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 wonderful co-host. His name is John Bytheway. You’ve probably heard of him. Hi John.

John Bytheway: 00:11 Hi Hank.

Hank Smith: 00:13 John, this little clip is called followHIM Favorites. Hopefully people have seen one by now. It’s where we take this week’s Come Follow Me lesson. And instead of doing our big podcast that we have, we decide to do just a small little clip called followHIM Favorites. Where you get to choose your one favorite. This week’s lesson is Doctrine and Covenants, section 76. The whole thing, all 119 verses. And you get to choose one followHIM favorite. So, what is it? What are you thinking?

John Bytheway: 00:45 This is a tough one because I could have chosen lots, but I like verse 40 and 41 because it starts out, and this is the gospel. And a lot of times when we define the gospel or our friends do it, they define it by rules. Oh, I know what the gospel is. You can’t drink. Oh, I know what the gospel is. You can’t do this. You can’t wear that. Or, oh, I know what the gospel is. Don’t go shopping on Sunday. And it’s like, ugh. No.

Hank Smith: 01:09 I heard a teenager say, John, I heard a teenager say once, I’m a member. I need a t-shirt that says I’m the member of the church, I can’t. Right? Like, that’s what it means to be a a to be part of the gospel. I can’t.

John Bytheway: 01:23 Yeah. And define it that way, which is awful. And so here is the scripture defining, okay, this is the gospel. I love it. That’s the quote. And this is the gospel, the glad tidings, which the voice out of the heavens bore record unto us. That he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness. That through him all might be saved. I mean, that is the gospel. It’s not about what you do on Sunday. The gospel is that Jesus came and loved us and died for us and cleanses us so that we can be saved. That’s–so that’s my favorite, right? Little thing right there.

Hank Smith: 02:09 That’s a great followHIM favorite. Wouldn’t it be great for a young person to just kind of memorize that? And if someone were to say, oh, you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what do you believe? Well, there’s a verse in our scripture that says this.

John Bytheway: 02:24 Let me tell you what I believe.

Hank Smith: 02:25 Right? This is what I believe because that sums it up perfectly. The good news is that all might be saved.

John Bytheway: 02:31 It’s good. It’s glad. That’s–those are the words we’re seeing here. This is good news.

Hank Smith: 02:37 And those of you listening all means you. Right? You’re like, oh, I’m good. He’s gonna save everyone. Oh, poor me. I won’t be in. No. All means you. You’re included in the word all.

John Bytheway: 02:47 Do the math.

Hank Smith: 02:48 Yeah. My followHIM favorite is very similar. It’s all the way on the next page over in verse 69, it says these are they who are just men-and we’ll add women-made perfect through Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, who wrought out this perfect atonement–this perfect atonement through the shedding of his own blood. John, I’ve heard you talk about Moroni 10 before, where Maroni writes at the very end of the Book of Mormon, come unto Christ and be perfected in him. And you’ve said it’s crucial. You get the order right. It’s not be perfect so you can come unto Christ. It’s come unto Christ so you can be made perfect in Him. Right? The order is important.

John Bytheway: 03:35 I can’t go to church. I’m not good enough. I can’t go to, I can’t go. Yeah, exactly. It’s, oh, that’s why you come.

Hank Smith: 03:42 Right?

John Bytheway: 03:42 You come firs.

Hank Smith: 03:43 Perfected in Him. It’s not you that’s perfect. It’s Him and his perfect atonement which will change your life. It’ll change everything about you. In the words of one of my students, her name is Laura Cope. She said, Jesus can make your dreams come true and then some. And I think that’s a hundred percent true. His perfect atonement can make your dreams come true and then some. We hope that you’ll join us on the full podcast. We don’t do followHIM favorites. We do followHIM everything on the podcast. So, this week we’re with Dr. Steven Harper, who just knows just about everything about Joseph Smith. So, we hope you’ll join us. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts.