The pages of scripture are full of the miraculous power of God being poured out upon and through believers throughout history. How is it possible that there are so many professed Christians today with so little of God’s power in their lives? God has not changed, but those who claim to believe in him have.1
God’s power is based on belief, faith, and goodness. The corrupted versions of these principles as practiced by common Christians are insufficient to fulfill the conditions of God’s promised power.
The power of God comes through belief. Belief in God is not a question of what you think about him, how you feel about him, or what you say about him. Your belief in God is a question of how closely your life actually aligns with how you believe he would live in your place. To believe in Jesus is to model and live according to his character. If you do not labor to learn more about Jesus and live up to what you learn, you do not believe in him. Jesus proclaimed that those who believe in him would do what he did.2 Consequently, anyone who claims to believe in Jesus without doing what he did is using a definition of belief different than Jesus would.
The power of God comes through faith.3 Whenever there is faith, God will send his power, including miracles.4 Consequently, a life without the power of God lacks faith as God defines it.5 Faith is a willingness to improve,6 quantified by your effort in searching for and living according to what is better than what you already have. If you aren’t improving, you aren’t exercising faith.7 God is the source and destination of all improvement. Faith yields outcomes beyond what would otherwise occur through new or better beliefs—new actions based on new or stronger desires, more accurate understanding, and superior reasoning. If you aren’t living the best way you know how to, you do not have faith, and until you live up to the best way you know, you will not receive more power from God. The lack of faith in people who profess to be Christians is deeply troubling, because it is by the same faith that miracles are performed and salvation is obtained. The lack of the one indicates the lack of the other.8
The power of God comes through goodness. Because all good comes from and leads to God, the power of God that flows through his goodness comes according to one’s similitude to God. Most Christians fail to acquire or experience much of God’s power because they treat the gospel as a means to feel less guilty in doing less than their best rather than the way to become their best. Common Christians have replaced goodness with religion, losing sight of the fact that the gospel is about facilitating improvement, not recitation of scripture, religious rites, and celebratory worship.9 These things have no utility outside of the improvement they are intended to foster in practitioners. All power from God comes from and through God’s goodness. Without exerting effort to learn about and live like he is, you cannot have his power, and if you do not have his power, it is because you aren’t learning about and living like he is.10
Footnotes
- 1. ...God has not ceased to be a God of miracles....And who shall say that Jesus Christ did not do many mighty miracles? And there were many mighty miracles wrought by the hands of the apostles. And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles. (Mormon 9:15, 18-19) ↩
- 2. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12) ↩
- 3. ...it is by faith that miracles are wrought... (Moroni 7:37) ↩
- 4. For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith. (2 Nephi 27:23) And ye may know that he is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore I would exhort you that ye deny not the power of God; for he worketh by power, according to the faith of the children of men, the same today and tomorrow, and forever. (Moroni 10:7) ↩
- 5. ...as surely as Christ liveth he spake these words unto our fathers, saying: Whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you. (Moroni 7:26) ...And he knoweth their faith, for in his name could they remove mountains; and in his name could they cause the earth to shake; and by the power of his word did they cause prisons to tumble to the earth; yea, even the fiery furnace could not harm them, neither wild beasts nor poisonous serpents, because of the power of his word. (Mormon 8:24) ↩
- 6. Wherefore, by the ministering of angels, and by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, men began to exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing; and thus it was until the coming of Christ. (Moroni 7:25) ↩
- 7. And the whole world lieth in sin, and groaneth under darkness and under the bondage of sin. And by this you may know they are under the bondage of sin, because they come not unto me. For whoso cometh not unto me is under the bondage of sin. And whoso receiveth not my voice is not acquainted with my voice, and is not of me. And by this you may know the righteous from the wicked, and that the whole world groaneth under sin and darkness even now. (D&C 84:49-53) ↩
- 8. For no man can be saved, according to the words of Christ, save they shall have faith in his name; wherefore, if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also; and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made. (Moroni 7:38) ↩
- 9. And my vineyard has become corrupted every whit; and there is none which doeth good save it be a few; and they err in many instances because of priestcrafts, all having corrupt minds. (D&C 33:4) ↩
- 10. And wo be unto the children of men if this be the case; for there shall be none that doeth good among you, no not one. For if there be one among you that doeth good, he shall work by the power and gifts of God. (Moroni 10:25) ↩