4 Ways to Increase Your Faith

Today I spoke in our ward's sacrament meeting. Here is a copy of my remarks. 😊

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In January of 2022, we introduced our ward vision. The vision was that each of us intentionally work to increase our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise was that if we did this, we would each see miracles in our lives. Are you still striving for this? Are you actively working on some type of goal to increase your faith?

I’m not. I have this poster taped to my dresser so I can see it every day. But I’m not really striving to achieve my goals.

Here is what my goal states:

I will increase my faith by:

“Improving the quality of my prayers.”

·       Make the time.

·       Read a scripture before

·       Listen afterwards.

·       Take notes.

Mountains to Move:

“Increased testimony of the power of prayer and God’s influence on my life.”

I pray morning and night. But most of the time they are weak at best. I’m typically half asleep and they are definitely not revelatory experiences. And because of this, my testimony of the power of prayer has not increased. If I want my ability to hear God in my life, I need to do better.

I’m certain you are a better person than me. But, just in case you happen to be in the same boat, my talk today is meant to provide a few reminders on how we can actively increase our faith.

(1) Scriptures

If you remember, for 2024, our ward goal is that we all read the Book of Mormon together. But more importantly, that each of us makes the word of God a part of our daily lives. That the scriptures will become a part of what we do and who we are.

I shared a promise from President Ezra Taft Benson:

President Benson is reminding us that scripture study is the lynchpin to our spirituality. Our willingness to immerse ourselves in the word of God can be a perfectly correlated indicator of our willingness to live the gospel of Jesus.

I asked a member of our ward how striving to read the Book of Mormon this year has affected them. This was part of their reply:

“For me Reading the Book of Mormon this year has been about hearing the voice of the Lord. I've been thinking about the Book of Mormon as a collection of voices all testifying of Jesus Christ and his ability to heal us and change us…

… This year it was Mosiah chapter 26 that really made a difference.

In this chapter the prophet, Alma, is concerned about a lack of faith among the rising generation. After pouring out his soul in prayer, he hears the voice of the Lord reminding him that he has been blessed because of his faith in the words alone of the prophet, Abinadi, and that many people have joined the church and been blessed because of their faith in the words alone of Alma (vs. 15-16). The Lord then promises to receive all those who will hear His voice, to freely forgive all those who believe in His name, and to grant a place at His right hand to all those who know Him.

These scriptures give me hope that my voice might make a difference in the lives of those around me... that my testimony of the Saviour might help strengthen someone's faith in Him.

These words also remind me that the way to eternal life is to hear, believe, and know the Lord. I believe one of the best ways for me to come to know Jesus Christ and hear His voice is by reading the Book of Mormon.”

I echo this.

I promise you, that your faith will increase as you make the scriptures a part of your day, everyday.

(2) Ministering

I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I will say it again. Besides the ordinances we participate in, ministering to one another is the most important thing we do in this church.

I need you to look after each other. I can’t plead for this strongly enough.

In 2009, I got H1N1. This led to a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, and a cool helicopter ride to save my life. It was awesome.

But before all the “you might die” stuff, I had an experience I will never forget.

I was in the hospital fighting pneumonia. The doctors were concerned about the level of fluids in my lungs. So, they decided they would insert a vacuum tube through my back to suck some of it out. This was probably a fairly routine thing, but I was scared.

You have to understand, I was in my early 30’s, but I had hardly even been sick up to that point in my life. I certainly had never been in the hospital. So, the idea of something been stabbed into my body was terrifying to me.

But while this was happening, the nurse in the room (who I didn’t know, I had never seen her before and have never seen her since), held my hand during the procedure. Somehow this changed everything. That touch gave me courage. It gave me strength to have someone there with me. I’ll never forget that feeling.

Counter this with the time I smashed my face in playing capture the flag with the youth. I needed an operation to my nose back together. I remember being wheeled into the operating room where there were several people preparing to operate. Not one person said a word to me. No greeting, no words of encouragement, nothing. I’ve never had to have my face put back together, so again, I was terrified. All I needed was someone to lean over, put their hand on mine, and tell me that things were going to be OK.

This is what ministering needs to be. We need to hold each other’s hands. We need to be there for each other. We don’t need to solve each other’s problems, but we all need to know someone is there.

Please minister. Love each other. Be in each other’s homes. Discuss the gospel together. Look around right now. Who’s not here that could be? On the way home from church, stop by and let them know you love them.

