2.249 Just, Upright, Good, and Obedient

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. Have you ever been called old-fashioned before? I have.

Let's talk about it. We're reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 94–97, as well as Alma. We're finishing it there, Alma chapters 62 and 63, as well as the beginning of Helaman in chapters 1 and 2.

We're on the tail end of our readings this week. We're going to focus in on the Alma and Helaman chapters. Today, Alma.

Tomorrow, Helaman. If we're really breaking it down inside of here. And I want to just pause.

And it's been a while since I did this, but we are 249 days. If you're doing this a day at a time, we're 249 days into this season, which means if you dive into Savory Salt on a daily basis, congratulations on the 249 day start. I hope you're taking an opportunity regularly to reflect on what savory salt is becoming in your life.

In what ways are you increasing your savor? In what ways is your study with the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants increasing your understanding of the gospel? Because if it's not moving the needle, then it's not really doing anything in our lives.

So just a little bit of a self-reflective moment here that I'd encourage you to take into account. I guess perhaps the reason for that is the idea that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, and that is this old-fashioned concept. An interesting phrase.

Now we don't even use old-fashioned anymore. We use phrases like boomers and those types of things as we talk about them as we go forward here. I want to use a verse out of Alma chapter 63 to kind of illustrate this point and actually kind of give us a mental bookmark of sorts or a mental tab that we can come back to, especially as we dive into the book of Helaman.

It's in Alma chapter 63, verse 2. We find out here one that Helaman has passed away and then Shiblon takes control of the writings. We find out that Moroni is going to pass away in this chapter.

So really, these two massive, monumental leaders over the last 20 years, over the last chapters (20 chapters, too, by the way, that we've read), but really, you know, 18 to 20 years of battle and saving the people of Nephi over the Lamanites and all of this that we've read about. These two monumental leaders are gone. Shiblon, we find out, is what we're going to look in verse 2, and then we also find out he passes away, too, and then that's how the records end up in the possession of Helaman.

But this is what it says about Shiblon in verse 2. It says, "And he was a just man, and he did walk uprightly before God; and he did observe to do good continually, to keep the commandments of the Lord his God; and also did his brother." Now I think it's interesting that we get a quick character check on the guy that gets possession of the plates here. If you back up to earlier days in the Book of Mormon, when we're reading about how quickly the plates are transferred from one writer to another, kind of that interim inside of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon round.

We kind of just get names of people that possess the plates, but here we get a look at who he was. And I think it's interesting because what's going to happen when we shift gears into Helaman is we're going to see that this type of person becomes few and far between very, very quickly. What type of person is that?

Well, it's a person that walks uprightly before God, observes to do good continually, keeps the commandments of the Lord, right? These key components here, this idea of what we might just kind of oversimplify and say, "That sounds like a good person to me," is going to become quite a rarity as we dive into the Book of Helaman, especially in terms of how fast Helaman dives into the political intrigues that's going to happen. And it made me kind of reflect on an incident that happened just recently in my life, actually, where I feel like there's times where society is trying to push back at me and say, "Don't just try to be a nice guy." "Don't try to be old-fashioned." I had an incident where I was just walking into the building that I work at, just into my office.

As I did, I typically see, it doesn't matter who it is, but if there's someone behind me, I typically open the door and just hold the door open for them to walk through. And a particular lady—I don't know her, never met her—but I saw her behind me. I opened the door, and she said, "You walk through," kind of very blunt.

And I was like, "All right, no problem. I got it." And she actually pushed the button on the other door—the handicap door. She pushed that button to open the door to walk through.

She would not have me open that door for her. No way. And I thought, "Okay, I just have a nice day, you know." So I went over to the elevator and she was going to ride the elevator as well.

So I pushed the elevator button. And as the door opened, I just put my hand over the elevator door to keep it open while everyone goes in. And again, she refused to go into the elevator before me.

She would not have me open the door for her. Now, you know, this is kind of just a small incident and yet one where I just kind of pause and I think about this old-fashioned moment. What it is for Shiblon here.

He's a just man. He's trying to walk uprightly before God, observe to do good, keep the commandments. He's just trying to be a light.

And there are those in our lives sometimes that don't even want that light in their lives. So, my friends, my invitation to you: keep doing good, regardless of the response. Keep walking uprightly before God, regardless of the response.

Keep the commandments of the Lord, regardless of the response. And you and I will be a little bit more savory as we go forward. 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.