2.305 My Kindness Shall Not Depart

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 could I have missed this last season?

We're reading this week Doctrine and Covenants section 124 as well as 3 Nephi chapters 20 through 23. And as I've been trying to do throughout this entire season in our Book of Mormon reading, I've been trying to make sure that I do not repeat a Book of Mormon scripture verse from last season's readings so that you can go through the Book of Mormon twice and never have a repeated verse. As I did that, I realized that somehow, maybe it was just the pacing last year, somehow I didn't use any of the verses from 3 Nephi chapter 22.

That where our verse is going to come from today. Now in 3 Nephi chapter 21 the Lord begins talking about his return in the last days. So those of you that are looking forward to the Lord coming, I hope you all are, but those of you, you know, specifically looking for the signs and the things that have been prophesied, you want to spend some time in 3 Nephi chapter 21 as well as 3 Nephi chapter 22.

Chapter 22 is a reference to compare with Isaiah chapter 54. Now, I know when I said that some of you may have like driven off the road for just a second when I said Isaiah. You're like, no, we did that in 2 Nephi.

It's all right. Don't worry. We're just going to take a look at one of the verses inside of here.

I'll be having a little fun here. You know that I work my way as best I can through Isaiah, but we've already done that earlier in the year. Here we are inside of this, and you know, there's some verses in here.

Maybe they just didn't hit me last year the same way. Maybe I didn't understand them. Maybe I wasn't there spiritually myself or even scripturally, academically.

I don't know. Maybe just some more time in the scriptures has helped these scripture verses hit me a little bit more. But I want to share this one and it the beginning of some beautiful amazing verses specifically when it comes to my belief of who my Savior Jesus Christ is and who he is for me and who he is for all of his followers.

So let take a look at our verse for today, 3 Nephi chapter 22, verse 10. It says, 'For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.' And then it keeps going, my friends. If that verse didn't prick you in the heart, that's fine.

It keeps going and it keeps getting better and better in my opinion as he describes what he does for those that are afflicted. My friends, the followers of Christ historically are not necessarily well taken care of. We've all, as Christians, we've all had times throughout history where we've been on the short end of the stick, right?

It hasn't gone well for many Christians. And even today in particular parts of the world, it's not going well for Christians. And then maybe even locally, maybe you find yourself on the wrong side of some mocking or harassment because of your beliefs today.

But with all of that being said, these two phrases in this verse help me remember who Jesus Christ is for me. And help me remember the covenants I made with Him and the covenant that He made with me to always have His Spirit with me. Let look at those again.

So, 'the mountains shall depart, the hills be removed,' so like all sorts of chaos can happen, but 'my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed.' Friends, Jesus Christ brings peace to his followers. That peace may not come immediately. It may not come today or tomorrow, but it comes.

It is a covenant He makes with us. And as we seek to keep our covenants, we open ourselves to the blessings and the peace and the kindness of the Lord. I believe that with all my heart, and that is certainly an uplifting one for me today.

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. We'll see you next time.