2.137 They Did Walk Uprightly Before God

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.

It's great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. We have been reading Doctrine and Covenants sections 46–48 this week, and now we're in the middle of Mosiah chapters 17–20.

We transition in our story from the death of Abinadi into Alma having heard his words. We're going to look at the people here that are following Alma, the people of Limhi, and that's who we're going to talk about tomorrow. So kind of hold these two groups of people a little bit as we dive in and look at Mosiah 18 today versus Mosiah 19 tomorrow.

Our verse for today comes at the tail end of Alma commanding them in all ways and all things of how to live as members of the church, really. And then we get to kind of the tail end of these commandments. And here's our verse for today in Mosiah 18:29.

It says, "And this he said unto them, having been commanded of God" (you know, those things that we just, the previous verses, basically). And they did walk uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually, according to their needs and their wants. Now this is kind of cool because what we see here is this group, right?

These people are walking uprightly. They're learning the commandments. They're walking uprightly before God.

There's some great reflection time inside of there. And then what does it look like a little bit? Well, based on this definition, it says they're imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually, according to their needs and their wants.

They're taking care of each other. And they're not just taking care of each other like poor and the needy, necessarily, right? Which is what we typically think of when we're talking about taking care of each other.

They're taking care of each other temporally, yes, and spiritually. They're watching over each other. They're becoming one in unity, and the chapter also talks about that as well.

And this took me down into kind of some investigation. It took me to some conference talks as I was looking at this. But then I landed on a place inside of the Church Handbook of Instructions, which is kind of fun.

I don't know if I can actually find the link for you, but I'll try and tell you where it's at in Handbook 2 as it says. But listen to this when it talks about the Lord's storehouse, which is taking care of the temporal and spiritual needs of each other. It says this: "One example is what we call the Lord's storehouse.

The Lord's storehouse is not limited to a building used to distribute food and clothing to the poor. It also includes Church members' offerings of time, talents, compassion, materials, and financial means that are made available to the bishop to help care for the poor and needy. The Lord's storehouse then exists in each ward." I love this because we typically talk about the storehouse, you know, maybe you've got assignments to go work at the storehouse or maybe you've been a participant in the storehouse and needed to go and do some shopping there.

And yet we think of it in limited terms, and here even inside of the Handbook of Instructions, we see that the Lord's storehouse is more like these people of Alma here, right? They are imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually. That feeds into the—what we talked about yesterday—who you are around matters, who you choose to be with matters.

My friends, continue to seek and find. As it says in the Handbook, it exists in each ward. Find it in your ward.

Find it in your stake. Find it with your friends. Find those that have and share the same testimony you do, and then impart to one another temporally and spiritually according to your needs and wants.

It is an opportunity for each one of us to be uplifted through our testimonies of Jesus Christ. 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 www.fema.org