2.94 You and I Shall Stand Face to Face Before His Bar

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're going to be transitioning from Doctrine and Covenants Section 29, although I did have probably three or four or five or six more verses there that I wanted to dive into.

But we also have 2 Nephi 33 and Jacob Chapters 1 through 4 that we need to dive into. And so that is where we are headed. For the rest of the week, we're going to be looking at one verse outside of 2 Nephi Chapter 33, and that comes in today's verse as we dive in.

We're going to be looking at verse 11 in Chapter 33 there, and it comes on the tail end of verse 10, which is very, very powerful. As Nephi is saying, "Look, it's kind of the 'if,' right? Like, if you don't believe this, believe in Christ.

But if you believe in Christ, you're going to believe this." And it's kind of the 'if' pieces there. And then we continue that thought inside of verse 11. And verse 11 says this: "And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye, for Christ will show unto you with power and great glory that they are his words at the last day.

And you and I shall stand face to face before his bar. And ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness." Now there's a really interesting insight here that I think speaks, maybe it's just specific to some personal conversations I've had with friends or whatnot, but I've had several conversations with friends of mine that ask kind of, you know, whether I believe that the stories in the Bible and scripture stories, whether they're actually like real or are they anecdotal? Like, are the people real or are they really just stories that are meant to inspire faith or that type of idea?

And I can remember bearing testimony to a good friend of mine saying, "No, I think they're very real." And I think Nephi is an example of that. And yet here in verse 11, he basically kind of lays it out for us. And I love it because as I think forward to the day where I'm meeting Christ, right?

Or whatever that looks like. I don't know if I did I twinkle? Did I die and resurrect?

Did I die and I met Christ? Like, I'm not sure how that works exactly, right? I don't have all the details.

But that day, I would rather be standing before Christ and see Nephi and go, "Nephi, it's so good. Thank you for your words." Rather than stand before Christ and then look over and see Nephi and be like, "Oh, dude, Nephi's real? Oh, I didn't believe his stuff!" And so my friends, I know it's kind of comical, and yet I don't mean to make it comical to think, "I love Nephi's testimony here that he says, 'Look, you cannot tell me that these aren't the words of Christ, but I'm telling you, Christ has commanded me to write these things.

You cannot believe them if you want, but I'm telling you, the things I've written are true. And you cannot believe in me if you want, but I'm going to meet you face to face, and together we're going to stand before his bar. We're going to stand before his bar!'" And so I love the simplicity.

As he says earlier in this Chapter, he says he glories in plainness and truth and in Jesus, right? And that's what I get inside this verse as well. So, my friends, let's take Nephi at his word.

Let's pray and ask about these words that he has written. Let's put him to the test and see if Christ truly will show unto us with power and great glory that they are his words. Because I testify to you that if you will pray and ask about the words that you read from Nephi and from the other prophets of the Book of Mormon, and as a Mormon, you too will have an answer from God.

You will be delivered to your heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. And you and I will be able to stand face to face before his bar and know that Nephi and others were commanded to write these words. What a powerful thought for our day today.

I love it. 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.