Day 66 Assyria's Pride: By My Strength and Wisdom

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 am cheering for your every success. Welcome to day 66 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon.

We've been reading through the Second Nephi slash Isaiah chapters, and today's no different for just a little bit longer. Although I will give you a fair warning that today and tomorrow are going to be connected just a little bit, but I'm going to stick with the single verse a day that is savory salt. And so it requires us to kind of adjust a little, and we're going to connect two thoughts together.

Actually, let's cover the reading and then I want to share a quick story on the front end and then we'll do the verse. A little bit reversed today. The reading today is 2 Nephi 19:15-21 and 2 Nephi 20:1-14.

Now, we are in the thick of it, folks. We are in the middle of the Isaiah chapters here. And I had a story come to mind actually recently at church.

And I thought I share it with you because it kind of how I feeling right now as I investigate what verses I want to bring into Savory Salt. It's been a number of years ago now, but I found myself in London. It was one of my first times visiting over the United Kingdom over in Great Britain.

I was in the hotel and I had some extra time and I saw a newspaper and I thought, oh, let's read the sports section. So I opened up the sports section and I found an article and it was talking about the local cricket match that had occurred the night before. Now I have to tell you, I know absolutely nothing about the sport of cricket.

And I know it's an international sport and many people enjoy watching it, but I have absolutely no clue what the rules are of cricket. Well, I sat down and I read the article and I think it's the first time in my life that I knew I was reading English and yet I had absolutely no idea what I was reading. I didn't have a clue.

I kept reading over the sentences and I thought, what in the world is this saying? And I'm sure it was, you know, a very informative article in terms of the statistics of each of the players and the actual results. I couldn't even tell you who won the game based on what I read in the article.

And there are segments, folks, inside of these chapters where I feel like I'm doing the same thing. I feel like I'm reading a cricket article sometimes. So as we get in here, what I tried to do inside of Savory Salt is sometimes I just got to get it smaller.

I got to get the idea smaller. I got to get maybe a phrase together or just a few words together that help me to make my path forward. And from what I'm understanding here with these chapters, especially chapter 19, 20, this is where Isaiah talks a lot about the destruction of different groups of people.

There's the destruction of the Jews and this one's talking about the destruction of Assyria. What I want to do is just get in here and say maybe what this is is a list of things Allen should not be doing in his life. So there are some segments inside of here and some verses throughout here that I can read and say, all right, you know what?

I shouldn't treat people like that or I shouldn't tread like this in my life. And that's a little bit of what. Today, our verse comes in 2 Nephi chapter 20 verse 13, and this is the Lord saying that he's going to talk to the King of Assyria, and this is going to be the King of Assyria's response to him.

Verse 13: "For he saith, By the strength of my hand and by my wisdom I have done these things. For I am prudent, and I have moved the borders of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and have put down the inhabitants like a valiant man." Now you notice that that only part of the sentence. So I want you to keep reading verse 14 there.

I won't continue it in here, but what you're hearing here is the King of Assyria's way that he goes about life. And the way that he goes about life is by my hand and by my wisdom. And today the thought can be quite short.

Perhaps if this is the list of things that are being done by people before they destroyed from the Lord, I think it's worth me saying, you know what? I need to consider the things that I think I do all by my lonesome, the things that I think I do all by my own abilities and my own understandings. And I need to pause and remember to invite the Lord into my life.

I want the Lord as a companion in my life. I want him to be there to help me with every decision that I make. I don't want to do it in a way that labors the Lord, right?

Or maybe makes it so that I'm belaboring him. I want it to be an understanding that the Lord sees the map way better than I do. And I'm going to rely on him to help me find that out.

That's the first part of the thoughts that I have. Tomorrow we'll continue the second half of the thoughts around this King of Assyria and what exactly he's saying when he says, 'it's my hand and my wisdom.' But as for today, that's all we have for today. 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. And I promise I'll finish that thought.