2.273 Out of Our Poverty We Have Given

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. What offerings do we possibly have to give to the Lord? We continue our reading this week in Doctrine and Covenants sections 109 through 110, as well as 3 Nephi chapters 1 through 5.

We're going to now dive into Doctrine and Covenants section 109. As I mentioned yesterday, this is the "Prayer offered at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple". It's a beautiful section here and really quite telling for us as there's some prophetic statements in here as well worth digging into.

But right off the beginning here, when they ask that the Lord would accept the house that they present to Him, it stood out to me what they've actually gone through. And that's what I wanted to look at for our verse for today. If you can remember during this time the saints are going through some crazy trials.

They are being hounded. They're being pushed out of different locations. They're being abused physically, emotionally, spiritually, verbally.

They are going through some difficult times. They are struggling financially, both as a church, as well as individual members inside of the Church. They have difficulty in keeping their covenants that they've made with the United Order and those things that have been failing and struggling.

And so there's a lot going on. And yet through it all, they continue to work on the temple and they get to the stage where they're ready to dedicate it to the Lord for his service. And they're ready to be endowed with power as the Lord has promised earlier in the Doctrine and Covenants sections.

So this context is important to understand as we get into what we're going to look at with the verse today. Because with all of that going on, we might even say all the chaos like we experience today in our lives. This is what they say to the Lord in verse 4 and 5.

Verse 4 is the kind of the precursor where they ask that the Lord would accept the house and the work that they've done on it. And then verse 5 continues that plea to accept the house and it says this in verse 5. Now my friends, did you catch the context there?

The humility of the saints is trying to say, look, we have had crazy tribulations. We are building this house out of our poverty and impoverished situations and yet we hope that the Lord would accept it so that he can have a place here to manifest himself. And what do we see?

We see absolutely the Lord accepts it. What does that mean for you and for me today? It means that the Lord is not looking for these great intense insane returns on his investment in us.

He's looking regardless of our station in life, whether it's abundance or poverty, he's looking for all our ability to sacrifice what we have and to give it to him, to the work of the Lord, to the building of the kingdom. I love the phrases in here because it shows the humility of the saints saying, look, it's the best that we have right now, even if we can't afford the best we could. And the Lord accepts the offering out of our poverty we have given.

My friends, you and I regardless of our stations in life can give more to the building of the Lord and His kingdom on the earth today. I hope that I can find in whatever station I'm at right now, a greater desire to serve, to help, to uplift, and to increase the kingdom of God on the earth today. This is such a beautiful verse on the front end of this dedicatory prayer.

I feel the humility of the saints. I feel moments in my life where I'm just asking that the Lord will accept out of my poverty everything that I have to give. I hope that you and I can give to the best of our abilities and I also promise that the Lord will absolutely accept those sacrifices we make and bless us with an abundance hereafter.

That's all for today my friends. Lift up your hearts and rejoice. Cleave to the covenants you have made and together we will be savory salt.