2.71 Endure and Be Lifted Up

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. My friends, I wish we could dive in verse by verse to Doctrine and Covenants section 20, but it's just not going to happen.

We're reading this week, Doctrine and Covenants sections 20 through 22, as well as 2 Nephi chapters 19 through 23. I hope you're pacing yourself here. I'm doing my best to try and pick verses here and there and yet I'm like, ooh, maybe that verse, ooh, maybe that verse, ooh, maybe that verse.

Our verse for today is one that pretty much wraps up and encapsulates the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is in Doctrine and Covenants section 20, verse 29. And inside of it, it says, "And we know that all men must repent and believe on the name of Jesus Christ and worship the Father in his name and endure in faith on his name to the end or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God." Now, this one was an interesting conversation that I just had with my daughters as we were talking about the idea of enduring.

And it took me down some kind of some different lines of study as kind of a lot of these things do. You know, typically what even what my daughters said inside of our conversation, they said, when you hear people say, oh, you know, just trying to endure or, you know, I'm just enduring to the end. And the way that they kind of put that context in is that it's some sort of laborious, difficult, not motivating experience in life.

That like enduring to the end is somehow just like holding on behind the boat, being dragged by the ski rope and you just hope that you don't drown or something. It's kind of a drudgery type comment. And yet interestingly enough, we have a talk that I loved from President Nelson, although back when he was Elder Nelson.

This is from 1997. I'll make sure I put the link inside of the podcast episode here. And inside of it, it's called "Endure and Be Lifted Up." Right?

Almost a flip side to this concept of enduring to the end. And in it, he says this about the word 'endure': He says, "The word *endure* comes from two Latin roots. The prefix 'N' means 'within.' The remainder comes from the verb *durare*.

I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly because I don't speak Latin, but D-U-R-A-R-E, which means 'to be firm or solid.' Thus, *endure* means to become firm within yourself." Now talk about a great personal development plan! When we go back to our verse here and look at the idea of enduring in faith on his name — that would be the name of Jesus Christ, right? — and we replace that, 'to become firm within yourself in faith on the name of Jesus Christ.' Wow! What does that do for you in changing the concept of enduring to the end?

To me, it lifts me up. It says, 'Allen, you can develop within yourself a firm and solid faith in Jesus Christ. And by doing so, you are enduring to the end.' The very act of getting firm inside, within yourself, in your faith, knowing in whom you believe, will be enduring to the end.

My friends, I hope that you experience being lifted up through your own endurance on the name of Jesus Christ. 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. Thank you.