Hear Him Heal You

Faith Is Not A Feeling; It’s A Choice To Act

• Morgan & Joel

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What if faith isn’t a feeling you hold but a loyalty you live? We dig into the New Testament word pistis and why reading it as trust and faithfulness reshapes everything—from how we see grace to how we walk through ordinary days. Instead of treating belief as a static moment, we explore faith as a living allegiance to Jesus that naturally expresses itself in obedience, covenants, and daily practice.

I share how this lens clarifies the difference between confession alone and covenant belonging, and why commandments function like castle walls that keep us safe, not cages that hold us back. With simple analogies—a trust fall, a protective kingdom—we make sense of how grace saves while our choices still matter. Commandments become the way we reach for the hand that already reached for us. Obedience stops sounding like performance and starts sounding like wisdom: aligning with the grain of God’s reality to protect peace, relationships, and joy.

We also get practical about repentance. Instead of shame, think return. Repentance is the God-given path back inside the walls, the renewed grip on Christ. Direction matters more than perfection. The gospel works as a cycle—trusted loyalty, honest repentance, covenant renewal, and endurance with the Spirit’s help—so you can stop asking “Am I enough?” and start asking “Am I turning toward Him today?” If you’ve felt the weight of broken promises, you’ll hear a hopeful invitation to keep going, grasp Christ, and live the simpler, safer, more joyful life He offers.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find their way to peace.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Hear Him Kill You with Morgan and Joel. This podcast is for those who are imperfect and rough around the edges, but are still wanting to come under Christ. Essentially, it's for everyone. So join us to get yourself out of the mental wire, find meaning and emotion, and leave that behind. This is where we hear him to be healed. Welcome back, little flock.

SPEAKER_01:

