2.199 O That I Were An Angel! What If We Are For Others?

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're going to be shifting gears here from Doctrine and Covenants sections 77 and 80 into Alma chapters 29 through 33. These are some power chapters if you're into missionary work or if you're just into developing your own testimony and establishing your own faith.

And your own faith inside the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our verse for today has a two-sided coin attached to it. So we're going to look at it from two different ways.

It's in Alma chapter 29. And actually it's the beginning of our reading for the Book of Mormon this week. It's Alma chapter 29, verse 1.

And Alma starts out like this. "O that I were an angel and could have the wish of mine heart that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God with a voice to shake the earth and cry repentance unto every people!" Wow. Alma's having a cool moment here. He's just feeling the Spirit.

He is feeling amazing and he wants to share it. But you know, this time reading the Book of Mormon, and I think honestly, this is the first time it's occurred to me to see things this way. And I want to share it with you.

If you actually pay attention here, this is the same Alma and the sons of Mosiah that have the repentance experience. And so when Alma says, I wish I could be like an angel that shakes the earth and cries repentance, he's actually wishing he could be the angel that came to him. The record says that the angel of the Lord came to him.

That was the experience Alma had when it came to his conversion. He had an angel visit. The angel shook the earth.

If we go back into Mosiah and we read those, like this is the experience that Alma had. And so when Alma's saying, I wish I could be like that, to me, he's actually saying, I wish I could be like the person that shared the gospel with me. Now the one side of the coin here is to have a reflective moment for you and think into those people in your life that have shared the gospel with you.

For me, I can think very specifically of names, right? I talked about a few of them, but like Bishop Jim Duffin, one of my early Young Men leaders that became my bishop when I was a teenager. I built his house with him, right?

John Kickert, one of my most important influences in my life when it comes to Young Men leadership and developing myself as a young man. These are like pillars of the men that I grew up with and the type of men that I wanted to grow up to be like, right? Hopefully I'm still growing up to be like them.

But it's interesting that one side of the coin here is Alma's saying, I wish I could be like the person that shared the gospel with me. So one side of the coin is think about those people and maybe even consider reaching out and just giving them a thanks or a shout out. There's an activity for you.

Find those people in your life and say, hey, thanks for that. Thanks for sharing the gospel. Thanks for being willing to share your testimony.

The other side of the coin for me is how can we be that person for somebody else in our lives? How can we be the angel with the voice that shakes the earth and cries repentance? How can we speak with the trump of God as we go about sharing our testimonies with others?

Because we then can sit in that seat of being an angel for others sharing our testimony. My friends, this is such a powerful verse and it never struck me like this before. Alma telling us, "I wish I could be like the guy that shared the gospel with me." How many of us have conversion stories and can think specifically of the person or the instance or the moment where they shared their testimony and we felt something?

There are times in my life, aside from just Bishop Jim and John that I've talked about, I've shared many of them over the episodes here on Savory Salt of specific people that have influenced my life by sharing their testimony. You and I have the opportunity to not only thank those people in our lives, but also be those people in the lives of others. What a powerful double-sided coin to keep in our mindset as we go forward today.

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. We'll see you next time.