The purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to reveal to people the important opportunity they have to know who they are, what is ultimately good for them, how they can be released from the burden of their transgressions of God’s laws, and how they can go on to perfection through the Atonement of Jesus Christ by entering into the New and Everlasting Covenant.
One cannot comprehend the value of this message until he realizes that he has made a mistakes, cannot make up for these mistakes by his own power, and is not intelligent or strong enough to avoid making some future mistakes or transgressions of God’s law unless he has divine aid. This divine aid is a power which gives divine direction to those willing to enter into the covenant, showing them, as they are worthy, all things they should do; it comforts them with a divine witness that the Gospel Message is true, and that righteousness is the only way to happiness and power. This divine aid is given through and by a member of the Godhead whom we call the Holy Ghost.
It is the guidance and comfort of the Holy Ghost that enable a person to have the strength and wisdom to overcome the world, to put on the “new” man, as Paul says, to go on unto perfection; and the visitation of the Holy Ghost is the agency by which a person is cleansed of his sins, as it were by fire, after he has accepted the blood of Christ in baptism.
When a person receives the Holy Ghost after faith in Christ, repentance, baptism, and the laying on of hands by those having authority, that influence will linger with and labor with him as long as he does not sin. Should a person succumb to temptation and transgress God’s law, he again becomes unclean, an unfit tabernacle for the Holy Spirit, which must leave him until he can again become free from sin. He cannot be baptized again, but the Lord in His mercy has provided another ordinance that His children may again receive the Spirit, knowing that they are weak and cannot overcome all evil immediately and finally upon being baptized.
This other ordinance is the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in which commemoration of the Atonement of the Savior we have the opportunity to review our covenants. If we have sinned but desire to be forgiven and have done all in our power to repent of our transgressions, we then may renew our covenant by taking the bread and water and eating and drinking them as a witness that we have repented and desire to accept our Savior and to be like him. Should we partake of the Sacrament not having tried to repent of ever sin we know we have committed, we eat and drink damnation unto ourselves, making a mockery of the renewal of covenants.
Thus in His mercy the Lord has commanded that we should meet together in Sacrament Meeting often, to confess our sins, to inspire one another, and to renew our covenants and again receive the Holy Spirit, that week by week we might draw closer to our goal: to become just men made perfect, citizens of the Lord’s Kingdom who eagerly seek and abide His law, and who are perfect in obedience to Jesus Christ, being led in all things by the Holy Ghost.