Increasing
Faith and Testimony
Yesterday, I spent a good portion of the day at a
flea market trying to sell some inventory from a business that never really
panned out. The day before, I loaded up one of our vehicles with the inventory
and then setting up the table so that I would be ready the following morning. I
was so tired that all that I wanted to do when I got home was to go to bed and
sleep for a week. Didn't happen. Very light sleep for an hour and then nothing
else got done except supper and the dishes.
This evening, my topic is “Increasing Faith and Testimony”. I originally wrote this in 2012 for presentation in Sacrament meeting.
First of all, we need to understand a couple of things. First,
if you don’t have faith, you can’t have a testimony. Secondly, you
need to understand what faith is and what a testimony is. So, my
talk will consist of two parts, the meaning of faith and testimony, then, how
do we increase our faith and testimony?
Faith and testimony have different meanings.
Faith is more than just believing. The meaning of faith is
taught in the Scriptures in both the New Testament and the Book of
Mormon. The Apostle Paul taught in Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 1:
“Faith is the substance assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen.” Alma taught the same principle in different words in Alma
Chapter 32 verse 21: “And now as I said concerning the flesh – 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.” Both of these men lived
in vastly different places and times. We also need to realize that
faith is a principle of action and power.
What is a testimony? For this, I went to LDS.org to find the
definition. I found that “a testimony is a spiritual witness given
by the Holy Ghost.” Dallin H. Oaks actually went a little farther
when he said, “A testimony of the gospel is a personal witness borne to our
souls by the Holy Ghost that certain facts of eternal significance are true and
that we know them to be true. Such facts include the nature of the Godhead and
our relationship to its three members, the effectiveness of the Atonement, and
the reality of the Restoration.”
I sincerely pray that everyone has a better understanding of what faith
and testimony are.
In order to endure to the end as we have been admonished, we need to
have a strong foundation in our lives of both faith and testimony. President
Dieter F. Uchtdorf told us at General Conference in April this year that “we
need to be constantly reminded of the eternal reasons behind the things we are
commanded to do. The basic gospel principles need to be part of our
life’s fabric, even if it means learning them over and over again.”
Establishing and increasing our faith starts with a desire to do
so. President Henry B. Eyring taught that “A foundation of
faith…takes time to build.” President Eyring was comparing building
faith to the building of a house. You need a good foundation for a
house to stand for many years. It’s the same with faith, you need a
good foundation and it takes time to build that good foundation of faith. President
Eyring goes on to say “if the foundation of faith is not embedded in our
hearts, the power to endure will crumble.” Faith has been compare to
the muscles in your body, if you don’t exercise faith, your faith can and will
grow weak.
How can we exercise our faith? We can do all of the usual
things, pray, be obedient, make our choices with care, scripture study,
etc. We have to be careful that we are not just going through the
motions. We need to have a real desire to do this. We
need to be receptive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need to
not only read but study the scriptures as well as the words of latter-day
prophets. We know that we need faith to be lead to salvation, but
some people forget that the faith needs to be centered on Jesus Christ. We
need to have that assurance that He exists and that the work that He did was
for us. We need to have a correct idea of His character, that He
loves us but he does give us our agency to accept or reject His
salvation. We need to accept the fact that it is Christ that
provides our salvation in order to progress. We need to try our best
to live the way that Christ would have us live. We need to trust Him
completely in everything even if we don’t understand it. Christ has
suffered everything for us and knows how to help us through our trials big or
small. We need to show our faith by the way we live.
Increasing faith is obtained through individual obedience and righteous
action. You cannot increase my faith through your actions nor can I
increase your faith by my actions. You can teach me ways to increase
my faith, but it’s up to me whether I accept your teaching and adapt it to my
circumstances or not. I stand or fall on my own merits. Not my
parents’ actions or faith, but my own.
If we want to obtain the highest degree of glory, we must keep the
covenants we made. Faith can motivate obedience to the
prophets. Alma taught this in Alma Chapter 32 verses 26 to 43. Paraphrasing
it says “The word of God helps strengthen faith. Comparing the word
to a seed, he said that the ‘desire to believe’ can lead us to ‘give place’ for
the word to be ‘planted in our hearts.’ Then we will feel that the
word is good, for it will begin to enlarge or souls and enlighten our understanding. This
will strengthen our faith. As we continually nurture the word in our
hearts, ‘with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit
thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto
everlasting life.” “Increasing our faith requires trusting the Lord with
our whole souls and striving to act as He would in all circumstances.”
