Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello everyone. My name is Hank Smith. I’m the host of a podcast called followHIM. I’m here with my co-host, the amazing John Bytheway. Hi, John.

John Bytheway: 00:09 Hi, Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:10 We do a little clip each week called followHIM Favorites. This week, John, the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants we’re studying are section 67 through 70. So you have a lot to choose from here when it comes to sections. So give us your followHIM favorite for this lesson.

John Bytheway: 00:29 Oh, I will happily do that. I love the way Section 67 starts out: “Behold and hearken, O ye elders of my church, who have assembled yourselves together…” And we all know that this is for all of us now. It was specific to them, but what he says to them, he’s saying to us, listen to this part: “…whose prayers I have heard, and whose hearts I know…” And isn’t that comforting? He hears our prayers. And if you mess up, you can say, Heavenly Father, you know my heart. I didn’t mean to do that. That wasn’t what–and you know my heart. And there’s such great comfort in that, “whose prayers I have heard and whose hearts I know”. And whose desires…

Hank Smith: 01:05 I really like that.

John Bytheway: 01:05 …have come up before me. Yeah, isn’t that nice? You know, my heart. And, that’s a great comfort to know that. Because I think a lot of us make mistakes, but we didn’t mean to, you know.

Hank Smith: 01:15 Yeah. And the Lord understands that, I think. Isn’t there a part in the Doctrine and Covenants where the Lord says, I will judge you according to your works and the desires of your hearts.

John Bytheway: 01:23 Desires of your hearts. It’s in 46, I think.

Hank Smith: 01:25 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 01:26 And then I wanna go to the–that’s the first verse–the last verse of 67 verse 14. First phrase there, “Let not your minds turn back…” And I think that, what’s right in front of us is the now. And we can think about the now, but when we look at the past, that’s called regret. And I think the Lord’s saying here, don’t regret the past. Let not your minds turn back. The Lord always wants to us to look forward and to move forward and not dwell on the past because he’s forgiving, but we keep moving forward. So I love that phrase. Let not your minds turn back. We can really beat ourselves up over the past sometimes.

Hank Smith: 02:04 I love that. And we can do that to others as well. We can always be bringing up old…

John Bytheway: 02:07 We can remind them of their past, right?

Hank Smith: 02:09 We can bring up old mistakes that they’ve made and they wanna move on from. My followHIM favorite is section 68, verse six. I remember finding this scripture when I was just in high school. When I first started reading scripture, you know, I didn’t understand everybody who was being spoken to and all the, you know, all the context behind the verses. But I would find little verses that just gave me a you know, a good motivating–they were motivating to me to keep believing and to believe in the Lord. And this was one of them, 68:6. He says, be of good cheer and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you. I will stand by you. You will bear record of me, even Jesus Christ. I just–as you take that verse apart, there’s so much good in there. Be of good cheer that literally means smile, cheer up, speak hopefully, speak encouragingly, do not fear. Right? I the Lord am with you. I will stand by you. I take great comfort in that because like you said, John, we all make mistakes. And the Lord knows our mistakes. Yet he says, I am with you and I will stand by you even in your mistakes. I am with you. I will stand by you. Do not fear. I love how encouraging the Lord is in these revelations.

John Bytheway: 03:28 And of anyone you could think of to have standing by you. Can it get any better than that?

Hank Smith: 03:33 Absolutely.

John Bytheway: 03:34 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 03:34 Oh, I love it. Well, we hope you’ll join us on our podcast. It’s called followHIM, and come back here, to where you’ve found this followHIM favorite and join us next week.