nearly every case it was the person's fault. He or she has failed to comprehend the significance of the message that is given in the Temple.

It's not just the youth who feel this way. Many adult members sense deeply the temple's importance but don't feel they understand it all that well...

...Sometimes, as a people, we are so reticent to speak of the temple that we say almost nothing. Perhaps we need to say a bit more. This work tries to maintain an appropriate balance. President Benson remarked, "Because of its sacredness we are sometimes reluctant to say anything about the temple to our children and grandchildren. As a consequence...when they go there, they do so without much background to prepare them for the obligations and covenants they enter into. I believe a proper understanding or background will immeasurably help prepare our youth for the temple."

My Favorite Quotes

Suppose you were teaching a class of Israelite youth in biblical times and posed the question: "What is a covenant?" Would they have responded that a covenant is a two-way promise? Probably not. Ancient Israel didn't claim to be the Lord's "two-way promise" people. They were the Lord's covenant people and understood covenants in terms of a sacred relationship. Our modern definition of covenants as two-way promises between God and man actually misses the heart of covenants. Covenants can create the most binding relationships possible.

If you will attend [the temple] and ask the Lord in faith to let you know where you are at in your progression, He will let you know. That understanding can help us glimpse what still lies ahead or what we lack, along with the recognition of what we have already received. In this manner, [the temple] can provide us with our bearings in our daily wilderness, much as the Liahona did for Lehi's family.

My Review

The author handles this topic with reverence and humility. I am SO GRATEFUL he has shared his knowledge with us. Using personal stories, other examples, and scriptures this book really opens up a greater understanding of so many things!

When next I attend the temple I will have some added insights that will make the experience more meaningful...and I will be more prepared to have the Spirit be with me.

Believe me, I know, in today's busy world sometimes going to the temple requires great sacrifice and is often hard to fit in. But I also know there are great blessing awaiting us there.

If you will read this book I believe that with this added knowledge you will seek the time to attend the temple so that you might more fully have UNDERSTANDING [of] YOUR ENDOWMENT.

It really is POWERFUL!

About the Author

Cory B. Jensen graduated with honors from Brigham Young University with a Masters of Business Administration degree. He currently serves as an ordinance worker in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. He and his wife, Traci, are the parents of four children. Cory grew up in the shadow of the Logan temple and developed a love for the temple early in life. He wants most of all to be a faithful disciple of Christ and a loving husband, father, grandfather, son and brother. He often falls short but keeps trying. He hopes that the message of this book will enrich your temple experience and bless your life. He also really hopes you will judge it based upon its message and not by the cover or who wrote it. It’s the message that matters.