The Work of Faith

The "faith vs. works" argument gets brought up a lot when your talking about religion. Somehow, someone got the idea that Mormons believe that you can work your way to heaven on your own, as if the Atonement of Jesus Christ meant nothing. This is false. We can only be saved by the grace of our Lord. But our Lord has given us commandments to govern our behavior, and if we truley accept Him as our Lord and Savior, we will be obedient to his will.

The Apostle James described it this way, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also" (James 2:26). The spirit and the body are inseperable. The one without the other is lifeless. Even so, our faith and works are dead if they are not joined together. A Book of Mormon prophet named Alma explained the connection between faith and works this way:

As he was teaching a group of people, he compared the word of God to a seed, so let's talk about planting a seed for a second. When you plant a seed, you have to dig a hole for it in a good spot of soil, where it will get enough sunlight. Next, you plant the seed in the hole and bury it. You have to give it water and make sure that no weeds choke off the seend and kill it. All of this is work, and if you don't do it, the seed won't grow. "Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof" (BoM, Alma 32:39).

Continuing with the analogy, all of that work that goes into nurturing the word of God is faith. The work of faith. That work is praying, reading scripture, fasting, attending church services. All of these things nuture the word of God in our hearts and they are all "works." If we don't do them, the word will die in us, and it won't be the word's fault. It will be ours. So, we must excersise faith in order to partake of the fruit of the tree, which Alma describes as, "most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure; and ye shall feast upon this fruit even until ye are filled, that ye hunger not, neither shall ye thirst" (BoM, Alma 32:42).

That sounds like some fruit I would like to have.