3.125 A Key Attribute for Daily Repentance

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 ye will serve." In light of our readings inside of the book of Numbers, I couldn't help but stumble across this topic. We're going to share today a key attribute for daily repentance.

It comes inside of our readings as we're reading this week Numbers 11 through 14, 20 through 24, and 27, or just go after the whole book of Numbers if that's your prerogative. I've been thinking as I continue to see from our mention yesterday, from our podcast episode yesterday, this idea of how quickly the consequences come from complaining in the Old Testament. It seems like the second the complaint comes or the murmur comes, the Lord has a consequence.

And yet that just doesn't seem to show up in our day, at least in terms of plagues, leprosy, or whatever other examples we see as we see such a rapid response here. But it brought to mind for me this idea of how many times the Lord, yes, did bring the consequences, but also invited the people to repent. We've been asked by President Nelson to repent repeatedly.

We've been asked by our living apostles and prophets. I couldn't help but study this a little bit further, as I certainly could spend some time repenting a little bit more for me, right? Like this is a regular, ongoing, daily thing.

And I came across one from a verse that we'll call our verse for today. It's Numbers 12, verse 3. It references Moses in his meekness.

But then it took me down a conference talk from 1991 by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, and it's simply called "Repentance." And so I want to dive in, one, from the verse for today, and then two, directly over to a section of his thoughts. Numbers 12:3 says, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." Now that's quite a compliment coming from the Lord, but what does that help us in terms of repentance?

How do we see this meekness come into play? This is what took me down into Elder Maxwell's talk. He is an academic of sorts, so spend some time in his talk because he definitely uses academic language, but I hope the spirit of it conveys to your heart as it did to mine.

In the tail end of his talk, he says here, "Reflective of our total progression, repentance is not solely for renouncing transgression. For instance, Moses was a righteous and remarkable man. The Bible says that Moses was the most meek man on the face of the earth.

Blessed are the meek, for they are neither easily offended by counsel, nor aggravated by admonition. If we were more meek, brothers and sisters, repentance would be much more regular and..." And that's a great place for me to just focus on personally. "Blessed are the meek, for they are neither easily offended by counsel nor aggravated by admonition. If we were more meek, brothers and sisters, repentance would be much more regular and less stared at." My friends, I hope that you can spend some time inside of the idea of meekness, what it does for those that have it, and how we can better improve it in our own lives.

I love this idea as today we tend to find critics everywhere when it comes to being counseled through General Conference talks. You can typically get news articles on people that are ruffled in their feathers because of some sort of advice given to us by Church leaders. But I love this view here where meekness helps us to not be offended by that counsel and not be aggravated by admonition when we are called to repent.

My friends, we've been asked by a living prophet of God to repent on a daily basis. I hope that we find within us the meekness that Moses had here, to be able to hold that perspective and see that it's not always about transgression, and it could simply be about continuing to increase our own righteousness as we live day to day. 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.