Grown in Faith By Sheridan Murray

Grown in Faith
Abinadi demonstrated great faith in Christ during his time here on the earth. He was alone in his beliefs and was hated in his righteousness. He went before the city and preached what the Lord commanded him and he was persecuted for it. In his prophesying he told the people that if they did not repent then the Lord would visit them his anger. In Mosiah 11:21 it says, “Except they repent and turn to the Lord their God, behold, I will deliver them into the hand of their enemies.” And again in verse 24, ”Yea, and it shall come to pass that when they shall cry unto me I will be slow to hear their cries; yea, and I will suffer them that they be smitten by their enemies.” As I read these passages of scripture I thought of how much I rely on the Lord for protection on a daily basis. These people are so hard in their hearts that they can not see how easy it would be to have the Lord’s protection. He is not asking their lives, just their lifestyle. They have their “favorite sins” that they want to hold on to.

Thinking about it this way makes me wonder if I am choosing to keep my favorite sins. We often do not see that many of the things we do are disdainful in the sight of the Lord. In many cases these are probably not even “big” sins, but can be as small as playing video games too often, or a failure to keep the Sabbath day holy because of a special once in a lifetime television program. It could be something as simple as teasing a younger sibling. I Jacob 4:7 we are told “Nevertheless, the Lord God showed us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.” We are told in verse 6 of the same chapter 4 that through finding these weaknesses and working to overcome them, “we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.”

At the time that I was reading these verses in Jacob for class I was wanting to date a very nice young man, one that I was very luck to meet and I knew that he liked me back. At this same time as things were going so well for me I was not looking for ways to improve myself in my life and that worried me a bit because if you aren’t progressing spiritually you are regressing, there is no static spot to stay in spirituality. I had been praying to know what I needed to be working on to better myself. While I was reading this verse I was thinking heavily about what to do about my situation with this young man. When I read that verse I knew immediately what I needed to do. He has not served his mission yet and a girlfriend was not what he needed, at that moment I decided to make sure that I was not a distraction for him, that I would help him to unattached himself from me and get out and meet knew people. I am so grateful that I was reading this scripture, it could not have come at a better time.

Through faith we become willing to make changes in our lives. Abinadi knew what the Lord wanted and what would happen when the people continued to be wicked. The people had such hard hearts inept of faith and took the truth to be hard. It is apparent to me that Abinadi was on the Lord’s errand as numerous times he is delivered from the hands of his enemies so that he can continue to do the Lord’s work. If Abinadi had hardened his heart or given up in his errand he would have surely been destroyed for the Lord would not suffer him from the hands of his enemies. In Mosiah 13: 3 and 4 Abinadi commands, “Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell; therefore, God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time. But I must fulfil the commandments wherewith God has commanded me.” Abinadi’s faith was not in vain he kept prophesying until Alma heard him and the work was passed on at his death.

In German, the word faith is das Vertrauen. Other words associated are assurance, belief, confidence, trust, dependence, and reliance. It is interesting that there is one word in German that can mean so many different words in the English language. My favorite is assurance, because as we live with faith we are assured that the Lord will stand by us and keep us safe as we strive to have the spirit as our constant companion.