2.173 I Wish From the Inmost Part of My Heart

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. You know, I've been saying it all week after we shifted gears over into the Book of Mormon that I was gonna try and come back to Doctrine and Covenants, but I just don't think we're gonna make it.

Alma 11 through 15 is just, there's too much here to choose from. But this week, we're reading Doctrine and Covenants section 64 to 66. I hope you have.

And inside of Alma chapters 11 through 15, a lot happens with Alma and Amulek. Craziness happens. They have some highs.

They have some super lows, as the people of Ammonihah end up getting to the stage of even killing others that are believing in the words of Alma and Amulek. So I hope that you can find inside of here, the light from their story. I hope that you can find inside of here the light from their story, and I hope that this one brings some of that light into it.

Our verse for today is going to come on the tail end of Alma chapter 14. And inside of this Alma preaching, there are some phenomenal verses in 13, 14, 15. There are plenty here.

So, whatever one I picked here, it just—I'm trying to sift through—but we're going to have another one that's kind of a big combo sentence, right? Some of these verses go on for quite a while with a lot of commas and semicolons and colons and all sorts of stuff, right? All sorts of punctuation happening.

But our verse for today is Alma chapter 14, verse 27. And really what I want to have you focus on is 27 through 30, but we're gonna, you know, pick our one verse, and that's 27. It says, "And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that you would hearken unto my words." Man, listen to that.

This is as deep as it gets, right? Wish from the inmost part of my heart, great anxiety even unto pain, that you would hearken unto my words and cast off your sins and not procrastinate the day of your repentance. And then it continues after that: that you would be humble and pray and have faith and follow the Holy Ghost and be meek and humble.

Have faith in the Lord. He goes through this list, and then in 30, he comes back around again. "And may the Lord grant unto you repentance." Now, this one's really interesting, and I'm gonna lean into Alma on this one, rather than, you know, the gospel according to Allen. But in today's world, we get told a lot by a lot of different groups of people the one thing we should be focusing on.

For example, you know, you hear a message of like, "Oh no, it's just focus on love, just love, love everyone, love, love everyone, love," right? Or what another one you hear: "Just be kind, just kindness, kindness everywhere, just be." And so what I hear here is an interesting thing. Alma is preaching, and he says, "Perhaps, my friends, our faith, love, kindness, humility—all of those things—perhaps those are a little bit more dependent on repentance than we give credit for." Because I certainly don't hear out in the world the message that the first thing we need to do is repent and come in alignment with the will of God.

And yet that's exactly what Alma is hoping from the inmost part of his heart that we would hear and do. The people of Ammonihah don't hear that message. But we do find out in chapter 15 that some did, and some were outcast.

Some lost their lives for that message. Others were outcast, and then Alma and Amulek are going to join together. My friends, maybe Alma's onto something here.

I don't know if I've seen another part of Alma's preaching where he uses the phrase like this: "the inmost part of his heart, great anxiety into pain." I think it's a chance for us to hear not only the word of Alma, but the words of our living prophets today, as President Nelson has reminded us the power of daily repentance in our lives. Perhaps the thing we each could focus on the most would be repenting and finding alignment with the will of God in our lives. I know I can take some time focusing in on that, and I hope it's something that gives you a little bit more light and focus in your world 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.