As
the title suggests, I'd like to share a little bit about my literary experience
with faith and learning what it really is. I know this may sound a little cliché, but I
feel like the main reason for why I feel so strongly about my experience
learning about faith is because of the way it was presented to me.
To
start off, I really didn’t know what faith was before my mission. I understood that faith was a belief in
something that wasn’t seen, that was true (Alma 32: 21), but I didn’t
understand the other essential half of it.
As
I was learning more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ on my mission, I of course
was learning from the New Testament of the Bible. I realized then that I had never really
studied the scriptures, even though I had been in Seminary.
In
my studies of the New Testament, I came across the topic of faith in the book
of James. The way James writes is
incredible. In James 2:14, for example, James
writes “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and
have not works? Can faith save him?”
James
continues on, giving great examples of the need to have faith AND works. In James 2:17, James writes “Even so faith,
if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”
James’
conviction and authoritative voice really made the teachings of faith really
make sense to me. I’m pretty sure I had
been taught about what faith really is, but it took having to read those
powerful words to figure it out. The
tone that James employed was perfect, because it taught me in a way that helped
shake me up enough to really pay attention to the meaning of his message.
I became enthralled with faith on my mission as well, but I didn't learn what it was fully until I was assigned my departing talk. My topic was a quote by Bruce R. McConkie, “Faith is a gift of God bestowed as a reward for personal righteousness. It is always given when righteousness is present, and the greater the measure of obedience to God’s laws the greater will be the endowment of faith". I was confused, because I thought it worked the other way around. Then, I came across Alma 24 and my entire perception of faith changed. The Anti-Nephi-Lehis received incredible faith to bury their weapons of war when their enemies were upon them because of their righteousness. It was their actions that created their faith
ReplyDeleteFaith without works is dead. I didn't fully understand how strong my faith actually was until I was on my mission and read this verses from James. It's amazing how the scriptures can literally speak to each of us personally to either teach us new things, or reinforce our strengths that we weren't otherwise aware of.
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