2.150 As Is Pleasing Unto Me

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 great to have you with me. Today, let's be anxiously engaged in a good cause and bring to pass much righteousness. What does William W.

Phelps mean to you? We have such a great lesson to learn from W. W.

Phelps today, and I am excited. I got to tell you on the front end today, if you have not spent some time researching William W. Phelps and his life, I hope this is the right time to do so.

The view of Section 55 is that William W. Phelps comes to Joseph Smith to receive a revelation, and he is not yet a member of the Church. He's actually coming and asking Joseph if he will go to the Lord and give him some direction in his life.

And then we get Doctrine and Covenants, Section 55. Inside of it, we learn that W. W.

Phelps has quite a role to play with the Church. We're going to look at the verse, then we're going to talk about his life a little bit. Doctrine and Covenants, Section 55, Verse 4 is our verse.

It says, "And again, you shall be ordained to assist my servant, Oliver Cowdery, to do the work of printing and of selecting and writing books for schools in this Church, that little children also may receive instruction before me as is pleasing unto me." Now this is quite an interesting calling. W. W.

Phelps is going to be called as a printer and work in the writing of books and schools and whatnot. And yet his story tells us such an interesting lesson. And I want to tell the lesson and then try and give just a couple of quick examples of.

The lesson I want to share from W. W. Phelps is that our words have the power to build and the power to destroy.

Be mindful of the words you choose to use in your everyday language, in your text messaging, in your writing, in your journals, in your letters, in your emails. Our words have great power to build and to destroy. Now, a couple of quick examples from W.

W. Phelps' life to illustrate that: If you dive into his research a little bit, you will see that he actually excommunicated from the Church two times. He lost membership in the Church two times.

And you will also find that he came back into the Church both times and ultimately ended up publishing the first Church hymnal, which had about 90 hymns, 35 or so of which were written by him. 35 hymns. In fact, well, I know you know several of his hymns, but just in case you're wondering, right: "Now Let Us Rejoice," "Praise to the Man," "The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning," "Redeemer of Israel." Some of these are these key foundational Church hymns that are written by him. And yet with the same pen and the same skill, he is one of the witnesses that wrote an accusation against Joseph Smith that put him in Liberty Jail, which was one of the darkest moments in Joseph Smith's life.

And so we have this interesting paradox with W. W. Phelps and the lesson we can learn from Section 55 and specifically in Verse 4 is that whether we are going to use it for good or for evil, our words carry great power.

I hope you have some time to look at the role that William W. Phelps had in the building of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is truly an inspirational figure.

Yes, he had his challenges. And yes, he is a wonderful example of applying the Atonement of Jesus Christ in changing him into a better person going forward. We've been talking about that a little bit this week inside the Book of Mormon.

I wanted to bring this one in as an illustration of the power of the Atonement in our lives. My friends, W. W.

Phelps played such a crucial role, and I love that we have this record here to see that while he had his bumps and bruises along the way and did some incredibly destructive things with his words, he repented, he sought Jesus Christ, and he turned that talent into. I love it and I am grateful to him for his example and the record we have of it. That's all for today, my friends.

Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave to the covenants you have made, and together we will be savory salt.