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“You
are given the opportunity to exercise your agency, now you must act on your
own, you must increase your faith and overcome your unbelief,” Steve McGary told students during his devotional address
Tuesday at BYU-Idaho.
“Adversity
and opposition can increase our faith or cause the troubling roots of
bitterness to spring up,” said McGary, who
serves as the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at BYU-Idaho. “In those times of
testing and trying, when we feel weak and our faith diminishing, our prayer
should be ‘Lord increase my faith and help thou mine unbelief.’
”
He
described six fundamentals to faith that include belief, desire, study,
prayer, service and worship.
He said
faith is more than just believing, and although
the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference.
“Belief
is the first fundamental to faith and increasing our faith. Many may think
that they have faith simply because they believe. Having a belief in
something requires no action – only a passive state of agreement or
acceptance,” he said.
He next turned to the
principle of action in regard to faith, saying, “Faith to be faith
requires action. Action requires that each individual possess agency, the
ability to act for themselves. Without agency there can be no action.
Without action there can be no faith.”
The next fundamental,
desire, is one that needs to be checked and controlled.
“Those things that
seem all important to you now may not matter in years to come. You can
choose now to want things that are in harmony with eternity or not,”
he said.
McGary
described the importance of study by saying, “To be able to increase
our faith we must obtain the words of God through study of the scriptures,
and the writings of the prophets and apostles. Joseph Smith said, ‘Faith
comes by hearing the word of God, through the testimony of the servants of
God.’ ”
He said prayer, the fourth
fundamental, is essential to faith and will increase it. It is an action
that will help us overcome the adversity that threatens faith.
“The fifth fundamental to increasing one’s faith and
helping our unbelief is service,” he said. “Service implies
action. Action is the principle of our faith and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ is the priesthood’s dynamic power source. Without faith
service to our fellow beings is not service to God.”
The
sixth fundamental he described was worship.
“Worship
is more than service,” he said. “A lack of deep genuine worship
erodes our faith. To worship is to give God our love, reverence, devotion
and service.”
He
then counseled students to “remember that part of the
definition of faith is ‘the principle of action in intelligent
beings.’ How you act in the choices you make will either increase or
decrease your faith. The way is simple and easy.
“If you feel that your
faith is failing, weak or not increasing then check the six fundamentals I
have discussed – belief, desire, study, prayer, service, worship,”
he concluded. “Is one or more missing in your life? Are you
preoccupied with the cares of the world – social status, dress, car,
looks, etc. – which diminish faith and provide fertile soil for the
seeds of unbelief to grow?”
The next devotional will be
held Aug. 31 when BYU-Idaho President David A. Bednar
and his wife, Susan, speak at the first devotional of the Fall Semester.
Devotionals are broadcast live on Tuesdays at 2
p.m. and again at 9 p.m.
on KBYI, FM 100.
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