2.51 Nervous to Declare Repentance? Try This

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 have just recently passed over 50 days in this new season, which means 50 days into this new year, if you're listening to it according to the timelines of the January to December annual flow of things.

So congratulations on your daily study and your daily progress. And now we're going to continue reading our sections here with Doctrine and Covenants, sections 12 through 17 this week. And then on the tail end of the week, we're going to transition into our readings for Book of Mormon, which is 2 Nephi chapters 5 through 9.

Great stuff in there. I wish I could spend the week just on that, but that's another season perhaps. Our verse for today is going to repeat kind of the idea of yesterday.

And that is that as we read through these sections, we see very common and repeated verses. And so the one that we have today you could actually pull out of Doctrine and Covenants section 15 or section 16 because they pretty much almost a mirror of each other inside of it. Our verse is going to be Doctrine and Covenants section 15, verse 6.

This is going to be a revelation given specifically to John Whitmer. Then Peter Whitmer Jr. is going to be section 16. So these are the Whitmer brothers, right?

In section 14, we had the revelation to David Whitmer, who's going to end up being one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. John and Peter Jr. are going to be inside of the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon. So we have key players here in the foundations of the early gospel and the early Restoration.

Our verse is Doctrine and Covenants, section 15, verse six. It says, "And now, behold, I say unto you that the thing which will be of the most worth unto you will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father. Amen." Now it's interesting.

We might read this and in today's lens, we might read it and say, "Oh, I don't, I don't know that the best thing I could do is declare repentance to other people." Like if I go around declaring repentance to other people, everyone going to be like, "Why are you judging me?" And, "Stop judging me!" And so we may like hit the brakes when we read this and not think about what it could be for our lives. But I actually thought about this through a little bit different lens. And this is sometimes the case with me.

Sometimes I think things through differently, but here the lens I thought about for a while: about two years or so, for about 18 months, two years, I had a personal trainer that would not just tell me the workouts I should go do, but I was working with my meals; I was working with my physical workouts, right? And so it wasn't just the workout plan. I was actually meeting with him and going to the gym.

We were doing workouts together. So he was side by side with me as we were going together, right? These experiences, and I promise this is coming around to verse six here.

But what would happen inside of this is as I would do the lifts with the weights or as I would do the motions that we were working on, he would watch and he would correct. And the reason he was correcting me is because if I did the lifting wrong, I could increase the chances of damaging the muscles that I was working on. So if I was out of form, I could possibly hurt myself, right?

I could possibly actually pull a muscle or even worse, tear it, right? Something like that. And so I actually started to lean in.

And at first it was really awkward because I just felt awkward. I was like, "man, I'm just not doing this right." And it was correction after correction after correction until I started to do it correctly. And I started to feel and see the differences inside of my workouts.

Now, what does that mean for this declaring repentance? My friends, for you and for me, a quick question for you. If you're doing something wrong, when would you rather know about it?

Today or 10 years from now? I rather know today. While it might hurt to hear that I'm doing something wrong, if it helps me become aware of it, fix the direction, get me on a better track, and start heading on the track in the right direction, I rather know about that.

So just as it was for me working out and realizing that at first it was awkward, he wasn't criticizing me to attack me as a person. He was criticizing me to keep me healthier than I would have been otherwise. He was helping to see what I was doing wrong, correct it, and make it healthier for me and for my body.

I believe the Lord does the same with us and gives us an opportunity through prophets, apostles, through family members, through leaders in our local ward and stake congregations to hear repentance declared to us and have an opportunity for us to correct what we're doing wrong, to realign it with the will of our Heavenly Father and to put us in a greater state of health and happiness. I'm grateful to sit in this position and not just receive to me a call to repentance from a living prophet, but also extend it to you. Consider the role that repentance plays in your life.

In what areas can you correct? In what ways can you come closer to the will and the commandments of our Heavenly Father and in so doing have a healthy relationship with Him on your day-to-day basis? That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave to the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.