3.121 Ye Shall Be Holy

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 you this day whom you will serve.

My friends, are you watchers of the home baking shows or the home improvement shows or the shows where you watch how people do the thing? If not, maybe you know someone who is. I'm not necessarily a TV show watcher unless I'm at a hotel or I'm on vacation.

And then I love watching those types of shows. The shows where it kind of walks you through the creation of the thing. As we're looking at our reading this week in Exodus 35 through Leviticus 19 and all the chapters that are in Come Follow Me there, I couldn't help but think these chapters are actually a season of that style of show.

Now stick with me for just a second. I promise we're going to get around to a thought here in a verse. But it totally has changed the way that I've gone through Exodus 35 through 40 as well as the chapters in Leviticus.

I've gone through the thought of like watching `the` "Forged in Fire" show. I don't know if you know that one, but it's like these metal smiths come in and these blacksmiths come in and they like build swords and knives and all these crazy things. And then they put them through tests to kind of see them.

You watch them work the metal and the steel and all these types of things. I promise I'm going somewhere with this. My friends, as you read Exodus 35 through 40 in Leviticus, as you're going through those chapters, it's kind of like watching a show where they're saying, and then you come and do this.

And here's what the tabernacle looks like over here. Let's take a look at what's happening with this one over here. Well, he's working on this part of the tabernacle.

This is what it's going to be used for. Wow, and that's how I'm envisioning this. It's the first time I've kind of seen that point of view here as I'm going through the Old Testament this time.

But I hope that perhaps changes your perspective a little bit of these chapters as it seems sometimes they can be laborious as you go through and you're like, what is all this detail? Well, we actually have TV shows that go through the same detail. It's just that it's visually appealing for us.

I apologize for that. But we're going to go all the way to Leviticus 19. And we're going to read 19 verse 2 here.

This is the Lord speaking to Moses, and he says. The Bible says: "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." Now that sounds like a great command from the Lord, unless all of us have a different definition of what holy means. Now the reason I share this today inside of our reading is these chapters leading up to this have been the Lord's way of trying to tell the children of Israel, do things like this, make it look like that, do things like this.

And ultimately, if you do these things like this, ye shall be holy. At least that's the way I'm reading it here. Now, what does that mean for us in our lives?

I want to give you a bit of a ponder moment, a chance to have an activity here for the day. First of all, what does holy mean to you? Can you define holiness?

Take some time. Look at the footnote in verse 2 of holy. Follow those scriptures.

Look into some conference talks on the term holy. There's a great one by President Eyring in Come Follow Me about "Holiness and Happiness." What does holy mean to you? And even better, what does holy mean to the Lord?

Next up in your activity, where are you winning on your path to holiness? What are the things that you're just doing right, and you feel good about them? You're feeling the Spirit when you do that.

It's uplifting you. It's uplifting those around you. Your testimony is growing.

Take some time to write those things down. And finally, the third piece of this activity, where can you improve? Where can you increase in your holiness?

What can you do to show the Lord that you can do more? What does it look like in your prayers or your repentance, your faith, your service, your callings? I don't know what it is.

Your relationship with your family. I don't know what it is for you. But this activity is an opportunity for you to increase your savor.

It's a chance for all of us to pause and spend time inside of the word holy. And perhaps through that lens that the Lord's trying to help us be holy, all these other chapters in Exodus and Leviticus make a little bit more sense as it's the Lord's way of directing his people to be holy even as he is. That's all for today, my friends.

I hope you enjoy the home improvement, home baking shows through the lens of Exodus and Leviticus. 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.