Day 267 Not of Myself: God Makes Truth Known

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 267 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together. Today you're going to be reading Helaman chapter 7, verses 22-29, you'll finish that chapter, and Helaman chapter 8, verses 1-11.

In chapter 7, we're going to have Nephi preaching and prophesying repentance unto the people. That should not be new to any of us if we've been reading Helaman together, right? And then we're going to have in chapter 8 the beginning of this group that we find out are government leaders and judges among the people that are also members of the Gadianton Robbers.

And they're going to try to convince the people to get rid of Nephi, right? Ultimately, remove him completely from life. And so we see inside of this that the Gadianton Robbers have now gotten all the way into stages of government positions.

And they're doing everything they can to manipulate the people. I give that context because our verse for today actually kind of helps with that a little bit. Today we're going to be looking at Helaman chapter 7, verse 29 as our verse, and this is right as Nephi is wrapping up talking to the people, and he kind of adds this almost as if like, "Hey, for those of you in the group that are wondering." And so I like it because for us it's like, "Hey, and by the way, this little thing." So let's read it and see what I'm talking about here.

Helaman chapter 7, verse 29 says this: "Behold, now, I do not say that these things shall be of myself, because it is not of myself that I know these things. But behold, I know that these things are true, because the Lord God has made them known unto me; therefore I testify that they shall be." Now this immediately got me thinking about the role that prophets play in our lives today. And I am so grateful for a living prophet because we have these moments where the prophet can speak and he speaks the words of the Lord, not the words of the prophet.

And look, I've even had instances in my life where I have been giving—in fact, I'll give you a specific example. As I was often in our family, we do Father's Blessings at the beginning of school year for all of our girls. And so we take a Sunday afternoon and we turn all the buzzers and beepers and everything else that electronically makes noises off.

We turn those off and we take an opportunity to do Father's Blessings at the start of the school year. And I can tell you there are times where I'm saying words in the blessing and I know that's not just Allen saying the words of the blessing. I know that the Spirit is prompting me to give direction and counsel and specific blessings to each of my girls and even to my wife.

And so I see this role that Nephi plays here, and I see it for two purposes. One, the purpose for us to remember that when the prophet speaks he speaks as a prophet of the Lord. And the second one for us on a personal basis: remember those times so that you can come back to them in the future and say, "I know the Spirit prompts me directly." Let's see what happens when you sit down and think into that with a little bit of quiet time today.

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.