Today is gonna be a solo episode. Yep, that's right. But it is a home game. I'm back home in Richfield, and me and Morgan decided recently we're gonna start doing some more episodes solo just because our schedules are getting increasingly busier and we're having less time that we can meet up together and make those schedules work. Anyways, today's topic, actually, I already recorded an episode on this, but due to some technical difficulties, I've had to re-record it. And so here's hopefully a more refined and a better version of what we were gonna talk about, which is today going to be about faith and obedience and really understanding what the biblical authors meant when they talked about faith, or specifically, we're gonna talk a lot about what the New Testament authors of the Pauline epistles meant when they said or used the word pistis, which is what we translate into faith. Just to kind of get started, I want to dive in to what that word pistis means in the Greek. And from my understanding, what I've read and looked into a little bit, is that it is a word not only used for faith, but really for faithfulness, for loyalty, for having a trust. And so it's more than just a vague or abstract belief or acknowledgement of the existence of something, but rather a more active and involved word, right? It's a word that really calls you to, it really moves you to act on your convictions. And so with that, I really want to kind of dive into the loyalty and trust aspect and try to kind of replace some of that jargon and lingo when we say we need to have faith, uh, you know, we just need to be more faithful and change that to be like, hey, we need to have more trust and we need to be more loyal. And because I think we kind of have a better understanding of what those words meant. And I think that would give us a better understanding of what the biblical authors meant when they used the word I pissed this. So, I mean, some of you probably wondering why, like, all right, Joel, like why does it even matter what the word means, right? What, what, what does that change, right? I think it changes a lot, actually. A lot of times we use this kind of phrase in the church about the Bible, especially as missionaries. A lot of times you'll catch missionaries saying things like, oh, you know, we believe the Bible to be the word of God as long as it's as far as it's translated correctly, right? You know, quoting the articles of faith, right? But they don't, what does that actually mean? Usually they say, oh, you know, different translations over time, and a lot of things probably got changed here and there. Really simplified version of what really went on with the biblical text and what we mean as far as it is translated correctly. Now, if you look at what Joseph Smith might have meant back in those days, of what he meant when he said translated, he didn't mean like a scholarly translation. Rather, he meant more of an interpretation. So really we need to look at that as saying, as far as it is interpreted correctly. Because that's really what these translations are in a sense, right? It's, you know, is this word, this translation of this word pistis being interpreted in the correct context, right? Because these words can have multiple meanings or have a little variance in their meaning, right? They're a little looser and they're not as um explicit as English. I don't know if explicit is the right word, but they're not as direct as English, right? And so when you have words that can have a kind of a deep meaning or have more meanings, right, you need to understand what is the correct meaning or the correct interpretation of that word. And how this affects doctrine is if you look at the way that Protestants view faith or you know, other denominations, evangelicals and such, they translate that word faith and take it in a very different sense from my experience. A lot of them that you meet will view faith as a more passive, like I said, a more abstract thinking of what of things or just acceptance of things, right? Faith to them is more about just accepting what they believe, right? Or just accepting that God exists and that you are now saved, right? Whereas for the Latter-day Saint, I think faith is much more about, you know, our love, showing our trust, and showing loyalty to our Savior, right? And I think that you can really see that in how we view covenant versus confession, right? So the big thing in a lot of Protestants, I grew up in North Carolina as a kid, and so I went to many Bible camps for other denominations, mainly Baptist and you know, Methodists, and then a few other things, sometimes a little Episcopalian or sometimes it was a you know Pentecostal church. But uh, anyways, my mother was very involved in the communities of which we lived in, and well, the community we lived in there. And she made sure that we supported our neighbors and our friends in any way possible. So when we were kids, she would send us to these different Bible camps to go learn. I pretty much knew most of what they were, the stories they were reading, what they were trying to teach, because I had excellent parents who taught me at a very young age and had scripture study consistently with me. And so, because of that, I got to really see the difference, even at a young age, and start to notice the subtle differences in our beliefs. And I would say, if I were to say, just to summarize what I got from, especially specifically more like a Baptist view of things, is they are really big into confession. They're really big into prayer, and that is your path to salvation. You confess, which is their version really that's when they say repent, they mean to confess mostly. They don't mean an active change in your behavior so much as just uh a vocal expression of remorse, maybe, and maybe asking for forgiveness. And so that led with some prayer, you know, and then you have your saving experience. You were saved that day, that you, you know, confessed that Jesus is Lord and that he rose from the dead, and you know, that he is king, right? That Jesus is Lord and King, and now you're saved. That's it. And now then they also believe that the Holy Ghost pretty much descends on all believers, thus motivating them to do good things, and that your good works are not saving you. You've already been saved, they're simply the expression of gratitude, or they are simply, you know, just the effects of the Holy Spirit moving on you, and that's how you can tell if someone was truly saved, because the Spirit will change their behavior. Whereas if you look at the LDS view, and from my understanding, I see it much more as we believe, and then if you truly believe, you will act on that belief, right? And that will lead to your salvation. Because in my view, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, has asked us to do things, right? He's given us the path to eternal life. He's given us the path to salvation, and it's by making covenants with him through ordinances. When we do ordinances, it's not just to do a fun ritual and to have fun memories, right? And, you know, it's not just to show off to people who show up. It's to actually symbolize what's taking place in that covenant that we're making with our Father in heaven and with our Savior Jesus Christ. And so as we make more covenants and we follow the commandments, we're then accepting the gift of grace. We're then accepting that blessing from Christ. And in a sense, our faith, in a sense, does move us to do good works. And we don't believe that our works are saving us. We just believe they're required to be obedient to Christ. Rather than that, it's required to obey the Lord, right? Because he set out the path for us to be saved. Salvation is made possible through him, right? By our own merits, we're we're we're nothing. We can't do it with the on our own merits. But by his merits, mercy, and grace, as Lehi teaches in the Book of Mormon, that's how we can enter into salvation. And if we make covenants, we're saying we want to be judged on your mercy, your merits, your grace. And then to kind of tack on to that, why then do we why are we required to do things, right? Why are we required to keep his commandments if one, we can't keep them perfectly, and two, that's not what saves us. And so that's really what I wanted to dive into when talking about the difference between our views and trying to understand what our faith does and what it means to us, what that trust or loyalty does. And so the best way that I can kind of