Faith

As I said in my last entry, the Atonement can help us, if we use it. This is why we are here on earth—to gain a body, to learn and grow (including from our mistakes, and especially from our trials!), and to do everything else we need to do to return to our Father after we die. I’m going to talk about what the “everything else” is now. The reason I say that is because most of the “everything else” is using the atonement. When Christ came to earth, he instituted what is called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are five steps to the gospel; each step is just as important as the other, and most importantly, ONE WITHOUT THE OTHERS IS INCOMPLETE. We have been commanded to do all of them. Right now, I am going to talk about the first one.
In the Book of Mormon, a righteous prophet and king gives his farewell address to his people before he dies. In the many important things he talks about, he teaches this:

-And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, …and his mother shall be called Mary.

- And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and shall scourge him, and shall crucify him.

- And he shall arise the third day from the dead; and behold, he standeth to judge the world; and behold, all these things are done that a righteous judgment might come upon the children of men.

- For behold, and also his blood atoneth for the sins of those who have fallen by the transgression of Adam, who have died not knowing the will of God concerning them, or who have ignorantly sinned. (Mosiah 3: 8-11)

This scripture actually talks about a few things that we will discuss later, but I included it all for a clearer understanding of the main point I would like to make from this scripture: by faith in the Name of Christ we are saved. But what is faith exactly? The prophet Alma gives a good definition of what it is: “And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” (Alma 32:21).

The bible dictionary goes on further to explain:

-Faith …must be centered in Jesus Christ in order to produce salvation. To have faith is to have confidence in something or someone. The Lord has revealed himself and his perfect character, possessing in their fullness all the attributes of love, knowledge, justice, mercy, unchangeableness, power, and every other needful thing, so as to enable the mind of man to place confidence in him without reservation. Faith is kindled by hearing the testimony of those who have faith (Rom. 10: 14-17). Miracles do not produce faith but strong faith is developed by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ; in other words, faith comes by righteousness, although miracles often confirm one’s faith.

-Faith is a principle of action and of power, and by it one can command the elements and/or heal the sick, or influence any number of circumstances when occasion warrants (Jacob 4: 4-7). Even more important, by faith one obtains a remission of sins and eventually can stand in the presence of God.

As said in the dictionary, faith is a principle of action and power, and by it we can obtain a remission, or cleansing of sins. This cleansing process starts with having faith in his name. I put an emphasis on starts because having faith is not all we need to do. Many churches profess that all we need to do is believe, and we are saved through the grace of God. Although believing will be a key step, it is basically the foundation upon which the rest of the building needs to be built. Maybe you remember the prophet Nephi; he gives us an awesome explanation of salvation comes: “…for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25: 23) Now I’ll explain a little more of what the next steps are—what it is that we can do.