Day 293 The New Sacrifice: Broken Heart and Contrite Spirit

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

Today, you're going to be reading 3 Nephi chapter 9, verses 10 through 22, and 3 Nephi chapter 10, verses 1 through 4. And in 3 Nephi chapter 9, verse 15, we get the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ declaring it is His voice they are hearing, and then the rest of that chapter is direct instruction from Jesus Christ. And so it begins, because after this, we're going to have chapter 10, this little kind of intermediate chapter, and then in 3 Nephi chapter 11, the Lord Jesus Christ is going to appear to the people that are on this continent.

The Nephites and the Lamanites that have survived the destruction are going to meet the Savior face to face. But we're not there yet. Instead, what we want to look at today is our verse for today, where the Savior instructs that the law of Moses has been fulfilled and a new law of sacrifice is established.

And I wanted to bring in this new law of sacrifice here and how the Savior changes it from the typical blood sacrifice and burnt offerings that the law of Moses had been doing down to what his new sacrifice, new law of sacrifice is. It's found in 3 Nephi 9, verse 20. And ye shall offer—remember, this is the Lord Jesus Christ talking here—and ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost, even as the Lamanites, because of their faith in me at the time of their conversion, were baptized with fire and with the Holy Ghost and they knew it not. Now, I want to let you know, when I do research here for Savory Salt and when I kind of am thinking about different ways that this has been talked about and looking at different conference talks, I use an app, I think it created by BYU, if I'm not mistaken, but it's called the Citation Index. And what you can do with the Citation Index is you can go into a scripture and then work backwards from that scripture and see who has quoted that scripture in conference talks or where it's been used before.

And it's an awesome tool. It's a useful tool because I think, if I'm not mistaken, that they have all of the conference talks all the way back to the beginning of conference with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and whatnot. And so you get a lot of General Conference history inside of those.

One of the interesting things I wanted to note about this verse here with this new law of sacrifice, specifically the phrase "broken heart and contrite spirit." If you will take some time to go in and see what that phrase is and specifically 3 Nephi chapter 9, verse 20. On the Citation Index, when I'm looking at any given verse, there's typically one to five references over all General Conferences. It's typically around 5, sometimes you get up into 10 if it's like a really popular one.

And I want to let you know that 3 Nephi 9, verse 20 has been referenced over 50 times in General Conference from leaders of the Church teaching on these concepts. I think there's a sign here for us to take some time and to understand what the law of. What does it mean to bring forward a broken heart and a contrite spirit with us and our Savior?

That is something that I will allow the Spirit to teach you as you dive into that phrase and spend some time looking at the words of the prophets and apostles and those leaders of the Church that have spoken into it. This is the change from Jesus Christ saying the law of Moses is fulfilled and now is the time to live the new law. And this new law of sacrifice is one of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

I hope you can dig into what that looks like in your life and find an incredible outpouring and baptism by fire as it talks about in this verse, which is so cool. And that you get a little bit more savory as you do so. 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.