Chauncey C. Riddle
October 1998
You may wonder about this title. It is common in the church to speak of “having” faith in Jesus Christ. But it is also common to hear people say that the faith that they have does not bring the results they desire or need. We emphasize “doing” rather than “having” faith here because everyone “has” faith. But it is in the correct doing of faith that results are obtained, and only in our works is our faith manifest.
Faith is trusting in something in the absence of sure knowledge that that something is presently trustworthy. We tend to put trust in things, ideas and people where that trust has proved to be helpful in the past. But trust we must.
Everyone has faith because human beings are so constituted that we cannot know enough to live by knowledge. We do not and cannot know that the sun will come up tomorrow, but we have faith that it will. We do not know the date we were born, but we accept the testimony of others on faith, and that suffices. We do not know what any other person thinks or feels, but we put faith in our surmises about them and that often works. Just about everything we ordinarily think we know turns out, on close inspection, to be something we just believe, and we put great faith in our beliefs and thus manage to muddle through life.
Every human being lives by faith, faith in something or someone or many somethings and someones. But there is only one faith that saves anyone in any eternal sense, and that is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ is a thing a person must do, not just have, and skill in doing faith in Christ is what makes it work. So let us now examine what skillful, competent doing of faith consists of so that our faith in Christ will not be weak or inadequate to our needs.
We here suggest five keys for doing faith in Jesus Christ. Do not suppose that this is the eternal last word on doing faith in Christ. You are invited to examine these ideas, to see if they are better than the notion of faith you have held up to now. Then you are invited to formulate your own rules and procedures for becoming full of faith in Christ. For you and I are saved no faster or sooner than we gain knowledge of how to do saving faith.
We will give a brief outline of five keys to doing faith in Christ, then we will return to each key for an analysis in greater depth.
First Key: Be certain that all our trust is in Jesus Christ. This means that His Spirit, His words, His prophets are the most important things to us in this world. We of course cannot put our trust in Him until we find His spirit, His words, and His prophets. So the first step in faith is to find a personal connection with Jesus Christ, then to be sure that that personal connection is the most important thing in our mortal life, more important than breathing or eating or obtaining any earthly satisfaction. Nephi tells us that we must proceed, “with unshaken faith in him, relying wholly upon the merits of him who is mighty to save.” (2 Nephi 31:19) The world “wholly” reminds us that if we do faith in Jesus Christ correctly, we need have faith in nothing or no one else. Let us make this point a little stronger: True faith in Jesus Christ precludes faith in anyone or anything else. Doing faith requires that we are or become spiritually sensitive so that we find Christ, then be spiritually constant in trusting Him and Him only.
Second Key: Recognize that faith in Christ is a gift of God. It is not something a person can do at will. Unless we become as a little child—humble, willing, submissive—we cannot and will not receive the Holy Spirit of God into our lives to become faithful.
Because faith is a gift of God, specifically one of the greatest gifts of the Holy Ghost, receiving a fulness of it requires ordinances. No one can be fully faithful to Christ unless they are baptized into the New and Everlasting Covenant and are fulfilling their commitments in that covenant. Those who trust in the witness of the Holy Spirit to believe that Jesus is the Christ, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living church on the earth, and that they should accept the New and Everlasting Covenant of baptism into His church are on the path which leads to full faith in Christ.
Third Key: Faith is to work by mental exertion. The prophet Joseph Smith gave us this key in the Lectures on Faith. There are two main emphases here: First that doing faith is hard work and second that doing faith is mental work.
To say that faith is work means literally just that. Faith is something that must be worked at every minute of every day. We work at it by controlling our mind, which is the “mental” part. We control ourselves through our power of attention. Whatever we give our attention to is where the action is. Human life consists of a stream of influences and impulses which come into the mind and our personal reactions to these influences and impulses. The key is to separate out that which comes from Christ from that which comes from the world and from Satan, and to put our trust only in that which comes from Christ.
Thus to be faithful to Christ means to be constantly alert, perceptive of spiritual influences, and decisive in reacting to each kind of influence. Faith in Christ is difficult work, but it is doable. It demands our constant attention, the full application of our intelligence, and all of our acting. There is not more consuming or occupying action than doing full faith in Jesus Christ. It requires that we gain control of our minds and then focus deliberately in every thought in doing what Christ would have us do. The Savior said: “Look to me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.” (D&C 6:36)
Fourth Key: What we have mentioned so far is so demanding that it can be sustained in a human being only when the heart as well as the mind is fully committed to doing faith in Christ. This fourth key is what the heart must do: it must hunger and thirst after righteousness. The promise is that those who thus hunger and thirst will be filled with the Holy Ghost. Only by the power of the Holy Ghost can we find Christ, seize the gift of the Holy Ghost, and put our mind to full acting on faith in Christ. If our heart is not in it, we will soon lose interest or be diverted to whatever our heart is interested in.
