2.171 Have Each Other's Back

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. While we are reading Doctrine and Covenants sections 64–66 this week, we are also in Alma chapters 11–15, and we're going to stay inside of Alma a little bit more this week.

I love the back and forth that Alma and Amulek do when working together, and it's easy to see the connection between the two. In terms of missionary companionships and stuff like that. But I want to take it a step deeper today as we take a look at what's happening inside of the story here.

Our verse for today is Alma chapter 12, verse 1. Amulek has just got done talking to Zeezrom, and he has testified very, very strongly to the questions that Zeezrom has asked. And then we get verse 1.

Verse 1 says this: "Or to unfold the scriptures beyond that which Amulek had done." Now again, I see a connection here very much so inside of the power that companionships can play in missionary work. A lot of times, a missionary will—they'll plan for their lessons and they'll say, "Okay, I'm going to teach this part, then you testify of that part, and then I'll teach this part over here, and you testify of that part over there." And while I see that as kind of the surface-level example here of what Alma and Amulek, I wanted to take it a step further and maybe just go a little bit deeper here. I think this is one of the reasons why it's important for us to have friends and companions in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love that inside of those friendships and companionships, we can find support with one another. And a couple of real examples in my own life are: one, I have pretty regular lunches with one of my sisters. And while we go to lunch, you know, we kind of joke about it: "We go to lunch to solve the world's problems." One of the things I absolutely love about our lunches is we check up on each other's study.

And we say, "Hey, I read this in Doctrine and Covenants. What do you think about this specific verse?" And sometimes the two of us can talk about it for 30 or 45 minutes just on one verse and what it means in our lives. And what I find inside of that is this little piece at the end here, this "explaining things beyond or unfolding the scriptures beyond that which Amulek had done." Having companions and friends in the gospel of Jesus Christ allows us to go deeper in our own understanding.

I think of going to the temple with my wife. We try to do that on a weekly basis. That opportunity for the two of us to be together in the temple gives us a chance to talk about what we're learning individually and to kind of feed into each other's testimony as we participate in those ordinances.

I've even thought outside of the Church and yet inside the idea of building this testimony of Jesus Christ. I have another friend that I'm familiar with. He is of another Christian denomination.

But he and a group of his friends get together on Wednesday mornings, and they read the Bible together and they read verses together and talk about what those are. My friends, I think that this is a great example for us to find friendships and companionships inside of the Lord's gospel so that in those moments when it feels like we're standing alone or it feels like we're testifying alone, we have others around us that can buoy us up and establish our words as well and bear testimony of our testimonies of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the friendships and the companionships I have in the gospel, and I hope that you can establish those inside of your own life as well to find the support that Alma provides for Amulek here in the one-to-one that he was having with Zeezrom.

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. Subtitles by the Amara.org community.