2.183 The Most Important Stewardship

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. We continue diving into Doctrine and Covenants sections 71 through 75 this week as well as Alma chapters 20 through 24. We're going to stay inside of Doctrine and Covenants here another day or two.

Maybe we bounce back and forth with Alma, but we'll see how that goes. Our verse for today is actually inside of Doctrine and Covenants section 72. This is a section that is elaborating a little bit on roles that the bishop plays.

We get a new calling for Newell K. Whitney as bishop inside the church. And so we find out a little bit about bishops and whatnot.

And inside of that, we see this word that just keeps coming around inside of Doctrine and Covenants. And that word is steward and stewardship. It's a very important concept.

We see inside of the modern day church, this idea that we have been blessed with specific stewardships in our callings in the church. And as I was studying this one a little bit, I came across one that really stood out to me. I thought, I got to share this one.

I want to share this one. In 1997 Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin gave a talk that kind of actually seemed to me like a modern Alma chapter 5.

There's a lot of questions on the front end of it about kind of our own, you know, checkup style questions. And that's where we're going to attach our verse for today as well as a thought from Elder Wirthlin. Our verse for today is Doctrine and Covenants section 72 verse 3.

It says, Verily in this thing ye have done wisely, for it is required of the Lord at the hand of every steward to render an account of his stewardship both in time and in eternity. So we understand that whatever stewardship we are given or tasked with, right, that there's an accountability to it. We have an accounting before the Lord.

Now that one's not necessarily new concept, but here's something that I don't think I had heard or processed at this level before from Elder Wirthlin inside of his 1997 talk called "True to the Truth." And I'll put a link in here for you, for you to be able to follow that. He says further down in his talk, he talks about an eternal stewardship. He says, "Each of you has an eternal calling from which no Church officer has authority over." And I thought, well, that's interesting.

What have I been called to that no one's going to release me from? He says, "This is a calling given you by our Heavenly Father himself." In this eternal calling, as with all other callings, you have a stewardship. And it is required of the Lord at the hand of every steward to render an account of his stewardship both in time and in eternity.

So we looking specifically at the verse we just looked at here. And then he says this, "The most important stewardship is the glorious responsibility your Father in Heaven has given you to watch over and care for your own soul." Now that one stood out to me. When's the last time you considered taking care of your soul a stewardship?

I know I haven't had it top of mind, honestly, but it gave me a moment to pause and reflect and think, wait a second, what does it mean to make sure that I'm taking care and a good steward of my soul? It seemed different than the way I'm hearing it in the world, right? I hear commonly in the world, I hear, well, I have to do what's best for me.

And they might be saying I have to do what's best for my soul, but I don't hear that the same way. See, in today's world, we focus on, well, I've got to, I got to take care of me. I got to do what's best for me.

And here I hear Elder Wirthlin saying, you need to take care of your soul. And then even better is further in his talk, he gives us five areas to kind of focus on and make sure that we're doing things that feed our soul. And I wanted to share those with you just quickly.

I won't read more of his talk. I just want to talk through them. You can go through and read them yourself.

And these are interesting ones. I thought, I like this. This is taking care of your soul.

He says, first is worthiness interviews. Now, we used to call those PPIs when I was a kid, right? Personal Priesthood Interviews, or maybe it mom and dad interviewing the kids or whatever it is.

But just a check, a worthiness check, a chance to see how you doing on the path. Temple is a great place for soul food. Fourth, he says in our home teaching and visiting teaching, that would be today in our ministering to others, doing as the Lord would do if he were here.

And fifth, he talks about the Savior himself knowing his stewardship in doing the will of Heavenly Father. So helping us stay on the covenant path is doing the things on the covenant path. My friends, the most important stewardship for you.

And that's all for today, my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave into the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.