2.235 Beware the Freebies

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. This one: "Beware the Freebies." Let's take a look at what we mean today.

Welcome to our readings this week. We've been reading inside of Doctrine and Covenants, sections 89 through 92. And that might sneak in just a little bit in our thoughts today, as well as Alma chapters 53 through 56.

When we get into Alma 53 through 56, oftentimes I find myself kind of reflecting on these war chapters and wondering, of all the details that they could put inside of the Book of Mormon and of all the records that they could compile, how did sometimes we get into the weeds at this level of the war chapters? There got to be stuff inside of here that the Lord wants us to know and that He inspired Mormon and Moroni to compile and put together. And then I see a story like this, and it makes me go, "Gosh, is that really?

Can that really be applicable to today for me?" And that's where I landed on one of our verses today. We're going to look inside of Alma chapter 55, where Moroni is exchanging letters back and forth with the Lamanites, and he's trying to get back families that have been captured. And when the negotiations go south, he decides to just simply go and get the families back.

The plan to do that is inside of Alma 55. And we get to verse 13, where they have delivered to the Lamanites free wine. And the idea is to get them drunk in order for them to fall asleep and then escape, basically.

That's what's happening in 55. I know you know this; it just helps me to kind of frame it up for you. Our verse is verse 13, and it says this: "And it came to pass that they did take of the wine freely, and it was pleasant to their taste.

Therefore, they took of it more freely, and it was strong, having been prepared in its strength." At least, what I've been reflecting on with this one: Our society and in our world today, there are certainly those who are our enemies, or at least certainly not trying to encourage us to be better in our lives, that have a lot of free stuff that we can partake of. And I'm not going to go down the list of it, but much of it is free trials, in terms of things the Word of Wisdom would tell us not to partake of. You can find free access to any number of addictive behaviors through internet or social media.

And I think it's interesting here that what we don't ever see in Alma 55 is the Lamanites pausing and saying, "You know, where did this random free stuff come from?" Now, I know that Moroni had a plan, and it was deceiving in a way, to be able to find a son of the Lamanites. What is offered for free? And in many cases, the offer for free leads to more.

And I love that we see in 13 here: My friends, sometimes the freebies in our lives come at a cost. It's not a cost that we see up front, but it's certainly a cost that we pay. So as we go forward, beware of the freebies.

You'll notice in the final phrase here that the preparation of this wine was prepared in its strength. It certainly had a purpose, and that purpose was to knock out the Lamanites. My friends, may we be aware of the things in our lives that seemingly come to us for free and may have the ability to knock us out when it comes to our testimonies or our strength or our covenant keeping with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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.