How to Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness

This is from a talk I gave at the beginning of June:

"​And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost."

​We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness in order to be filled with the Holy Ghost. This could also be reworded to say that we need to hunger and thirst after righteous works or even after the Righteous One which is Christ. He has provided a way for us to hunger and thirst after Him and it is through covenant making and covenant keeping. There are three covenants that we make through the saving and exalting ordinances. These are made through baptism, the temple endowment and the temple sealing. For men, there is also receiving the Melchizedek priesthood. We see one very direct link between an ordinance and this beatitude when Christ expounded the sacrament to the Nephites.

"And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled..."

We know from the sacrament prayer that we are filled with the Holy Ghost.

​“One breaks the priesthood covenant by transgressing commandments—but also by leaving undone his duties. Accordingly, to break this covenant one needs only to do nothing.”

I believe that this applies to all of our covenants not just the priesthood covenant. We need to actively engage in fulfilling our part of covenants that we have made with God.

In order for us to succeed at keeping our covenants we need to plan to succeed. Through patterns that I have found in the scriptures I have created a process or pattern to guarantee our success. I made it into a pseudo-acronym I call Plotted Success.

We need to make goals that include the following criteria:

Plan - detailed, gives structure; we need to have a plan to recognize God's plan for us.

VaLue - purpose, worth - we study scriptures and attend the temple to understand the value of our covenants through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

COmmitment - what are you willing to do to ensure your success?
"A long [time] ago a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which ensured his success on the battle field. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy's country, unloaded soldiers and equipment. Then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle he said 'you see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win. We now have no choice. We win or we perish.' They won." (Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill)
How committed are you at keeping your covenants?

SupporT - you are accountable for your own success but there needs to be a supporting structure usually that works best as a person who will hold you accountable and teach you.

Time - when will you assess your success? How frequently? Milestones.

StEps - what defines success? Know it when you see it, measure it. Are your steps for fulfilling your side of your covenants divided up into manageable pieces? Is the next item defined? Proper task management principles.

RewarD - what is the reward? Accomplishing purpose or added incentive?