2.163 He Knows How to Succor You Who are Tempted

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. Yesterday, we brought up one verse about Jesus Christ and his ability to succor.

And today, we're going to connect that, not in the Book of Mormon. We're going to go over to Doctrine and Covenants. So if you have not listened to yesterday's episode 162, you probably are going to want that as a part one.

This is really more of a part two here. Our reading this week is Doctrine and Covenants Sections 60-63 as well as Alma Chapters 6-10. Our verse yesterday was in Alma Chapter 7.

Our verse today is in Doctrine and Covenants Section 62. And if you remember yesterday's verse about succoring those with infirmities, this one's going to sound awfully familiar. We're going to look at it through a little bit of a different lens and connect the two of these together.

Our verse for today is Doctrine and Covenants Section 62, Verse 1. It says this: "Behold and hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, even Jesus Christ, your advocate, who knoweth the weakness of man and how to succor them who are tempted." Now this one just a little bit different from Alma's testimony yesterday. Here we have Joseph Smith receiving revelation, the front end of it saying that I am Jesus Christ, I am your advocate, and I know the weakness of man, and I know how to help them that are tempted.

Yesterday was about the infirmities that you're experiencing in life. Today, the Savior's reminding us here in this verse that he also knows how to help those that are being tempted. This to me, as I mentioned yesterday, is a micro testimony of the role that Joseph Smith played as a prophet of the Lord in this dispensation.

Why in the world would he write, first of all, this intense, insane book of scripture of histories that cross over a thousand years with all of these different groups of peoples, and names and testify of a Jesus Christ there that knows how to succor you in your infirmities and then later on in the experience have a seeming revelation from the Lord that also mentions the Lord's ability to succor you that are being tempted. This instead points to me the testimony that Joseph Smith had of Jesus Christ and it points to me that Jesus Christ's role is the head of our Church. He leads and guides our Church, and as such, when he speaks, he speaks from a place of experience.

After all, he is the one that fulfilled the Atonement. He knows all the things that he can do to help us and he knows the specific ways to succor us. Another thing that came to mind here with this one and a connection of these two scriptures for me was this idea of succoring is really interesting.

For the Savior, it's an opportunity to aid us in our difficult times. We mentioned that yesterday. So whether your difficult times are your infirmities or they're your temptations or whatever it may be, he has the ability to succor us.

I think that we could work a little bit better to eliminate a specific phrase in our everyday talk so that we don't seemingly—I don't think anyone's doing this on purpose—but we are doing this and seemingly kind of taking a little bit of the role of the Savior upon ourselves. Let me give you, this is just an opinion of Allen here, but I hear people listen to what's going on in other people's lives and they say, "Oh, yeah, I know exactly how you feel." And there's times in my life where I've wanted to respond and say, "No, you don't." And I don't mean to be rude about that, but there are times where I've said, "You, you have no idea." You might even say that your experience was the same as mine, but all of the other things happening in my life, you were not experiencing all the other things happening in your life at the time. And so while we're taught to try to empathize with others, that empathy has its limits.

So rather than letting someone know that you know exactly how they feel, perhaps we can say, "Wow, that sounds difficult! What are you doing to get yourself out of it? Or how can I help you in this way?

Or what can you and I do to invite the Lord into this situation?" Let's let the Savior fully succor his people. I'm not saying don't try to have empathy for others. I'm simply saying that when we say or claim to know exactly how someone else feels, I think we're over-expressing our own mortal abilities there.

Again, that's just an opinion of Allen. My friends, I love this testimony here that the Savior can succor us in our infirmities. He can succor us in our temptations.

He is there to help us in our times of need. I'm grateful to Alma and to Joseph Smith and to so many others that have borne that testimony, and I include my voice with theirs today to say, 'I know he's there for each one of us at a personal level, and he is truly the only one that knows exactly how we feel.'" That's his role. 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. Join me for my weekly newsletter on Bible Study World and themr.org.