2.49 Our Heavenly Father Has Specific Blessings Just For You

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. I have a new favorite pastime that I want to share with you today.

Welcome to our readings this week. We're reading Doctrine and Covenants Sections 12 through 17. Joseph Smith—History 1:66–75. 2 Nephi 5–9.

We've got a busy week, but it is going to be one filled with awesomeness. Our verse for today actually comes from all of Doctrine and Covenants Section 13. And that's because Doctrine and Covenants Section 13 is one verse.

So I had to pick that one. Whatever your reading choice is through the week, let's take a look at Doctrine and Covenants, Section 13, verse 1. It says, "Until the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness." My friends, we have here the record of John the Baptist conferring and restoring really the Aaronic Priesthood upon Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.

This is such an amazing moment in Church history. This is a differentiator between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christian denominations. We don't just believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

We believe that Jesus Christ, as the original organizer of His Church on the earth, has through his appointed servants restored the Priesthood, which is the power and authority to act in God's name on the earth. This restoration is one that sets us apart from everybody else. This blessing here we see inside of Doctrine and Covenants Section 13 is one that got me thinking about other blessings we have recorded.

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, I got to admit, but it's one that I want to share with you. And if you already do this, congratulations. If you have never tried this before, I hope that you take an opportunity to do this.

This does require you to have a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints account. So just a little side note there, but when you go to log in there, you have an opportunity to view your own patriarchal blessing. And if you're not familiar with patriarchal blessings, this is an opportunity to have hands laid upon your head by a church patriarch who is specifically set apart to be able to give you direct counsel from our Heavenly Father.

It's like receiving your own personal scriptures. I started going first into my own patriarchal blessing and spending some time there. But then I noticed that the Church has opened up the opportunity to have your family blessings, those that have passed away, those that are deceased in your family line, and to request those blessings as well.

And boy, did that take me down an amazing time. I've spent time enjoying reading my father's patriarchal blessing as he passed away a couple of years ago. And I sat down and read my mom's patriarchal blessing.

She just passed away last year. And then I started to say, wait a second, how many blessings are there here? And for me, there's 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 or so blessings that the Church has just said, hey, according to your family history line, here's patriarchal blessings that we have record of.

Now you can still request others and the Church will see if they have record of them, but it has taken me down to read some beautiful blessings from patriarchs of times past. I even went down there. One of mine that even has two patriarchal blessings, one from 1875 and one from 1900.

And the two messages inside those blessings are beautiful counsel. One of the patriarchal blessings that I read said that her line would always have a representative of God on the earth at all times due to her faithfulness. And I thought, my goodness, what amazing blessings these are!

My friends, the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just about a new day, a new Church. The restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a full restoration of all of the blessings that Heavenly Father has in store for me and for you. I hope that you take an opportunity if you've never had a patriarchal blessing to consider having one.

I hope that you take an opportunity if you've had one to go back and read it. And I hope you take the opportunity to look at some of those family patriarchal blessings and see what the Lord has promised to your family members as well. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt. We'll see you next time.