2.116 Ye Shall Always 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, you know what I'm thinking today? Let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness.

I have enjoyed reading Doctrine and Covenants sections 37 through 40 this week and the lessons that we learn inside of those verses. Today, we're going to move on to our Book of Mormon readings a little bit. We're going to return from the beginning of the week where we started.

And finish up inside of the readings, Mosiah chapters 3 through 7. This is the middle of a very famous prophetic teaching that we find out King Benjamin received from an angel of the Lord to give to his people. And he teaches in chapters 2 and 3, and then we get into 4, kind of the results of his teaching a little bit, and 5, even further, a little bit of what happens with those results.

We're going to take a look in Mosiah chapter 4. There's a little bit of a pattern I want to point out here for us. And the idea with that is a pattern for us to always rejoice, for us to always have joy.

I love that. You want the equation to always know how to rejoice and have joy? I do.

And so I noticed inside of here as I was reading this. There's a couple of verses that seem to repeat in different ways. So I want to point those out so that you can go and read those.

And then we'll focus on our verse here. Inside of Mosiah chapter 4, first, the people hear his words, and in verse 2, they see themselves in their own carnal state, right? They see themselves, there's this humility coming through.

We could use the term 'guilt,' right? As they're realizing their unworthiness before the Lord. And I think that's interesting to catch because there are many that say, oh, I go to church and I just feel guilty.

Or I'd spent my entire life growing up and it was always about guilt. And I think what happens here is people miss the second part of the equation here. And that's in verse 3 where we see that they turn to Jesus Christ, they repent of their sins, and through the remission of their sins, they have this peace of conscience, right?

This peace of conscience—sorry, not consciousness—conscience. And I love that! And so then I noticed that in verse 11 he repeats it again.

And he's like, 'Hey, if you experience this, you're going to remember how nothing you are,' right? And not in a way to make you feel guilty. You're just going to realize that there is someone you can turn to for strength and for help.

And then he gives us a cool list in verse 11 about going about that, how we can remember the spiritual experiences we have. And then we get to verse 12 again, which is the result of doing this, is the 'step two' of the equation. Verse 12 is going to be our verse for today.

It says, 'And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this, all these things in verse 11, ye shall always rejoice and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins. And ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.' Now I had to pick a verse and I picked verse 12 because I wanted you to hear that the result of this equation, right, as we do this, we can always rejoice. We can be filled with the love of God.

We can always retain a remission of our sins. And so for those that struggle with the guilt around the gospel, realize that there is more to the equation. The Holy Spirit is not sent to us to make us feel guilty and feel that we're always going to be punished all the time, everywhere we go, all the things.

That is not the purpose of the gospel. That is not why Jesus Christ came to earth. He came to earth to suffer for our sins that we may rejoice, that we may be filled with the love of God, and always retain our.

Remember the second part of the equation, and as you turn to Jesus Christ, you too may find that you shall always rejoice in what he has to offer. That's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice.

Please cleave unto the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit www.allenroberds.com.