2.141 What Can We Do to be Edified?

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 is so good to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. We're going to continue on our readings this week inside of Doctrine and Covenants sections 49 through 50.

We are going to move into section 50 today. You're also reading Mosiah chapters 21 through 25, and we will get to those in a couple of days. Our verse for today is actually going to feed with our verse for tomorrow, so a little bit of a heads up there.

They're actually going to be back to back, which might be a spoiler alert for tomorrow's verse, but that's okay. We're going to look at a very short verse that may take a very long time to dig into. What I mean by that is it's not really a long verse, and yet the resources that I have personally taken time to research inside of this.

Our verse for today is Doctrine and Covenants section 50, verse 23. Section 50 is focusing on helping us understand the difference in the many spirits that are on the earth today. Both those spirits that are of God, as well as those spirits that are not of God.

The spirits that are of Satan, that serve him and uphold his work. It's very telling. It's kind of some introspective and deep verses here.

And yet I think the Lord really simplifies it in verse 23. Let's take a look at it and see what we can learn. It says, "And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness." Now a lot of times in today's world we have these spectrums that we use, right?

And it's like sort of bad or sort of good, or is it sort of bad? I think the Lord's trying to give us a message here that comes in without much spectrum to it. If it doesn't edify, it's not of God and it is darkness.

You may be thinking the same thing that I am, and that is, "Okay, then what edifies?" Or what does it mean to be edified? And if you go to the verse before that, the footnote there takes you to the Topical Guide, and it uses three terms that I really like. Edify uses the word build, enlighten, and instruction.

So edification is the building, the enlightenment, the instruction, or perhaps the instruction that comes to build and enlighten you and your soul. That gives me a little bit of a direction there. I can say, "Oh, great, what helps build and enlighten my soul?" And the first place it took me was a talk by President Monson in 2006.

And honestly, I had to actually go listen to the talk because I missed President Monson's voice. And I missed the way that he tells stories. And so I loved it.

I'm going to put the link inside for you. Then he goes in to explain lores that he is seeing in our lives that may not edify or that may take us down wrong paths. And as I thought into it, what a great study.

I think you absolutely can spend some time in that talk and see whether things he talks about are edifying your life or not. And then I went down another path that I will mention, and that is going back to Elder Bednar's original talk "Things as They Really Are," where he talked about what's happening in the interwebs, what's happening on the internet, what it's like to live life in this digital age. And I think inside of there he talks about things that even in 2006 weren't as applicable as they are in our lives today.

My friends, I'm going to put links for all of those in there. And whether you spend time there or not, I've spent some time there. And so I wanted to share those resources with you.

I hope that you take an opportunity to dig in to what edifies you in your life. What is building you? What is increasing your enlightenment?

What is providing instruction that makes your life better for you? I love that reminder from the Lord directly that if it is not edifying you, it is not of Him and is darkness. My friends, I hope you and I can take the opportunity to remove the darkness in our lives and seek to be enlightened.

That's a little bit of a preview of tomorrow's as we finish up our thoughts on today as well. 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.