Day 91 The Lord's Grief to Lose His Tree

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 91.

We are so close to 100 straight days of reading the Book of Mormon together. Thank you for joining me today on our journey. We are going to begin a micro-journey of sorts as we dive into Jacob chapter 5.

I think it's the largest chapter in the Book of Mormon, if I'm not mistaken, at least verse-wise. And Jacob chapter 5 is interesting because it's not Jacob. It starts out with Jacob saying, "Hey, don't you guys all remember, you know, there's a prophet named Zenos, and he tells this story?" And it's kind of interesting because we don't really have a lot of information about Zenos other than a few of the prophets reference him, but we get this incredible story.

And so we're going to dive in and spend a few days here over the next several days talking about this allegory. It's this grand illustrative story about an olive tree. This olive tree is going to be likened to the House of Israel.

So whenever it's talking about the tree, we're talking about this covenant people with the Lord, the House of Israel, those that make and keep covenants with God. And so let's dive into the verse for today. Now, you're going to be reading Jacob chapter 5, verses 1 through 13, today.

And our verse today comes in verse 7. So let's read verse 7 together and then we will talk about it just a little bit. And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard saw it, and he said unto his servant, "It grieveth me that I should lose this tree.

Wherefore go and pluck the branches from a wild olive tree, and bring them hither unto me. And we will pluck off those main branches which are beginning to wither away, and we will cast them into the fire, that they may be burned." Now, this allegory is going to have this reference to a tree, and there's going to be grafting happening and cutting and melding. And we're going to take branches from these trees and those trees, and we're going to have wild ones and tame ones.

Remember that this is a tame olive tree from the beginning, that the reference to the House of Israel. And I actually want to just pick one little part of today's verse and see if it doesn't kind of set an overtone for the rest of the time that we dive into Jacob chapter 5. I want to pick the part that says, where the Lord responds and He says, "It grieveth me that I should lose this tree." Even inside of these first 13 verses, you're going to have, I think, two or three different times where the Lord's going to — the Lord of this vineyard, at least — is going to emphasize that "it grieveth me that I should lose this tree." I think the position that I pull out of this for the Lord is the desire that He has for us to be His and the desire that He has for us to remain a family.

Our Heavenly Father is a Heavenly Father. We are His heavenly children, as any father would desire (or at least any worthy or loving father would desire) would be for his family to remain together and to be able to stay together as a family. And so I think the context of this is really interesting as we get into this because the primary reasons that the Lord of this vineyard is going to dig around, and He's going to start grafting branches, and He's going to start switching things up.

The primary reason He does it is because "it grieveth him to lose the tree." And I love the overlay of that as we get into reading this chapter because it keeps in mind to me the strong desire that this master of the vineyard has to keep this tree healthy and strong. And I can see the Lord absolutely having that same type of context when it comes to helping me in my life, that He can do everything He can—maybe grafting a little bit, maybe moving some branches around a little bit in my life—but grafting me in a way. Keep it small, keep it simple, and always seek to be savory salt. I'll be here tomorrow, and I hope you are too.