3.238 Create in Me a Clean Heart

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.

I am in awe, and I've spent the last several days trying to figure out how to share that awe with you. Welcome to our readings this week. We are reading Psalms, basically 49 through 86.

I hope you're enjoying these individual poems and seeing the personal testimonies that they bring out from those that wrote them. Several days ago, I had an opportunity to attend a fireside with one of the project managers on the reconstruction project of the Salt Lake Temple. As of this recording, it's getting closer and closer to that temple reopening and going through.

They're going to have an open house for six months, which is amazing. And this project manager walked us through what this reconstruction project has involved. And it is absolutely miraculous in every way, shape, and form.

Literally miraculous. It had me thinking a lot about these psalms. And, thank you for watching.

Let's go to Psalm 51. Inside of Psalm 51, you basically have kind of David's, one of David's at least, repentance psalms about his actions that he's taken with Bathsheba. He pleads for forgiveness and inside of that are Psalm 51, verse 10.

He says, the Bible says, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Now we know that he tried to go through the repentance process, including all the things that he had done and the choices that he had made. We also know that we have the opportunity to repent thanks to our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his Atonement. But it's really interesting this connection that I kind of feel towards this area.

It's not just this verse alone, but this idea of creating in me a clean heart and renewing a right spirit, perhaps because of the fireside I just attended, has me really reflecting on what the temple can do for us in our lives. I talked recently about the temple. The next section I want to pick for you today is inside of October of 2021.

He gave a talk called "The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation." And here's just a couple excerpts. I hope they kind of piece together without chunking up his thoughts too much. He says, "We are sparing no effort to give this venerable temple, which had become increasingly vulnerable, a foundation that will withstand the forces of nature into the millennium.

In like manner, it is now time that we each implement extraordinary measures, perhaps measures we have never taken before, to strengthen our personal spiritual foundations. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures." Very, very powerful. Then he says just a couple of other pieces I wanted to capture here. "Then as we keep our covenants, he endows us with his healing, strengthening power, and oh, how we will need his power in the days ahead.

One more thought: everything we believe and every promise God has made to his covenant people come together in the temple." My friends, my brothers and sisters, my family, may we all seek to have this clean heart inside of us and may we find it inside of our worship in the temple. If you have an opportunity, go often. If you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, take it. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope you are too.