2.80 Covenants Give Us Reason to Rejoice

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 back-to-back-to-back discussion inside of Doctrine and Covenants Section 25. We're now on the third day there, so if you missed the other two days, you'll want to go back to yesterday and the day before, as we have spent three days inside of a very small section of Doctrine and Covenants.

And I think it's because for me, this speaks to those that are having a hard time. This speaks to Emma, who is doing so much to support Joseph Smith and the growth of the Church. She is extending and overextending herself over and over and over again.

And the Lord is giving her such rich direction. Today is going to sound a little bit like a broken record because you've already been hearing it for the past 80 days of this season. You hear it at the end of every episode.

And it comes from this section in Doctrine and Covenants. Let's read the verse and talk about it. It's Doctrine and Covenants Section 25, verse 13: Wherefore, lift up your heart and rejoice, and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made.

My friends, I finally get an opportunity to talk about why I selected this to be our end of our podcast day after day after day. And that's because making covenants with the Lord gives us reason to lift up our hearts and rejoice, that we have to be reminded of the two parts of those covenants: our obligations as well as the obligations of our Heavenly Father as we live up to them. My friends, we get a chance when we go to church on Sundays to hear the sacrament prayers and to be reminded of the role that Heavenly Father can play in our lives as we take upon us the name of Jesus Christ as we do in baptismal covenants.

When we go to the temple, we have an opportunity to serve and to do proxy work for those that have passed on. And in those ordinances, we get a chance to be reminded of the covenants we're making, but also the blessings that come when we make those covenants with our Heavenly Father. Our covenants tie us to a loving Heavenly Father and give us an opportunity to be lifted up in our difficult times.

Emma was experiencing difficult times, Joseph had them, Oliver had them, we all experienced them. And our covenants provide us an opportunity to be lifted up. And through that lifting up in our hearts, an opportunity to rejoice that we are yoked side by side with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I am so grateful to Him for lifting me up in my most difficult times in life. I am so grateful for the covenants that I have made in my life. And I know, as you make covenants in your life, that you too have the opportunity to lift up your heart and rejoice.

It is truly through our covenants that we can experience the joy and the love to the fullest extent our Heavenly Father has to offer. So, as we wrap up today, we'll do so with a better context of why I picked this phrase. 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.