3.260 Your Reward to Self

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.

This one's a tough question to ask because as I ask it, I know the answer for myself is yes. But have you ever had moments in your life where you're just kind of content with the little bit of sin that you have? I think Isaiah is going to give us some great insight and a bit of a warning as we dive into our verse for today.

We are reading Isaiah chapters 1 through 12, and inside of it we get into the warnings with Judah and Jerusalem both being punished inside of Isaiah chapter 3. We find out inside of here, our verse for today is going to be in verse 9, but really it's connected to several of the verses around it. And in 8, we see that the ruin comes because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord.

So keep that kind of framing there because it gets further into that idea with verse 9. Verse 9 says: "The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves." Now that one's a... there's a lot inside of there.

Let's try and break this down just a little bit, but I am going to start at the back end of this one and work up. "Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves." How many times in your life have you found yourself frustrated at the outcome of your choices, but not associated it with your choices? Maybe you defer it, maybe you blame somebody else, maybe you're like, "Ah, if that person over there hadn't done the thing, I'd be just fine." We push these aside and hear our reminder from Isaiah that when we are acting in our own sins, that we reward ourselves and that reward is evil unto ourselves. Now keep that in mind when it comes up to this other part in the question that I started our episode with.

That question being: "You ever had those times where you're just kind of okay?" I'm going to read a passage from the Bible. I have seen many people be willing to simply stand in their sin and say, "This is my sin. This is who I am.

You cannot judge me. Therefore I hide it not." Now they're not saying those exact words, but their behavior is saying it. My friends, I'm not trying to come preloaded with judgment here at all.

What I'm trying to do is remember for myself that my actions, my choices, my tongue (as it says in verse 8), my doings—those things create rewards for me. And those rewards can be evil or those rewards can be good. So a warning today for each one of us.

The Bible says. I hope it gives you and I a better frame to pause and dive into that daily repentance that President Nelson has challenged us to do. I know for me it's been recently an accentuated or an accelerated or a more amplified attempt to make sure that I'm repenting on a daily basis.

That is 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.