Day 271 Nephi's Urgent Call to 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. Welcome to day 271 on our 365 day journey through the Book of Mormon together. Today, we're going to be reading Helaman chapter 10, verses 6 through 19.

You will finish that chapter and find out all sorts of cool stuff that Nephi gets from the Lord. And also Helaman chapter 11, verses 1 through 9, as you start that chapter. It's inside of here that we get this kind of second piece that we talked about yesterday where Nephi receives the sealing power from the Lord and whatever he seals on earth will be sealed in heaven and vice versa in terms of that power.

He also finds out that because of his obedience there is nothing Nephi would command to happen that the Lord wouldn't command as well. And that includes, as we find out in the reading today, even down to the level of declaring a famine in the land, and the famine happens. This is quite interesting to see as Nephi is preaching and trying to call all of the people to repentance.

And he doesn't want them to die by the sword in wars, and so he commands a famine to happen. But before that, it's an interesting verse for today. We're going to look at just a little piece of verse 12.

And in order to understand the interesting piece of verse 12, you have to kind of go back to yesterday's reading just a little bit. Because, remember, the crowd dispersed and Nephi started to head home. And then the Lord came.

And that's kind of what happened on the front end of yesterday. And so the verse 12 is still this interaction with the Lord. And then this happens after he finds out that he's got the sealing power and that the Lord has given him this responsibility to go forward and continue to repent.

Verse 12 says, "And behold, now it came to pass that when the Lord had spoken these words unto Nephi, he did stop and did not go unto his own house, but did return unto the multitudes who were scattered about upon the face of the land, and began to declare unto them the word of the Lord which had been spoken unto him concerning their destruction if they did not repent." This is interesting because Nephi gets this interaction with the Lord. He finds out that he needs to call repentance and that destruction is imminent, and he doesn't go, "Okay, let me put a plan together." Or he doesn't say, "All right, Lord, I'm going to run home, grab some dinner." I love this one. This got me thinking about missionaries and the way that missionaries go about their work.

I had a couple on my mission that were just these "let's go get them, let's go preach" companions. I love that energy around the work and I hear it when I talk to my daughter right now. Some of you are aware, my daughter is on her mission now.

I've talked about that in past episodes and as we check in with her and as we talk to her they're in an area that's a pretty new area. It's an area that does not have or has not had. In fact, it's a new open area.

So she's new to the mission and she's open in an area too. And so her and her companion are trying to figure out what this looks like in this new area. And yet she mentions how she and her companion just go like, "Let's go do the thing.

Let's go preach. Let's go see who we can find. Let's go knock on the doors.

Let's go knock on the fences and let's go find people." And that's what I see inside of Nephi here. He sees almost an emergency level here. It is intentionally important to happen now.

The fire is getting bigger and bigger, and Nephi is saying repentance needs to happen now. Destruction is becoming imminent if you do not repent. I love that reminder from Nephi to take the words of the Lord.

We certainly could do that in our lives as perhaps, maybe, as General Conference comes around or in our lives as we hear the words of the prophets or read them in the magazines that come from the Church. As the prophets and specifically our prophet leads and guides us and gives us direction in our lives, how quickly are we to respond to that and. 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.