2.195 Q and A With The Lord

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. Welcome to a new week. We're going to be diving into Doctrine and Covenants sections 77 through 80 as well as Alma chapters 29 through 33.

That means that Alma 32 is coming. How exciting! But we're not there yet.

We're going to instead take a look here at a very unique section inside of Doctrine and Covenants, and that's section 77. If you're not familiar with it, this is Joseph Smith still working on the translation of the Bible, and he is developing for us what I think is a very powerful pattern, because I'm not going to dive into like the doctrinal view of any of these verses. I'm going to let you and John the Revelator dive into the book of Revelation together and look at the symbology that is inside of the book of Revelation.

Instead, though, the reason I picked verse 1 is, again, I could have picked any of these verses, but let's just look at how unique Doctrine and Covenants section 77 is and ask ourselves, what can it mean for us? So verse 1 is designed like this. Q, meaning question.

What is this sea of glass spoken of by John, 4th chapter and 6th verse of Revelation? A, meaning answer. It is the earth in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state.

Thus begins a revelation that we have in section 77 full of Q's and A's. Question to the Lord, answer from the Lord. Question to the Lord, answer from the Lord.

And it's very specific. It's specific to what Joseph Smith was translating at the time which was the Revelation of St. John.

Now the thing that gave me pause here was to take a moment and say, Allen, are you regularly utilizing the pattern that Joseph Smith set up here? When you think into your scriptures, when you're reading them, when you're studying them, when you're studying conference talks, are you taking sections of those conference talks and asking the Lord intentionally? Because we are told that if we seek, we shall find.

We are told that if we knock, it shall be opened. And here we see very clearly a pattern that Joseph Smith established in terms of asking questions about specific scriptures, receiving answers delivered from the Lord. As you go back and look through Doctrine and Covenants you realize that baptism for Joseph and Oliver came because they had a question.

Understanding the priesthood and receiving the priesthood came because there were questions. We pretty much have most of the Doctrine and Covenants because Joseph Smith was willing to ask a question. So my friends, my question to you is what questions do you have for the Lord?

And are you taking them directly to him? As you do so, you may not receive a line-by-line resuscitation as we have here inside of Doctrine and Covenants, but I know that the Lord can prompt you, inspire you, and yes, even provide direct revelation to the questions that you seek answers for in your life. 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.