Day 23 Armed with Righteousness and God's Power

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus tells his followers that they are the salt of the earth, and in the same sentence offers a warning that savorless salt is good for nothing. Join me in an attempt to be savory salt as I share each day one verse of scripture and one small thought. Perhaps this small daily emphasis can lead to greater savor in your life and ultimately you and I can be savory salt.

Hello, my friends and family, wherever you're listening from. Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success. Wow, we are on to day 23 and we finally got here.

We got to the end of Nephi's incredible vision. This has been some amazing days. I have loved these days diving into this vision of Nephi's.

Today, along the 365-day journey of reading the Book of Mormon every day with me, a little bit each day, you would be reading 1 Nephi 14:12–30. And you'll see at the end of that chapter that Nephi says, and then there was other stuff that I saw, but I'm not going to tell you. And so we're just going to talk about the stuff that he did tell us.

So today the verse we're going to dive into today, a little bit of a continuation of yesterday and yet a little bit new spin. So let's dive straight into it. It's verse 14 and it says here: 'In great glory.' Man, if you want to mark something in your life that is uplifting and something that says, hey, I'm trying to follow Jesus Christ, I'm going to be blessed for it.

Mark this one down. This is so great. We learn inside of the verses today that this group of people, the people that are the saints of the Church of the Lamb and the covenant people of the Lord, we learn in this chapter that that's a few people.

It's not the masses. It's not where everybody else is going. It's not where everybody's the cool thing.

It's not the hype. It's few. We learned this in another verse and so what happens to these few people?

Well, you would think, 'Oh man, what a lonely path!' Or, there's not many friends? Or I can't seem to find a lot of friends? Or there's not people making the same choices that I'm trying to make in my life?

So how do I do this? Well, you can stand. 'To be armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory.' I wanted to share just a quick experience that I had in the past. This isn't meant to be any sort of criticism.

It's just an observation. Fair enough. But here's what happened.

I was talking to some people. Actually, they were, honestly, they were people in the ward. Not my current ward, actually.

This is from a past ward. They were talking about a particular show. I won't even talk about the show so that if you're watching it, you don't even know what show it is.

But it was a show that I had chosen. My response to 'What rock are you living under?' is the rock of my Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who's my foundation. That's the rock that I'm living with.

That's the righteousness and the power of God and great glory that I want in my life. And I want to do it in a way that lets Jesus Christ know, 'Hey, I want to be on the team.' I don't feel good. We talked yesterday about that light and darkness.

I don't feel good inside when I watch that show. And so I'm just going to choose not to do it. And look, if other people are going to do it, that's great.

Let them go make their choices. I kind of now have a response inside of me. 'What rock am I living under?' Actually, I'm living on the rock of my Redeemer, Jesus Christ. And when I do that, I know that the Lord's going to bless me and my family for those choices.

And I have it here from Nephi understanding this through his vision, that in those difficult times where it seems like everybody else is doing something and I'm not part of that group, I know that I can rely on the Lord to arm me with righteousness and with the power of God and great glory. Sometimes I might not understand what that looks like and other times I'll know for sure that that choice helped lead me into the power of righteousness in my life. So good.

That's all I have for today, my friends. Remember that 'by small and simple things are great things brought to pass.' Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow. I hope you are too.