Our heart is our desires. Unless we want to do what is right more than we want anything else, we will not hold fast to Christ and have full faith in Him even if we do encounter Him in the world as so many did during His mortal ministry, or as many do now in reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Each of us must decide: Do I desire to serve God or to serve mammon? If we choose God, we can be faithful only by following the narrow path of faith in Christ. Every other path in this world is serving mammon. So unless our heart yearns for righteousness, which is found only in Christ, we will be diverted from Christ by pleasure, social rewards, money, power, beauty, and all the other good things this world has to offer. No wonder full faith in Christ is such a rare commodity in this world.
Fifth Key: There is a consequence of doing full faith in Christ. This consequence is the test as to whether a person has full faith in Christ or not. One who does full faith in Christ will be found serving his or her fellow human beings with all of his heart, might, mind and strength. He or she lies down each and every night of the world exhausted in the causes of relieving anguish, ignorance, suffering and poverty among the people of this earth. And this is done in the power of Christ through unshaken faith in Him.
The great commandment of God is that we love Him with all of our heart, might, mind and strength. This love is manifest only in persons who have put their full faith in Christ. You can tell one who has full faith in Christ because of their life of total selfless service to others. To love and serve God is to love and serve His children under His direction. There is no other way to do love of God.
Now that we have painted the overall picture of the five keys to doing full faith in Christ, let us revisit each of them for more detail. Please note that the five keys are not necessarily in serial order. We are attempting to paint a picture of doing full faith in Christ by giving linear sequence of words. But the picture is a whole, and must be seen as a whole to be understood.
First Key: To say that our faith must be in Jesus Christ and in Him only can be refined to point out that our specific trust must be in the name of Jesus Christ. This is the only name under heaven whereby man can be saved. (D&C 18:23) The name of Jesus Christ is His priesthood authority.
When we look to Jesus Christ for help and salvation, He delivers it to us through His priesthood authority. We must find and submit ourselves to that priesthood authority to begin the process of salvation. We do this by accepting the ordinances of baptism of the water and baptism of the spirit. We continue that salvation by serving faithfully under those who preside over us in the priesthood in our wards and stakes. We further that salvation by fully receiving the Holy Priesthood, that is to say, the name of Jesus Christ, upon ourselves in His holy temple. Then we finish our salvation by ministering to the children of men in this world using the powers of His name, His priesthood, which we have gained in the temple. This is the power by which Peter, James and John built up the church of Jesus Christ in the meridian of time. This is the power by which Nephi blessed his people, by which Ammon converted King Limhi, by which the Savior wrought His Atonement, by which the preparations for the Second Coming of Christ will be fulfilled by those of our own time.
Hallowed be His holy name. May we magnify it in our faithfulness.
Second Key: As faith in Jesus Christ is a gift of the Holy Ghost, so responding faithfully to this gift brings other gifts. A faithful servant of Christ operates by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He uses the gift of prophecy to prepare well for the future. He uses the gift of tongues to touch the hearts of those who need more faith. He uses the gift of knowledge to instruct those who are weak in the faith. He uses the gift of healing to lift those who struggle with the adversary over physical or mental afflictions. He uses the gift of wisdom to know how to lift those in his stewardship. Being full of the knowledge and power of God, he fills every church assignment in the way the Savior himself would do it, supporting fully those who preside over him and loving into competence in being faithful to Christ all those over whom he presides. Through the gifts of God he is attaining the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
The faithful servant of Christ works until he has every spiritual gift he or she needs to meet the challenges and opportunities of the service he or she has to bless others each day. The most demanding service anyone has are the twin tasks of being a Christ-like husband and father or a Christ-like wife and mother in the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Third Key: To work by mental exertion in being faithful is to learn to control one’s own mind completely. Knowing that Satan is able to put evil thoughts into our minds, which are temptations, and knowing that all action begins in the mind, the faithful servant of Christ fights the good fight of faith every minute of every day in his or her mind.
Part of this struggle is negative. It is to block, to thwart immediately every temptation to evil which comes into the mind. Does a swear word come to mind? Repent immediately and pray for help that it will never come again. Does a covetous thought come to mind? Repent immediately of desiring that which is not right, perhaps even giving away something of our own which is precious to us so that we do not become attached to things. Does a lustful, lascivious thought come into our mind? We must pray immediately with all of our might for the great gift of a pure heart that such a thought will never afflict us again, and work and work until indeed such a thought never comes again.
Until we win the battle of good over evil in our minds, we can never win the battle in our actions. This is why the Greek word for repentance is so apt. The word is metanoia, to change our minds. Faithfulness is wrought in the mind by rejecting and eschewing immediately every temptation to evil. To let a temptation linger for even a moment is to succumb to that temptation in a degree. Our reaction to the temptation to think evil must become reflexive, so habitual or “knee-jerk” that we do not struggle, but simply reject, withdrawing in horror to what Satan would have us do. President McKay said it this way: You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can surely stop them from nesting in your hair!
