2.132 I Would That Ye Should Do

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. Welcome to the new week as we shift into Doctrine and Covenants sections 46–48, as well as slide into the last days of Abinadi inside of Mosiah chapters 17–20. We're going to take a look inside of Doctrine and Covenants 46.

It's an interesting time in the building of the Church. As many people are kind of getting this, like, "Hear a testimony, get baptized, missionaries leave, what am I supposed to do?" Isn't that an interesting time when you think about it, right? We have so many Church structures in place now.

We have so many different things that we can turn to as resources and knowledge bases. And we have this collection of General Conference talks, and we have handbooks, and none of that existed for these early Saints. So they relied heavily on direct revelation from the Lord, and they were asking Joseph Smith, "What are we supposed to do about all of these different things in our lives?" Doctrine and Covenants section 46 is some of that direction, and the Lord is going to give us some direct instruction, but he's also going to give us some general instruction.

And that's what I wanted to look at today. As we dive into our verse for today, we are looking at Doctrine and Covenants section 46, and we're going to look at verse 7 for our verse for today. It says this: "But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally,"—that should sound familiar—"and that which the Spirit testifies unto you, even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, considering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving, that ye may not be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men.

For some are of men, and others are of devils." Now, that's an interesting detail in there. We're not going to focus on that aspect, but the Lord letting us know that not only are there doctrines of men and commandments of men in the world, but also some of devils. That is interesting.

We don't want to become seduced by those. And so, thus, we have the beginning of this verse: What do we do to avoid those conditions and circumstances in our lives? We're very familiar with the idea to ask of God.

It's a core piece of what we believe as Latter-day Saints. We believe that the Restoration stemmed from this idea that Joseph Smith read and decided to ask of God. Okay, but then we have an interesting piece of this that I think is worth pointing out for each one of us.

And that is after that, okay, you're commanded in all things to ask of God. And then that which the Spirit testifies unto you, even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart. My friends, if you are praying, how much are you doing?

And that's a great, that's like an, an Allen mirror moment for me as well, too. When we pray, we're seeking for inspiration and revelation from the Lord, but then we're told here that we need to follow up on the inspiration and revelation. Do the things you're inspired to do.

Recently my wife has come to me. I've been asking her about a few things that she's choosing to do, and she finally just said, "I feel inspired to be moving in this direction and doing these things." And I tried to say, "Okay, let's follow that and see what that is." I love that she is asking of God and trying to do the things that the Spirit testifies to do. I know there's power in it.

It empowers us to not just stay in the prayer, but to let the Lord know, Lord, when I'm inspired, I also have full intent to move forward and do the things that you're telling me to do. And then how do we do it? We do it with holiness of heart.

We walk uprightly before him. Right? We're considering the end of our salvation.

We're doing things with prayer and thanksgiving. My friends, prayer should include doing. Praying and doing should go hand in hand.

And that is our message to remember today. 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. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.