Day 152 Wages: Abundance or Scarcity

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 152 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

Congratulations. We've officially, through this episode here, reached right about 15 hours of study in the Book of Mormon together this year. So I appreciate you joining me.

How in the world are you doing? How in the world did we get to 15 hours? Well, we did it just a little bit at a time.

Small, simple steps. I appreciate you joining me. Today you're going to be reading from Alma chapter 3, verses 23 to 27, those last final verses of chapter 3.

And then you're going to begin Alma chapter 4 by reading verses 1 through 12. And I got to tell you, there's pretty much a lesson to be learned in every one of these verses. I hope that as we get into this Alma section here, that there's a bigger and bigger mirror that you can hold in front of yourself.

I know for me, this is the mirror section for Allen when it comes to reading the Book of Mormon. Every time it's a chance for me to try and say, "What does this mean for me?" But this seems particularly mirror-worthy, a reflection of me looking back and saying, "What does this mean for me?" Today in our verse, we're actually going to be back in Alma chapter 3, as much as those verses in chapter 4 have so much to look into. The reason is, I think a verse in chapter 3 pretty much describes some of these other verses in 4 in a little bit larger context, kind of a bigger umbrella, if you will.

We're going to be reading verse 27 in Alma chapter 3, and this is what it says: "For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey. And this according to the words of the Spirit of Prophecy. Therefore let it be according to the truth.

And thus endeth the fifth year of the reign of the judges." And then let's talk about it. Now, that's a little bit of a secondary connection here. Verse 26 talks about the many people—thousands, tens of thousands of people—that died that year.

And they died going according to the actions they had taken in this life. And they are going to deal with the consequences of those actions. And then we get this front-end teaching here: "For every man receiveth wages of him who he listeth to obey." I understand this one to be the universal law of compensation.

You can call it what you want. Some people call it karma. Some people say it in a phrase, right, like "what goes around comes around." But the interesting thing with this universal law of compensation basically says that your actions determine your outcomes.

What you give, what you do, brings a reward. So if those actions are service, integrity, love, care, abundance-based, then that's the wages that you're going to receive from him who you listeth to obey. On the flip side, if those actions and your personality and your behaviors are anger and hatred and selfishness and scarcity-based, then those are going to be the wages because that's who you listeth to obey.

There's really only two sides of this coin here. There's the Lord in all of the abundance. I believe God is a God of abundance.

And then there is the god of scarcity who's going to convince you that there's not enough of anything. There's not enough salvation. There's not enough money.

There's not enough friends, family. There's not enough houses. There's not enough cars.

There's not enough things in your life. And that scarcity is going to constantly give you exactly what you're giving. This is an interesting perspective here, because the rest of Alma chapter 4, then, as it goes in and talks about those verses, it makes me wonder what exactly those church members were looking for as they experienced some of the temporal successes in their lives.

And yet those temporal successes lead to great contentions and divisions in the church. Worth digging into and worth considering what it is you're giving out into the world in hopes that you receive on the backside. I hope that you choose to give abundance of service, integrity, love, care—all the things that others would use to describe a disciple of Jesus Christ.

That's what I'm trying to do. That's who I'm trying to be. And I hope you'll join me on that journey together.

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.