Thursday, March 10, 2011

Faith is a Gift

In my previous post I discussed the differences between faith and belief.  Once we acknowledge that we get to choose to believe and to act and that God grants faith, we are better able to understand the idea that faith is a gift.  Faith is one of the gifts of the Spirit.


In D&C 46 we are taught that we are to earnestly seek the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given. They are given to benefit those who love the Lord and keep, or seek to keep, His commandments. We must ask, not for a sign to be consumed upon our lusts but, for the benefit of all that seek or ask of the Lord. The Lord teaches us about these gifts, and their operation, so that we will not be deceived. He also reminds us that we do not all have every gift but that we each have gifts that are for the profit of all (D&C 46: 8-12).

Next, the Lord presents a list of these gifts. The list includes: 
  • knowing of Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost, 
  • believing on the testimony of others, 
  • knowing by the Holy Ghost the differences of administration and the diversities of operations, 
  • knowing by the Spirit of God the word of wisdom, 
  • the word of knowledge 
  • faith to be healed, 
  • faith to heal, 
  • speaking with tongues, 
  • interpretation of tongues, 
  • etc. 
For our purposes here it is interesting to notice that faith is listed as a gift, given by God, for the blessing of all. Faith is not the result of our own mental efforts to imagine a result with sufficient energy to cause the result. We do not conjure faith from within ourselves. Faith is not like The Little Engine That Could.  It is not enough to scrunch up our eyes and chant, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ..."


True, we may pray and fast to ask for faith, but it is still a gift from God to us. As described above, we have faith when we are given some evidence or assurance of something that is not yet seen, but is true and builds hope in Jesus Christ. In the next post I will present examples of faith to illustrate the ideas in these recent posts. 
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2 comments:

  1. JEFMarch 13, 2011 at 3:26 PM

    You speak of choosing to believe. That has always struck me as odd. I don't think I have an experience of such a choice. Belief happens in certain circumstances. I can resist belief. I can be open to belief. But it "choice" doesn't seem to me to describe well what happens when I take up a belief I'd not previously had. Circumstances are such and I am such that I believe something, but I never weigh two beliefs and then say, "I think I'll believe this one rather than that one."

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  2. An Amateur ContemplatorMarch 13, 2011 at 3:42 PM

    I think you are right that much of what we believe is not the result of conscious choices to believe this over that. The quote from Brigham Young suggest that belief is inherent in us. I guess I just imposed my own experience that some of my beliefs have changed or been refined as I have learned more about a principle or doctrine. I feel that I have made choices about what I believe. I agree, though, that there are other things that I just believe.

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