2.44 Resist Him That Stirreth Up Souls

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. We continue on our tennis court back and forth as we dive back into Doctrine and Covenants Sections 10 and 11 today.

If you're just joining this week, you're going to be reading Doctrine and Covenants Sections 10 and 11, as well as 2 Nephi Chapters 1 through 4, some of my favorites when it comes to Book of Mormon reading. I love those chapters. We continue this week looking at both ends of the spectrum of good and evil.

We have spent some time looking at verses that describe Jesus Christ. We've looked at verses that describe a little bit about Satan. We've looked at why it is that we have options and the power that we have to choose around them.

And today we dive into another aspect inside of that. And that found inside of Doctrine and Covenants Section 10 as we stay inside of that section. Just one more day of our readings here, I want to look at Doctrine and Covenants Section 10, Verse 21 for our verse today.

Let's see what it says and then see what we can put together on it. It says, "And their hearts are corrupt and full of wickedness and abominations, and they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. Therefore, they will not ask of me." Now remember, this is the Lord talking, right?

And so the ask of me part is the Lord. And we're going to look at several aspects of this throughout the rest of the week here. But it's interesting: how did their hearts get corrupt and full of wickedness?

Where did this come from? And I was going to pick one verse that used this phrase, but I just want to raise this awareness to you as you're reading the verses around here. You're going to see that Satan stirs them up a lot and stirreth them up, stirreth up their hearts, stirreth up, stirreth up.

Satan stirs people up. And what's he stirring them up to? Well, he's stirring them up to anger, to corruption, to wickedness, to sinfulness, to abominations, to darkness rather than light.

And so what we see here then are the effects of that stirring up that Satan plays a role in. And then we see the results of that stirring up. And one of them is the one I want to point out today: "Therefore, they will not ask of me." One of the key outcomes that comes from the stirreth up of the hearts from Satan to all of us is that we begin to refuse to pray or ask the Lord. "They will not ask of me" is such an interesting phrase.

And I've got to tell you, sometimes as I thought about this one and I reflected on my own life, some of my hardest days that I've had that I can think about in my past. Some of the days where I've just been struggling or, you know, depressed over outcomes that day or feeling like I'm just stacking up losses one after the other. You know, it's interesting considering this lens here.

Those are the times where a lot of times I say to myself, Allen, you don't need to pray today. Like God sees you losing. He knows what's happening.

You don't need to kneel down and say, hey, by the way, I'm losing in my life because he sees that. And I love this reminder here that those thoughts and feelings are not from the Lord. Those thoughts and feelings come from Satan as he's trying to stir up my own heart towards corruption, wickedness, and abomination.

My friends, prayer is such a powerful part of our lives and we can absolutely see people that will refuse to ask the Lord whether this work is real. That refusal comes from darkness. I am so grateful that I have this reminder in my life to kneel down and to pray to seek the Lord's guidance, to ask of Him the directions, the things I need in my life.

I can find inspiration, revelation, and answers to my prayers if I'm just willing to have faith in the Lord and ask Him for those things. I testify that prayer is real. I testify that the choice to have prayer in your life will lead to directions and guidance from our Heavenly Father.

And I also testify that those feelings to not pray and ask the Lord are of darkness. I hope that we can remember that and hold to the light and seek Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father in our lives. 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.