2.101 The Comforter, Which Shall Teach You the Peaceable Things of the Kingdom

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 are going to be wrapping up our Doctrine and Covenants reading for this week. We have been reading inside of Doctrine and Covenants sections 30 through 36, and we've got one more thought that I want to share inside of that one.

Remember you're reading as well Jacob chapter 5 through 7 as well as the book of We might sneak a little bit into next week with some of those thoughts as we head into the Easter week of study, according to Come, Follow Me. Today's thought comes inside of Doctrine and Covenants 36. I hope you've seen through these sections, although I haven't shared a specific scripture to these phrases.

I hope you're seeing that the Lord is calling these people to open their mouths, to share their voices, to use their voice like a trump. They are called to preach the gospel, and that message is not just for them, it is for us as well, as we see inside of Doctrine and Covenants section 36. In fact, we see later on in 36, here on the tail end of it, that the Lord is saying, "Look, brethren, those of you that receive the gospel and become elders in the Church and receive the priesthood, you are going to go out and all of you are called to go and serve and speak and preach this word." But our verse for today comes on the front end of it.

I want to share it, Doctrine and Covenants section 36, verse 2. And this is really an interesting verse when you read it here. It says, "And I," remember, this is the Lord speaking, "and I will lay my hand upon you by the hand of my servant Sidney Rigdon, and you shall receive my Spirit, the Holy Ghost, even the Comforter, which shall teach you the peaceable things of the Kingdom." Now there's a lot inside of that.

One, we hear the Lord saying, "I am going to lay my hand upon you by the hand of my servant Sidney Rigdon." And that's cool. We kind of see not just the symbolic laying on of hands from the Lord, but the literal laying on of hands by the Lord here through Sidney Rigdon. And then this receiving of the Spirit is really interesting to me.

And this is the piece I wanted to kind of dive into for us as Savory Salt listeners. And that is that this Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, we know those terms, but its role here is really kind of interesting. It is going to teach the peaceable things of the Kingdom.

Now we are certainly in a time of discord. We are in a time of upheaval in some places. We are at a time of wars and rumors of wars, right?

And a lot of times we can get kind of down about the world around us. Maybe even just what is happening in our local communities can get us down. As I thought about the peaceable things of the Kingdom and what the Spirit can do when we have it in our lives, I wanted to dive into that a little bit more.

And it took me down into some General Conference studies I tend to do when I look at these scriptures. And I came across a talk by Neil A. Maxwell.

In fact, I think I used it sometime in the past. I am starting to forget which talks I used and which ones I haven't. This comes from Elder Maxwell in 2002.

It's called "Encircled in the Arms of His Love." And though I've used it, I think I've used a different part of it, but I wanted to share this part that he shares inside of this, and I'll make sure the link is inside the podcast episode as well. He says, "The Holy Ghost. Whether in tranquil or turbulent times, our best source of comfort is the Comforter.

Enoch wept over the wickedness in his time and at first refused to be comforted. But then came revelations, successively showing Jesus redeeming the world, the Latter-day Restoration, and the Second Coming. Enoch was told to lift up his heart and be glad.

The doctrines and revelations can likewise lift us even amid wars and rumors of wars. Thus we need not grow weary in our minds." This is such a beautiful talk, "Encircled in the Arms of His Love." It is beautiful. And this segment here just spoke to me about the peaceable things of the Kingdom.

My friends, seek to have the Spirit in your lives. It truly is a Comforter for us and gives us an opportunity to have, regardless of the circumstances happening around us, to have and receive for us the peaceable things of the Kingdom. It truly is a blessing for us to have the Holy Spirit in our lives as a Comforter to bring us comfort and peace during the turbulent times.

I love it. These sections have been so good, and I hope you've enjoyed them as well. We will take our last couple of days of the week and dive into our Book of Mormon readings as we go forward here.

And then we get closer to our special Easter messages through our study of Come, Follow Me as well as continuing reading in the Book of Mormon. 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.