Day 327 A Joyful Judgment: Becoming Like God

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. I wish I could sit across from you and face to face say, wherever you're listening from, "Thank you for joining me and know that I'm cheering for your every success." What if judgment day was a happy day? Welcome to day 327 on our 365-day journey through the Book of Mormon together.

Today, you're going to be reading Mormon chapter 3, verses 13-22, and Mormon chapter 4, verses 1-10. This is dire circumstances indeed. In fact, Mormon refuses to participate at all.

He is commanded by the Lord to sit and record and bear witness to the wickedness around him. This has got to be a very difficult time for him. And in Mormon chapter 3, we get a section where he just flat out says, "I'm writing to you in the future." And that is where our verse for today is going to come from, in Mormon chapter 3, verse 20: "And these things doth the Spirit manifest unto me.

Therefore I write unto you all, and for this cause I write unto you, that ye may know that ye must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Yea, every soul who belongs to the whole human family of Adam, and ye must stand to be judged of your works, whether they be good or evil." And then he continues writing. Now, judgment for a lot of people comes across as a negative connotation.

We use it today: "Don't be so judgy," "Don't judge me," "Don't judge, judge, judge, judge, judge." And we use judgment as if it's a bad thing. And yet I have to pause and think about this through the lens of the Lord. I'm trying to see things the way that He sees things, and I don't think that judgment has to be a negative thing.

I started wondering what it would be like to sit in judgment with the Lord and know that I had lived my life trying to be like Him. Now, I may fall short of that attempt, but I have a feeling that the Lord would be happy with my efforts and would smile and appreciate the things I had done in my life to try to be like Him. It led me into some personal study here, and I landed on a talk by Joseph B.

Wirthlin, "The Straight and Narrow Way," from 1993. And he shares a segment inside of here that really has me reflecting on what it's like to live my life trying to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ. He says, "Considering all that Jesus is and all He does for us, what should we be doing to show our appreciation?

We should go far beyond knowing about Jesus and about His attributes and mission. We should come to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. It is one thing to know about God and another to know Him.

We know about Him when we learn that He is a personal being in whose image man is created. When we learn that the Son is in the express image of His Father's person. When we learn that both the Father and the Son possess certain specific attributes and powers.

The Bible says, But we know Them in the sense of gaining eternal life, when we enjoy and experience the same things They do. To know God is to think what He thinks, to feel what He feels, to have the power He possesses, to comprehend the truths He understands, and to do what He does. Those who know God become like Him and have His kind of life, which is eternal life." The more we strive to be like Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, and the more we take on Their attributes in our lives, the less judgment becomes a negative thing at all.

It actually is a moment where we sit down and realize in perfect alignment that we are like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. That then, instead, could be a glorious day, an amazing day. I wonder if that day of judgment that Mormon's warning us about is such a terrible day because of the wickedness he sees around him, while at the same time being perfectly calm that he knows that when he sits in judgment with the Lord, he has done all he could to become like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I hope I sit across from the Lord on my judgment day and do so with a smile on my face. And I see a smile on His face as well, as we embrace and the Lord says, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." I hope I live that kind of life. And I hope you find it inside of you to live that kind of life as well.

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.