Day 299 Be Perfect: The Path to Wholeness

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. It's simple.

Just be perfect. What? Welcome to day 299 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

We are about to enter into the 300s. That comes tomorrow. Today on our Savory Salt episode, we're going to be reading 3 Nephi chapter 12, verses 41 to 48.

You will finish that chapter. And 3 Nephi chapter 13, verses 1 through 18, where the Lord teaches "The Lord's Prayer" and talks about how we go about giving alms and serving others. Let's dive into a very common scripture verse here today.

For our verse for the day, I want to just share just a little bit about what it looks like, sounds like, feels like in Mongolian, as that has been where I served my mission. I talked about that often in Savory Salt. We're going to be looking at 3 Nephi 12, verse 48.

And it is the Lord kind of wrapping up the Beatitudes in this section a little bit. I guess it keeps going a little bit as He's teaching, but verse 48 says this: "Therefore, I would that ye should be perfect, even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." So there you have it, my friends. Just be perfect.

And if you are just perfect, then you've got it. And yet all of us go, "How in the world are we supposed to accomplish that?" And I think this attaches a little bit from yesterday. And I hope you can kind of follow along as I do this.

I'm going to try my best to kind of say this as I'm thinking it so that it comes across clearly enough. But I think it's interesting that we have the higher law introduced. These are things that we should do in our lives.

These are actions we should be taking in our lives. There's the to-do list. And then at the end of the to-do list, we get this commandment: to be.

This is the to-be list. And what are we supposed to be? We're supposed to be perfect.

And as we look at that, we go, "Wow, that's a really high standard!" And yet I think that the things — the 'doing the things' list — helps us to transition into the becoming the person. As we do the things more, it helps us to become the person more. We are literally doing the things that Christ did and transitioning into becoming more like Christ.

Now, when it comes to the perfect thing, I know that there's different translations. This comes from the Greek and the Hebrew, and I want to look. Let's look at it through Mongolian.

And for those Mongolians, or those of you that listen to this that have served with me, I know there's some of you out there that may be smiling right now, but forgive me for the accent. It's been over 20 years since I was over in Mongolia. But in Mongolian, the word for perfect is tukstuguldur.

And tukstuguldur actually means kind of complete completeness. It's like a redundancy. It's like saying it's the whole of the whole.

It's the entirety of everything. It's the complete completeness. And I love that lens rather than perfection because for me, it's this view that as we're doing the things and as we're becoming more like Christ, we are becoming in effect whole or complete with Him in our lives.

Without Him in our lives, without doing those things, without making those covenants, without keeping the commandments, we don't reach that completeness or that whole in our lives. And I like that imagery. It's almost like I'm a part of a circle.

And when I include Christ in my life, and when I do the things that Christ has said that we should be doing, I start to complete that circle in my life. That's the lens that comes to mind that I wanted to share with you today. Okay, so as you hear the perfection commandment, I want you to hold the perspective of what does it look like to just have Christ complete you.

That is empowering in many ways because as I try to do the things and I try to become the person, I know that with Christ by my side, I can become complete. The way that He is complete, I can become whole, the way that our Heavenly Father is whole. And that is an empowering thought that I wanted to share with you 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.