Day 55 Spiritually Minded: Life Eternal

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. Welcome to day 55.

Man, this is so good. We are in 2 Nephi 9. And you might say, still?

But I say, yes, give me some more 2 Nephi 9. I love Jacob's preaching. As I said earlier, preach, Jacob.

Preach, man. So today, inside of your 365-day journey of reading the Book of Mormon a little bit each day, you're going to read 2 Nephi 9:29-42. Today, we're going to dive into verse 39.

Now, this is probably the biggest chunk of the chapter here of the woes and the ohs. Probably reading through here, you're going to get a lot of woes in this one, actually. But today, we're going to do an oh again.

So let's read 39 and then let's talk about it a little bit. Oh my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.

Wow. I love what Jacob's doing here. He's helping me stay on the path.

He's helping me stay focused on the things of the Spirit. Now, if you're wondering what the carnally-minded means there, carnal is that dealing with the flesh or physical attributes of our lives. It's literally the living part of us, the tangible part of us.

I can remember a time in my life when I was studying my bachelor's degree at Brigham Young. I was doing a research paper and I was in the middle of some research that was heavy and difficult and honestly wasn't full of light and life. It got to the point where I got a little worried about my own spirituality.

I actually arranged for an appointment with my bishop and I sat down and I said, 'Look, I'm doing this research for my project here, but I am so in the middle of this stuff. It's got me a little bit worried about where I'm at in my life.' And he said something that was really interesting. He said, 'Allen, in all of your research and all the time that you're spending there, how much time are you spending reading your scriptures?' And it occurred to me that I was so engaged in trying to do all the homework that I was doing that I wasn't reading my scriptures.

And it was an exact complement to this idea here that Jacob gives us. And it's actually a carryover from what we were talking about yesterday. I was spending my time so much in the research and I was—look—it was in pursuit of my degree.

I was trying to get educated. I was trying to make sure my classes were getting passing grades and all those things. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'd lost focus on seeing things spiritually in my life.

It got me thinking about another person recently that's used this very verse, and that's President Russell M. Nelson. As he talked to us in a general conference talk recently about "Think Celestial," he gives us a great perspective of the world as he shares with us from his 99 years experience that seeing things in the long term through the lens of what a spiritual decision makes for us, helps us out.

He tells us the eternal view is a view that will absolutely help the decisions that we make. And I want to share just a, I'll put a link in to "Think Celestial" so that you can read from it. But I also want to share just a little segment of his thoughts.

He says, 'When you're confronted with a dilemma, think celestial.' I love that he has shared here the concept of exactly what Jacob teaching us. Stay inside of the Spirit as you go through your mortal life. Doing so will help you gain and keep an eternal perspective in all of the decisions we do in the day-to-day minutia.

I know it helped me when I sat down and talked to my bishop to get a better understanding again of keeping spiritually-minded. And I'd encourage you to make sure that no matter what challenges you're facing in the world at this time right now, that you too hold a spiritual-mindedness in all that you do going forward. That's all 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, and oh my goodness, I hope you are too.