Who can be in God's presence?

Today's scripture mastery is Psalms 24:3-4

 3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

 4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

If we want to return to God's presence, we must have clean hands, and a pure heart.  We must be obedient to the commandments.

Many wonder why we don't let just anybody enter in to our temples. (Note, the temples are different than our meetinghouses, where everybody is allowed, and even encouraged to come visit)

I have heard of people who are not members of our church, but who have children or other family members that are members, who get married in the temple, and wonder why they are not allowed in to witness the marriage.  The verse above is part of the reason why that is.  We believe that the temple is a holy place, to us, it is the House of the Lord.  In it, we make very important promises to the Lord.  And in order to enter in, we must make sure we have "clean hands and a pure heart"  We make promises to God that we will live according to his commandments.  It is a very personal and sacred promise that we make when we go to the temple.  It is a commitment not to be taken lightly. . .We would love for everybody to be able to enter in to the temple, but to do so, they must show that they are willing to make those promises to the Lord, and keep them.