I promise that ministering to others as Christ would, will increase your faith.

(3) The Temple

Since President Nelson was ordained as our prophet in January of 2018, he has given 41 addresses in General Conference. Of those 41 talks, our prophet has pled with us to “strengthen our personal spiritual foundations” through the temple in 28 of them.

If our prophet, our seer, our revelator, our latter-day Noah, is pleading for us to make the temple a priority in our lives in almost 70% of his global addresses, should we take something from that?

 In his most recent address, President Nelson promised us that:

Do you believe him?

I promise you that your faith will increase if you will make time in your life for the temple.

(4) Repentance

In the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 18-25) we read how Alma was instrumental in organizing churches around the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he did, he gave very specific instructions to all those that are called to teach within these churches:

Mosiah 18:20 - “they should preach nothing save it were repentance and faith on the Lord.”

Repentance and faith. They taught nothing but repentance and faith. What lesson should take from that? I take a reminder that they are the foundational principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But also, that they are inexorably intertwined. You cannot have one without the other.

So, if we want to increase our faith, repentance is an absolute necessity.  

In the April 2022 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson invited us to “discover the joy of daily repentance.” He reminded us that “Repenting is the key to progress.” And “Walking the covenant path, coupled with daily repentance, fuels positive spiritual momentum.”

I believe that too often when think of repentance we think of the crushing feeling that we have when we know we have royally screwed up and we need to unbearable things to fix it. When in actuality it should be the encouraging feeling that we have unlimited potential to be better. In 1980 (when I was 3 years old), Jeffrey R. Holland reminded us that:

“Repentance is not a foreboding word. It is, following faith, the most encouraging word in the Christian vocabulary. Repentance is simply the scriptural invitation for growth and improvement and progress and renewal. You can change! You can be anything you want to be in righteousness.”

When I think of the unlimited potential we can unleash through daily repentance (or daily change, or daily improvement, if you prefer), I always think of the amazing talk Michael Dunn gave in 2021 – One Percent Better. In that talk, he gave what he termed a “pocket-sized approach to repentance.” Instead of becoming paralyzed by the insurmountable task of fixing every fault we have, we strive to be just one percent better in one area. And then as those 1%’s build upon each other over time we will find the dramatic improvement we seek. Dunn refers to this as “the aggregation of marginal gains.” I have seen this concept of 1% improvement exemplified in my life.

I was a really shy child. I had a hard time talking to people. When I was 14, my family moved from Lethbridge to the tiny town of Slave Lake and my shyness was amplified considerably. I remember people in my school class commenting that they didn’t think I could talk. So, how did I go from that to now where I make my living talking in front of people? This was very much an example of that Dunn called an “aggregation of marginal gains.”

After high school I got a job as a salesperson at a sports store in Lethbridge, but I couldn’t talk to anyone. Brad Coleman, who used to be in our ward, was one of my co-workers. He had to force me to talk to customers.  

Later I made the decision to serve a full-time mission. Again, I could barely talk to people. Knocking on stranger’s doors, teaching lessons, was absolutely terrifying. On top of that, I served in Utah, where it was not uncommon to cover several wards, if not stakes. This meant we spoke in church a lot. It was rough. But I just kept doing it.

After serving as a missionary I took several sales related jobs that continued to push me out of my comfort zone. Now I’m a teacher.

This ability to speak to and in front of others did not change overnight. It took hundreds of small decisions that forced me to improve by “1%.” Most of the time, that’s all repentance needs to be. Small changes persisting over time.

I promise you that your faith will increase as you strive to repent each day.

Scriptures. Ministering. Temple. Repentance.

Will any of these have a dramatic impact on our faith by themselves? Probably not. Instead, each of them contributes in a small way and the rising tide lifts all boats. Each little good thing we do contributes a fractional drop into our reservoir of faith.

Let me end, where I began. Are you striving to daily increase your faith and deepen your conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I’m not doing it in the way I should. But I’m going to strive to be better. I would love you to come with me. Let us all make the scriptures a part of day every day. Let us all find ways to minister as the Savior would. Let us all increase the priority of the temple in our lives. And let us all make daily repentance a part of our lives.

I promise that your efforts in these areas will increase your faith, draw you closer to Jesus Christ, and give you the power to move the mountains in your life.

I testify of this, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.