2.270 If Ye Will Repent

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. How will we cover Samuel the Lamanite in just two days? We are reading this week Doctrine and Covenants sections 106 through 108, which has been an awesome section to dive into as we focused there in 107 and then shared a couple of verses with 106 and 108.

We are also reading though this week Helaman chapters 13 through 16. We are going to finish the book of Helaman, and that means we go into Samuel the Lamanite, a Lamanite sent to prophesy to the Nephites. Who would have seen that coming?

Well, if you have been a student of the Book of Mormon, you may have seen it coming all along as we repeatedly see the pride cycle in effect in the Book of Mormon. When I had to sit here and kind of think about just two verses to cover Helaman chapters 13 through 16, I thought, what can I capture with Samuel's message? I may have said Helaman a second ago; I meant Samuel.

But what can I cover with Samuel and his teachings? How can we sum it up in maybe two verses? And I don't know if I have done a great job, but I picked two verses—one today and one tomorrow—that I believe is really the focus of Samuel's message to the Nephites.

And if the Book of Mormon was truly written for our day, then we should see it as a message to ourselves as well. Our first one, today's verse, comes in Helaman chapter 13, verse 11. This is what Samuel says to the Nephites.

Just a reminder in case you haven't known this before. Samuel, in Hebrew. It's a Hebrew name.

Samuel means hear God. Shmael. Shmael.

Samuel, hear God. So, pretty cool connection there. Let's look at verse 11.

It says, "But if ye will repent and return to the Lord your God, I will turn away mine anger, saith the Lord." "Yea, thus saith the Lord, blessed are they who will repent and return unto me, but woe unto him that repenteth not." Now, I think it is a simple message and yet one that we could absolutely point to when it comes to Samuel the Lamanite, as he has come to the Nephites for a specific reason. We're going to get to the second one tomorrow. But our first one is this.

Samuel is coming to tell the Nephites to repent and return to the Lord. And he promises them they will be blessed by doing so. You know, this got me thinking about a story a family member shared a number of years ago as they had a missionary that was having some challenges on her mission and some difficulties even with the mission president and with companions, just kind of having all the things on the mission.

And this family member went to their bishop in the ward, and the bishop gave him some great counsel. He said, "The first thing we're going to do right here as a family is we're going to—we're going to kneel down and we're going to repent of anything that we see amiss in our lives. We're going to ask for forgiveness from the Lord.

And then we're going to ask the Lord for a miracle. But first we're going to repent." I love the counsel of that bishop to not just turn to the Lord and beg and plead for a miracle to occur or for blessings to be poured on them, but first to actually kneel and seek repentance. See if anything that is amiss in your life before any sort of asking for miracles or blessings, before that.

I love that counsel from that bishop and it's one that I absolutely have tried to apply more and more in my life, especially as I've come further and further into savory salt. Repentance is absolutely a positive in my life. I'm grateful for it and I'm grateful for the opportunity to express it in my life.

I hope that you have a wonderful relationship with the Lord and his repentance process in your life as well. If not, give it a try and see if you can feel the love of our Lord a little bit more as you seek to repent and apologize for the things that you've done in your life amiss. 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.