2.30 The Heavens Are Open

In Matthew 5:13, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth, a bold reminder that our lives are meant to carry His flavor, His truth, and His love to the world. Join me each day to explore one verse of scripture and one thought, striving to stay full of savor and truly live as savory salt. Hello, my friends, great to have you with me.

Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. Welcome to day 30 inside of our adventures of Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon together. Today our reading is going to be coming from Doctrine and Covenants Section 5.

This week you're reading Sections 3 through 5 and 1 Nephi chapters 13 through 17. We're going to look at Section 5. I love Sections 3, 4, and 5 together.

I think there's obviously a story going on with them, but Section 5 is such an interesting one. It's one of the earliest revelations that we have recorded here. It's a revelation really through Joseph Smith to Martin Harris after the whole 116 pages incident.

Martin Harris is going to play such a pivotal role, especially in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. He's obviously going to be one of the Three Witnesses to the plates. And yet, Doctrine and Covenants Section 5 is cool because he doesn't know those things yet.

And so, I love historically looking at this and being able to see what the Lord is saying for someone that's coming down the line. And it's an opportunity for us to also pause and realize that the Lord and His ability to give us direction in our lives is something that we can lean into, because we don't know what's coming in our lives, and yet we can lean into the promptings, the manifestations of the Spirit in our lives as well. I get a little bit ahead of myself as I start giving the message here versus the verse first.

So, let's dive into the verse here and then I'll continue sharing that idea. Doctrine and Covenants Section 5, verse 16, says this: 'And behold, whosoever believeth on my words, them will I visit with the manifestation of my Spirit. And they shall be born of me, even of water and of the Spirit.' And then it continues on, so as always, whenever we don't have a complete sentence there, you keep reading, and I don't, because it's just one verse a day.

But what I love inside of here, I was talking to my daughters just the other day about this specific area here. Martin Harris, as he was trying to decide whether to help Joseph Smith or not and whether Joseph Smith was telling the truth or not, he knelt down in his own experience, and through his own words, he knelt down and prayed to the Lord and asked Him. And through his experience, he received an answer through a still, small voice, as he described it, that what Joseph Smith was doing was real and true and that Martin could help him.

One of the things I love about this, and this is what the conversation was I was having with my daughters. It was that Martin Harris's still, small voice experience was no less powerful to him than Joseph Smith's vision was in terms of the "First Vision." And as we talk about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today, we proclaim that the heavens are open. But that doesn't mean that only the prophet can receive revelation through the opening of the heavens.

We believe in manifestations of the Spirit, and as we're told here in verse 16, that those that believe on the words of Christ will be visited with the manifestations of His Spirit. The thing that I love about that is for each one of us that's going to come in specific ways and specific times. One example for me: I've had moments in my life where people I have talked to, or people have written things about me in terms of testimonials for the work that I do, or those types of things.

And they have used literally word for word exact phrases from my patriarchal blessing when describing me. And I see the Lord's hand in that. I see Him saying, 'Hey, Allen, did you see that right there?' 'You're becoming the man that I described in the patriarchal blessing for you.' 'You in that moment there, you in alignment there.' And that to me is no less powerful or no less revealing than a vision that Joseph Smith has of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

I am so grateful that the heavens are open. I'm grateful that they're open for me. They're open for you.

They're certainly open for the prophet and our prophets, seers, and revelators today through the leadership of the Church, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. And I love that we can sit today and tell others that we believe that the heavens are open for them as well. If they truly seek to believe in this.

That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.