Day 135 God Uses Broken Instruments Through Repentance

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 and welcome to day 135 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon. We're in some good stuff today and I look forward to our conversation as we dive into the reading. You're going to be reading Mosiah chapter 23, verses 1 through 16 today.

Alma is going to be... We're going to be talking to us about some of the reasons why he thinks his people should not accept a king. Very telling after they had just experienced a bad King Noah experience there.

And some food for thought inside of this. And there are some great gold nuggets if you dig in and look at some of these today. Our verse today is one of the pieces about that.

He has talked about how he himself fell into the sins of following King Noah and kind of the peer pressure to do the thing that King Noah was doing. And then he shares this verse with us that gives us a little bit of cool insight. It's Mosiah chapter 23, verse 10.

And it says Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth. You know, I love this because here's a segment where Alma's willing to say, look, I messed up. I'm not a perfect person by any means, right?

I've got a colorful past behind me and it wasn't easy, but repentance has made me an instrument in his hands and made it possible for so many of you to come to a knowledge of his truth through my hands and through my repentance process. I love that repentance here, according to Alma, doesn't just cleanse him from sin, but it also opens the opportunity for us to be instruments in the. In the music industry, his name is Kenneth Cope.

And I don't know if you listened to any Kenneth Cope music, but I'm a big fan of his because when I was just a little kid, he was kind of a friend of the family. And I remember several fun interactions with him as I was growing up. I love his music.

I love listening to his music. And I'm going to attach some lyrics to one of his songs that he wrote called "Broken". And inside of the song "Broken" is the concept that perhaps the Lord loves broken things.

Perhaps when he sees certain things, he too can see that broken is actually a positive in many cases. And the song just starts out, I won't sing it by any means, but you can look it up and sing it all. You can certainly look at the lyrics, but it says: "Broken clouds give rain, broken soil grows grain, broken bread feeds man for one more day, broken storms yield light, the break of day heals night, broken pride turns blindness into sight.

Broken souls that need His mending, broken hearts for offering. Could it be that God loves broken things?" Alma's story just has me reflecting on the idea of broken things a little bit. Alma was certainly one of those.

And without the Atonement of Jesus Christ in his life, he would have gone down the road that the rest of the priests of King Noah went. But because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Alma was able to find repentance and not just that, was able to become an instrument in the hands of the Lord to serve and to bring a knowledge of the Lord's truth to so many people. That is a light that I want to hold on to.

My repentance process, yes, it's for my cleansing, but it also opens up the door for me to be worthy to serve the Lord as his hands here on the earth and be an instrument in those hands. 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 I hope you are too.