As with all things from Heavenly Father, there are blessings given to us
when we obey the principle of faith. Moroni 10:20 tells us
“Wherefore, there must be faith; and if there must be faith, there must also be
hope; and if there must be hope there must also be charity.” Moroni
7:42 tells us: “Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for
without faith there cannot be any hope.” Faith in God and in His
guidance through the Holy Spirit will sustain us in an increasingly more
challenging world. Only when our faith is aligned with the will of
our Heavenly Father will we be empowered to receive the blessings we
seek. There is one other blessing that I should mention. President
Eyring says it best: “It is never too late to strengthen the foundation of
faith…. You can do it wherever you are and however alone and deserted you may
feel. If we have faith in Jesus Christ, the hardest as well as the
easiest times in life can be a blessing. We never need to feel that
we are alone or unloved in the Lord’s service because we never are. We
can feel the love of God. The Saviour has promised angels on our
left and our right to bear us up and He always keeps His word.
As I said before, faith will lead to testimony. As we recall, a
testimony is a spiritual witness given by the Holy Ghost. I would
like to tell you a story from President Eyring: “When our children were very
small, I started to write down a few things about what happened every
day. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I
would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would
ponder this question: “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or
our children or our family today?” As I kept at it, something began
to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see
evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the
busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I
realized that trying to remember had allowed God to Show me what He had
done. More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony
grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and
answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and
refining that come because of the Atonement of the Saviour Jesus Christ. And
I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our
remembrance – even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they
happened.” President Eyring continues on to say that the Holy Ghost
will help us to recognize and remember God’s kindness and will help to build
our testimonies. In order to do this, we need to accept the Holy
Ghost as a companion. President Eyring also challenges us to ask
these questions of ourselves every night:
- 1. Did God
send a message that was just for me?
- 2. Did I see His
hand in my life?
I am adding one more question:
- 3. How can we
preserve the memory?
Doctrine and Covenants Section 76 verses 51, 74, 79 and 101 teach the
following:
The foundation of a testimony is the knowledge that Heavenly Father
lives and loves His children; that Jesus Christ lives, that He is the Son of
God, and that He carried out the infinite Atonement; that Joseph Smith is the
prophet of God who was called to restore the gospel; that The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints have the sacred opportunity and responsibility to
obtain their own testimonies. Having obtained a testimony, each
member has a duty to nurture it throughout life. Happiness in this
life and throughout eternity depends largely on whether individuals are
‘valiant in the testimony of Jesus”.
I have done some reading on increasing my testimony and found that
testimony needs the application of the following principles:
- 1. The quest for
a testimony begins with a righteous, sincere desire
- 2. Testimony
comes through the quiet influence of the Holy Ghost
- 3. Testimony
grows gradually through experiences
- 4. Testimony
grows as individuals show willingness to serve in the Church and to study,
pray, and learn.
- 5. Testimony
grows as individuals obey God’s commandments
- 6. Part of a
testimony’s development comes when it is shared.
Alma taught a group of people who did not have any testimonies yet in
Alma Chapter 32 verse 27: “If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to
an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye
can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye
believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.” Alma
challenged those whom he taught to try to believe.
Joseph Smith was asked what the fundamental principles of our religion
were. His reply was: “The fundamental principles of our religion are
the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He
died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and
all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”
As you can see, faith and testimony are tied together. You
cannot have a testimony without faith. The ways to increase your
testimony are the same as those to increase your faith and vice versa. In
both instances, the first step is the same. You need to want to
increase your faith and testimony. Without that desire, you will not
put the effort required to accomplish the work you want to do. You
need to do this with a sincere and contrite heart.
President Eyring has given us some counsel on faith during the last
General Conference: “That particle of faith most precious
and which you should protect and use to whatever extent you can is faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Moroni taught the power of that faith this way: ‘And neither
at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they
first believed in the Son of God’.”
Faith is very important in our lives and in our futures. Faith
will help us get through any difficulties that we may encounter on our
journey. Faith will gain our place in the eternities if we just
exercise it.
