3.011 God Provides the Means and the Power

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

Let's finish up this week where we started last week. We're reading this week, Moses chapter 1 and Abraham chapter 3 as we begin our first week of the Old Testament here. And last week I mentioned that sometimes I'm going to be referencing some General Conference talks and some other talks from living prophets and apostles that go in line with our study of the Old Testament.

This week we're going to return to the talk at the time by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that was actually a BYU speech. It's at the BYU speeches.

I'll make sure the link is in here. "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence." And while that story does reference Moses chapter one in the beginning of his talk, he actually goes into Moses crossing the Red Sea near the end of that talk. And rather than come back to this reference here when we get to Moses crossing the Red Sea, I thought we would capture his lesson here on Revelation because it's another lens we can use to dive into the Old Testament as we get into Genesis next week. So our scripture verse for the day is actually going to be a paragraph inside of this talk by Elder Holland.

He talks about the importance and three key features of receiving revelation and he uses it through the lens of Moses crossing the Red Sea. And this is his paragraph on the third lesson. So if you want to go back and check out lesson one and lesson two, he says this, "The third lesson from the Lord's spirit of revelation is the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea is that along with the illuminating revelation that points us towards a righteous purpose or duty, God will also provide the means and power to achieve that purpose.

Trust in that eternal truth. That is true of joining the church. It is true of getting an education, of going on a mission, or of getting married, or of any of a hundred worthy tasks in your young lives.

Remember what the Savior said to the Prophet Joseph in the Sacred Grove. What was the problem in 1820? Why was Joseph not to join any other church?

It was at least in part because they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." And then he continues to finish his testimony there. My friends, I love this reminder from Elder Holland that when we do receive revelation from the Lord, and we feel that comfort and that confidence in the Spirit. We also can have comfort and confidence in knowing that the Lord will provide the means and the power to accomplish whatever it is we have received revelation for.

Now, as we go into the Old Testament, we're going to see this happen. The Lord guides His people, the Israelites, through the prophets. We're going to see times where they receive revelation and then the Lord even miraculously at times provides a way for them to accomplish the task.

My friends, I don't think it's any different for us in our day. I do think that we tend to kind of casually approach the idea of miraculous events. We have the opportunity to lean on the Lord.

We have the opportunity to seek revelation from him, and when we receive that revelation, we then have the opportunity to turn to him and seek for him to provide the means and the power for us to achieve those purposes. I'm grateful for the chance that we have to have a living Heavenly Father on our side that has the means and the power to help us accomplish the things he would have us accomplish in this life. That's all for today, my friends.

I am loving our study so far. You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.