2.278 Being in One Body

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 wrapping up this week reading from Doctrine and Covenants sections 109 and 110. Amazing dedication of a new temple as well as manifestations and visitations from the Lord and his prophets of old.

As well as reading 3 Nephi chapters 1 through 5 as we get. We're only a couple weeks away from that event here as we get reading. I wanted to finish up this week inside of 3 Nephi.

And we're going to look at chapter 4 here. There's a lot happening inside of these chapters and verses. The Lamanites are going to just flat out put an ultimatum to the Nephites.

The Nephites are going to gather themselves together and be one body. And then the Lamanites are coming for this epic final battle of sorts as we see inside of the chapters here. Let's take a look at 3 Nephi 4 and see what it's like them to be gathered in these for just a second.

See what we can learn from it for us. Verse 4 says, Now did you catch what was so powerful about the Nephites being able to hold off the Lamanites here? First of all, these Gadianton Robbers, let's look first at how they have to live.

They have built their lives specifically to subsist off of plundering and obtaining food from others that do the work. My friends, there is no future in plundering and stealing from others. There is no strength when it comes to relying upon others to do your work.

And that can be applied. And on a far less serious note, something like high school. I know I got a daughter that gets very, very frustrated in the group projects at high school when she's got group members that will do nothing and just simply ride off of the work of the other group members.

That's a very small version of the Gadianton Robbers, but it's a legitimate one that we face in today's world. All the way up to those who would simply wait off of the hard work of others and reap the benefits of that hard work themselves. So that's the first piece from this verse.

The second one, though, I think is even more timely for us, especially with all of the conditions and circumstances that we've been facing recently. Again, I don't try to talk specifically about events here because I see this as an evergreen nature inside the podcast, a chance to listen to it at any time. But, my friends, we are divided in many ways across our nation and across our world.

There's so many different challenging perspectives for us to grab onto. There's different ideologies, beliefs, political systems. There's different leaders.

There's different ideas on where we should be going. There's different religious arguments that are happening. All of them, all of them could be whittled down to a command from our Savior.

He told us to be one and if we're not one we're not his and here we see the Nephites doing this literally coming together in one body and having so great a number that they were protected from the outside Gadianton Robbers. We see that they were able to come together as one and have enough provisions for seven years. Seven is an interesting spiritual and scriptural symbol there.

Perhaps one day we get into that one as we get into the Old Testament or New Testament as we come through. But, my friends, look at the power of getting together in one body. For our family, we've recently been united with a new ward.

And so we're trying to even figure out who's in our ward, their names, who are they, their families. But I know that as we get to know them and as we unite in one body, we can find greater strength together than we can ever be apart. My friends, may you and I across the world unite into one body, the body of Christ.

May we do so under a living prophet and apostles. And may we follow them and their advice and their counsel as we receive it through General Conference. We can all unite as we gather together, being in one body, having a great number.

We will be taken care of if we turn to Him and become one. I truly believe that. 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. For more information, visit us at www.fema.org.