The positive side of working faith by mental exertion is to search out the good which God provides and treasure it. We seek after everything which is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy, because these are the things of God in this world. We observe the instructions of the scriptures and take each admonition to heart and mind until each is habitual with us. We listen to our bishop and stake president or other presiding authorities and hang on every instruction until we have absorbed all into our character as a permanent fixture. We scan general conference addresses for anything we yet need to do to come into full compliance with what faithful Latter-day Saints do. We try to become skillful in all that we do, that we honor our master thereby. We try to beautify, cleanse, uplift, and refine everything we live with or deal with. We are unabashedly trying to create heaven on earth, recognizing all the while that we do so by first creating a heavenly mind within ourselves.
Thus we work to be faithful by mental exertion, excluding all that is evil and holding fast to all that is good until our mind is sufficient to full faith in Jesus Christ.
Fourth Key: Our mind cannot work the work of faith unless our heart is pure. We must look to our heart, and ferret out every desire for evil, for selfishness, for feathering our own nest, until those tendencies are all gone. If we observe in the course of a day’s living that our heart is not yet pure, that we yet desire something we know is evil, we can take immediate steps. One step to purity is to fast until we are relieved of the evil desire. Fasting without mighty prayer is but going hungry. As we are humble, our prayers will be guided by the Holy Spirit so that they become effective. As they are effective, we can root out of our hearts every impurity, every untoward desire. Father wants us to struggle with these evils in our heart one by one, so that our agency is not abrogated by His changing of our hearts. When we want to be pure more than we want to live or breathe, then we are humble enough to receive purity of heart step by step until every trace of selfishness is gone. The pure heart is the most important aspect of the faithful saint, but the mind is the battleground where the struggle with good and evil is won and won permanently.
Fifth Key: Perhaps the greatest miracle in this world is a person who has struggled until they have become fully faithful to Jesus Christ. That is the hardest thing for any human being to accomplish, yet every necessary help or grace necessary to that stupendous accomplishment is made available by our loving Heavenly Father to every single one of His children who come into mortality. He hopes that each will esteem His love and gifts and overcome the world. But He know that many will not choose to do so.
How beautiful and precious then is the soul who has fought the good fight and has overcome. Give them any assignment in the kingdom, and they will find a way to fulfill it. Face them with any problem, and they will overcome it through their faith. If there is anything godliness can accomplish, they will do it. There is no greater accomplishment or reward than to be a servant of Jesus Christ, fully faithful. They already have eternal life, which is the life of and with the gods. They commune with and cooperate with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost daily in their never-ending quest to rescue every human soul from damnation. Service is their watchword, love is their weapon, power in the priesthood is their backup, accomplishment is their record. For they love God with all of their heart, might, mind and strength, and in the name of Jesus Christ do they serve Him.
Does all of this sound overwhelming and impossible—cause you to feel hopeless? If this is your reaction, that will be because you have been trying to do what is right on your own and failing. Remember that all that we have said comes through the grace and love of our Master, Jesus Christ. His apostles, glimpsing the pattern of full faith in Christ which we are also attempting to do, said to Jesus: “Master, who then can be saved?” He replied, “With man, this is impossible. But with God all these things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25–26) The greatest thing any human can do is to become faithful to Jesus Christ. It is not surprising that the task should be difficult. But it is wonderful to know that anyone who wants that attainment enough to be willing to sacrifice everything else for it will gain that goal if he or she truly hungers and thirsts after righteousness.
The question now rightly arises, how does one teach full faith in Jesus Christ to another? There are two answers. The first is that it cannot be taught. That greatest human attainment is worked out as a personal relationship between each human being and his Master, Jesus Christ. No one can tell anyone else exactly how to be faithful except Jesus Christ himself. The second answer is that there is much that can be done to point the way toward the strait and narrow path of faith, both by precept and by example. As we teach of Christ, prophesy of Christ, and honor Christ, we help others to gain ideas which will help them to be faithful. That is what we are attempting to do here, right now, in this discussion. But of course the great way to teach faith in Christ is simply to be full of doing faith in Christ ourselves. The example is worth more than a million words.
May I suggest a way to remember how to be faithful? Let each of the five keys be represented by the thumb or a finger on your right hand. Let the thumb remind you to put your trust solely in the holy name of Jesus Christ. Let your index finger remind you that faith, like every other good thing, is a gift from God, and to seek earnestly the best gifts. Let your middle finger remind you that faith is wrought by constant mental exertion to prize the good and eschew the bad. Let your ring finger remind you that only as we hunger and thirst after righteousness can faith be a potent reality in our lives. Let your little finger remind you that the reality and fullness of faith exists only in the loving service we give to our fellowmen through the power and gifts we have received from God.
When you raise your right arm to the square to attest to your faith in Christ or to sustain actions in the kingdom, let each finger of your right hand be a testimony that you have and use five keys to faith in Jesus Christ.
May each of us turn as a little child and receive fully of the grace of Jesus Christ, that in His love we may come to a fulness of His faith, and of His hope and of His charity, and thus be new creatures in Christ. In the holy name of Jesus Christ I bear my witness that Christ lives, that this is His church and priesthood, that there is no sacrifice we could make to become faithful that would not be worth it; that everyone of us can become celestial beings and do celestial good through Christ if only we want to do faith in Jesus Christ more than we desire any other thing. Amen.