3.051 Sanctified, Pure, Spotless

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.

Who's this new guy? And why do we only get a few verses about him? We are reading Genesis chapters 12 through 17 this week as well as Abraham chapters 1 and 2.

And we get this tiny little window. Again, it's fascinating what we get from the Old Testament versus what we get with modern Scripture. But we get this tiny little window in Genesis chapter 14 of a man named Melchizedek.

He comes out and he serves Abram. And it's kind of an interesting, just a few verses here. He delivers bread and wine.

He gives him a blessing. He blesses Abram. He blesses the God of Abram, right?

It's really kind of this interesting little window here. And we don't really get a lot of knowledge around Melchizedek from the perspective of the Old Testament. We can add a little bit more to this character and better understand, especially from a Latter-day Saint perspective, where we believe that the higher priesthood, as we call it, is named after him: the Melchizedek Priesthood.

He's got to be solid, right? He's got to be a pretty amazing guy if the Lord's going to name his priesthood after him rather than use the longer and holier name of the priesthood. And so that took me down into kind of some research.

And as I've wanted to, inside of our Old Testament studies, make sure that I also touch base inside of the Book of Mormon, I landed in Alma chapter 13, which is really kind of a cool chapter because the Book of Mormon doesn't directly per se talk about the priesthood in the terminology that we do in terms of like Melchizedek Priesthood and Aaronic Priesthood. Instead, the Book of Mormon regularly refers to this as this Holy Order, right? Or this Order of God, or the Order.

It kind of refers to it in these different terms. And so in Alma chapter 13, we get a description of these people. And then we find out that these people who have this, you know, enter in this Holy Order with God, that Melchizedek was one of them inside of these verses.

The interesting thing is, even though today I'm focused on Melchizedek, I didn't choose a verse that uses his name. And so I want you to make sure you spend some time in Alma chapter 13 a little bit and kind of read the parameters around this priesthood, this Holy Order. Read the covenants they're making, read the people they're becoming, and then realize that Melchizedek is one of these that they're describing.

So our verse for today then is going to land on Alma chapter 13, verse 12. And it's the middle of describing these men that make these covenants with the Lord. It says this: "Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless." Lord, this should kind of prick your heart for those of you that have gone through the temple experience.

Okay. And then we have the result of it. And it's the piece that I wanted to share the thought about today.

It says after these things have happened, they've been sanctified, they've been purified, they're spotless. They could not look upon sin, save it were with abhorrence. My friends, I know as I ask this question that I ask it to myself first and foremost, but how many of us have made covenants with the Lord and then kind of just gone about our days afterwards?

And what I mean by that is we go to the, perhaps you take some time to go to the temple. And I know sometimes I go to the temple, and I just there and I want to take my time and I want to feel the Spirit and I want to reflect and I want to ponder. And other times I just get caught up in the mess and chaos of life, and I like, "Oh, got to go to the temple, got to do my thing.

Hurry, got to run back to my regular life. Hurry!" And it just became a thing that happened in my life. It didn't actually change me, or it didn't actually give me that repentant heart to turn to the Lord.

My friends, I think this is an opportunity for us to see the lens that Melchizedek lived and practiced his life through this additional scripture we have, that we sanctify and purify ourselves through our covenants and then seek to remove that sin with abhorrence, right? We look at it with abhorrence in our lives rather than just simply go do our things and then regularly turn back to the worldly aspects of our lives. I hope that one makes sense and I hope for someone it's a message.

I know for me it's a reminder to take a little checkup from the neck up, as I say occasionally here on Savory Salt. That's all for today, my friends. 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.