Day 225 The Danger of Forgetting God in Abundance

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. I know that I'm cheering for your every success.

I do apologize for the voice. I know it's happened before with Savory Salt, but that's the blessing and the curse of doing a daily podcast episode. And that is that you get to hear my voice, whether it's three octaves higher or 15 octaves lower.

Welcome today to 25 on our 365 day journey through the Book of Mormon together Today you going to be reading Alma chapter 45 verses 19 to 24 and you going to read Alma chapter 46 verses 1 through 10 and these are some very telling verses So insightful here In fact I going to give the thought on the front end of this and then I going to give the verse You see even though we not going to read them there several verses here that create some sort of equation of sorts that is worth our attention and worth us seeing maybe some warning flags or some caution signs ahead In Alma 45, verse 24, we see that the people grew rich in their own eyes and they started to become prideful because of their abundance and their riches. And then in 46, verse 2, we see that they get angry enough that they actually want to start, like they actually would have a desire to kill their brethren. That's a serious level of anger.

And then we see several verses here with a man named Amalickiah who is flattering the people. And he uses cunning devices and he probably a you know smooth talker He probably a good looking successful dude As if we learned from 24 here he probably got abundance The world probably sees him and says wow that a successful guy And he starts to say you know what I can take this success and I can use it to my own advantage And then we see that inside the Nephites right after they had this incredible successful battle with the We of the Lord in their lives against Zarahemna and the Lamanites we see that the Nephites in their abundance start to reject the word of Helaman and his brothers And that takes us to our verse for the day. The verse is in Alma 46, verse 8.

And it says, And it says, Thus we see how quick the children of men do forget the Lord their God. Yea, how quick to do iniquity and to be led away by the evil one. My friends, it seems in the Book of Mormon, I don't think the Book of Mormon is necessarily a caution about all success and all abundance and all riches, but it certainly does come with a warning that success in abundance and riches is a two-sided blade.

For those that find success in abundance and immediately forget the Lord, there is anger and there is a desire to overthrow governments. There is a desire to beat others down and to put others down. And it's a caution sign for us, especially those of us that live today in the world of abundance, that we need to remember where our success comes from.

We come from a God of abundance Our successes our riches those things that we have in abundance in our lives are blessings from our Heavenly Father If we pursue those without keeping our Heavenly Father inside of the plans we will go astray and deal with those that are cunning devices, those that would flatter us. Maybe we're even those that become flattering others in order to do things for our own advantage Rather than helping to build the kingdom of God. A worthy caution from Helaman inside of these war chapters.

Remember that with success, we also should have gratitude toward our Heavenly Father for the ways that He has helped us find that success in our lives. 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.