2.363 They Have Lost Their Love

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. Today, a message for all of us to regain hope.

Wrapping up this season and this year for those of you listening live, as we dive into Moroni chapters 9 and 10 over these next three days, to finish up season two of Savory Salt and roll into season three. Now as we do that, Moroni chapter 9 is perhaps one of, if not the darkest chapters we have in the Book of Mormon. As Mormon writes his second epistle to his son and describes some of the horrendous things that both Lamanites and Nephites are doing to each other.

It's quite a difficult chapter to read. And yet inside of it, we get some incredible insight from the Book of Mormon, despite the sadness. And Mormon even warns us in the chapter not to get consumed by the sadness and instead to focus on the light, so let's take a look at one of the verses here and see what it can do for us that may have those moments of struggle and maybe even loss of hope.

Our verse for today is Moroni 9:5. It says this, "For so exceedingly do they anger, that it seemeth me that they have no fear of death, and they have lost their love, one towards another, and they thirst after blood and revenge." The definition of good behavior is that whenever someone you disagree with crosses a line, you're justified in crossing the same line. It's not about holding anyone accountable to a line in our day anymore.

And it seems like this can go all the way up to government levels, the mudslinging on both sides, at least in the United States where I record from. I know several of you maybe are experiencing in your governments as well, but it seems like it's like as soon as somebody does something bad, we don't say, "Let's hold them accountable for that." Instead, we go, "Well, if you did it, then we're just simply reacting. We're reacting and we're going to do the same thing." That to me sounds like this continual path of thirst after blood and revenge continually, rather than a love, one towards another, a love of God and man.

So what does it mean for us? Well, perhaps the hope that we lost was lost when we lost the love. And this one's an interesting one for me because there's a message today about love that I think misses the mark.

I've referenced this a little bit before in Savory Salt. It's not just love that Mormon is talking about here. It's a love of Jesus Christ.

It's a love of Heavenly Father. It's a love of that which is good and light. That the love, revenge, or you have no fear of death because of the hatred in your hearts for others.

Perhaps the opportunity is to seek within you the love of Jesus Christ, the love of our Heavenly Father, the love you share with family members and friends. The more you do that, the more you have an opportunity to serve them and build together rather than live a life based on revenge and anger, bloodthirsty and ultimately hoping for the demise of everyone around you. Jesus Christ is light.

Following Him will bring us the ultimate love from our Heavenly Father. 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.savorysalt.org.