2.138 Temporary Peace is Still Just Temporary

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. I have enjoyed studying this week.

You know, something about Abinadi's story just always resonates with me. And as we transition into what's happening here, so many things are happening in this moment as Alma's new group of people forms and Limhi's group of people. And then we got Lamanites attacking everybody.

And we got the old people from King Noah and it's like we all of a sudden get 900 different groups of people all at the same time inside of these chapters. We've been reading Doctrine and Covenants 46 through 48 as well as Mosiah chapter 17 through 20 this week. And we're going to finish our thoughts this week inside of Mosiah chapter 19.

If you remember our conversation yesterday, we talked a little bit about this one group of people. The people of Alma that are becoming the church of God and the church of Christ. And we talked about how they were taking care of each other temporally and spiritually.

And we actually are going to see them taken care of by the Lord going forward when it comes to their interactions with the Lamanites. Then we get to a different type of people today inside of Mosiah chapter 19, because what we have here are the people that are left behind when King Noah, right? When King Noah is killed, we have the people left behind.

Limhi takes over and he negotiates a peace with the Lamanites of sorts. And it includes high taxation for his people, but he's just trying to get to a stage of peace. And I think there's an interesting insight and lesson for us all here.

Our verse for today is Mosiah 19:29. And it says this: "And now King Limhi did have continual peace in his kingdom for the space of two years, that the Lamanites did not molest them nor seek to destroy them." Now, who wants continual peace? And everybody raises their hand.

Who wants continual peace for just two years? And suddenly, not so many hands in the room shoot up. You see, it's interesting here what Limhi has done.

He has created a temporary peace, but it is just that. It is only temporary. You see, the people of Limhi didn't go the direction of following Alma.

They didn't go the direction of listening to Abinadi. That happened. They left to themselves.

Where the Lord is going to watch over the people of Alma, the people of Limhi are going to have a rougher road ahead. And I think this is a very telling verse because it shows us that Limhi does have this peaceful moment, but it is just a moment. I've affectionately called these because I see them in my own life, peaceful prisons.

You know, sometimes we put off hard conversations or sometimes we don't talk to the people we need to talk to, or sometimes we keep the little sins in our lives just longer than we should because we don't want to leave our peaceful prisons. But it is a great reminder for us that temporary peace is still only temporary. It is only through our Savior Jesus Christ that we can find eternal, lasting peace and joy.

Which means that whether it's conversations, whether it's sins, whether it's the pet projects that we have in our lives that shouldn't be in our lives, whatever those are, if we are, we may have moments of continual peace for one year, two years, five years. But if we don't allow the Savior to come into our lives, into our hearts, into our conversations, into our practices, into our habits, into every fiber of our beings, if we don't invite Him in, the peace that we're experiencing is only temporary. I look forward to the day of turning to Him in every aspect of my life.

I'm trying to do that and I know many of you are trying to do that as well. Keep doing it. Turn to Him and He will turn to you and bring everlasting peace to each one of us.

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. We'll see you next time.