picture commandments being given to us and us showing that we believe in them and that we believe in Christ, I picture the situation of a trust fall. And in a trust fall, there's usually two parties, and one says to the other, hey, turn around, fall backwards, I'm going to catch you. And if you do that, then that person, one, they know that you truly trust them. And two, they now have the opportunity to save you from that fall. Now, the difference in this situation is that we've already fallen. We're already going down. You know, we've already, because of the decisions of Adam and Eve in the garden, excuse me, we've already fallen. We already need salvation, right? We need to be saved from this fall. Now, the only way to do that is to reach out and grasp onto Christ. And he's given us commandments because that is how we grasp to him, right? When we're keeping the commandments, when we are obeying those things, that is how we actually spiritually hold on to Christ and hold on and bind ourselves through covenants. So that's why it's required. Not because, you know, whole grasping is what saves us, it's the savior who's reaching out, who we're grasping to. So that's that's the best way I can explain it, and the best way I can kind of paint a picture for each of us so that you can kind of understand what this looks like in action, right? So next, I want to kind of dive into what that loyalty to our Savior Jesus Christ looks like, and how we kind of express that loyalty. So I love analogies. We're going to go into another analogy. In fact, I think the Savior likes analogies too. He called them parables. I like to say analogies or metaphors. So, anyways, I think they are a great way to teach because they do kind of make it more relatable for us. So, in this analogy, I want to imagine you're back in, you know, the medieval times and you are a subject to a king. And back then, it was very common that the king would provide certain protections and certain, you know, benefits basically for loyalty, right? As being one of his subjects. Now, for you to receive the benefits of the king, right, of being one of his subjects, right, and having that protection, one, you had to serve the king, and two, you had to stay within his realm. You had to stay within the castle walls to actually find the protection. And so with our loyalty to Christ, if we say that we have faith or we are loyal to Christ and we have faithful, we're faithful to him, but then we leave his walls, metaphorically speaking, right? Or we break his commandments, those commandments are walls that keep us safe. And then there's other commandments that show that we are grateful for those walls, right? That we're grateful for the protection they provide. Now, if you want to go out and wander out, you're free to leave in this situation. You just no longer are entitled to the protect protection of that local king or whatnot. Sorry, I don't know why I'm losing my train of thought. But, anyways, that's the picture I want you to imagine. So when you are wondering where obedience and loyalty tie into this and how to understand them or view them properly, view it as that you are the subject. Christ is your king. Christ has offered freely that if you come in, he will offer you protection. All you have to do is stay within the walls. You just have to stay within the walls, and his protection is there. Okay? Because Christ Himself is a holy man. He can only dwell in holy spaces. And so if we leave that holy space, how can we say we're with Christ? So moving from that, I want to kind of go into what obedience does for us. And what I mean is how obedience brings us blessings. And King Benjamin taught this very well and taught that, you know, the reason we are we obey God is simply because he asked us to, right? That's one reason. And just as a benefit of following those commandments, God will bless us. And he says he immediately blesses us. So we're indebted to him even more. He said that's the way he starts out. He says, We're indebted to God because he created us and gave us life, gave us an opportunity to have a physical body to come to earth and experience life. We're indebted to him for that. On top of that, he says, now he gives us commandments and asks that we follow. And that's all he asks. Just follow my commandments, right? And if we do that, he blesses us. So then King Benjamin said, You're now more indebted to him. And so what's really cool about this relationship with our father is yes, we are almost like always indebted to him, but he's just increasingly blessing us, right? And so it's it's more of a situation of you're just imagine you're you've fallen on some hard times. And after having received a gift or say, you know, you come, you leave your house, you leave your parents, they give you a little parting gift of a couple thousand dollars or something, say you're very well off, and they're able just to, you know, sign that little check for you, give you a gift and say, there, go get your start. And then you fall on hard times and they say, Hey, you know what? Say your dad owns a business and he says, you know, come back and work for me, right? And if you do work, I'm gonna give you money, right? I'm gonna give you a job, basically. And as soon as we do the work, he pays us. And you are now provided for. And now you're in this relationship of where you continue to you've, you know, you're loyal to this, to your parents. Now you have this relationship of one, in the very beginning, when you left your parents, gave you a gift, and then when you, you know, you've fallen on hard times, they immediately offer you a path to to financial freedom again, right? Or in this scenario, this little analogy. And now you have the ability to take, I'm scratching all this. This is shit. I don't like this. So as you keep certain commandments, like the word of wisdom, right? You're promised health and you know, in your mind and in your body. And then if you keep the law of chastity, you're protected from mostly, I would say, the emotional and mental heartache that comes from breaking that. Uh, there's a huge toll on our on our spirits as we break those laws, as well as it damages our relationships, it will damage, you know, our future relationships and hurts those around us, those who care about us. And so that's one of the things is if you are keeping the law of chastity or you're keeping the word of wisdom, right, you're protected from the natural consequences of not doing those things, right? Of not keeping those things. And that's the interesting thing about commandments, is by not keeping them, it's not God punishing you. It's not him saying, oh, you didn't keep my arbitrary commandments, so now I have to punish you. No, he's saying the natural consequence of doing bad things is bad consequences. So do good things, the natural consequences are good. And so it's really silly when we sit here and act like, oh, God's punishing me for my bad behavior. No, he's just that's just what happens. That's why he told you not to do it in the first place. And then I just find it funny sometimes when we're like, oh, he's punishing me for not keeping the commandments, right? Or keeping my covenants. No, no, your Heavenly Father doesn't seek to punish you, he doesn't seek to hurt you, right? He only seeks to lift you and to raise you up. And so that that's kind of the next thing about obedience. Obedience is how we stay protected from the pains of this world, right? Obedience is how we express our faithfulness. And obedience is what ultimately helps to make our lives more simple. Or simpler, that would be the word. More simple. I say that. Um, but it keeps our lives simpler, it keeps our lives safer, and it keeps it more joyful. That that's what God wants us to have, is joy, right? That's our whole purpose of coming to this life is to have a fullness of joy. And so what's something else that interests me about this whole topic, about being faithful and keeping commandments and covenants and and expressing that loyalty to our Father in heaven, is the fact that sometimes, you know, not sometimes, all the time, we mess up, right? We break those commandments. We don't keep our covenants at times. We make mistakes. But one of the greatest commandments he's given us is to repent. And he hasn't given us that commandment as a punishment. He hasn't given us that commandment as a as like a negative thing to be viewed. It's a commandment to help us, to protect us, right? Just like I said earlier, all the commandments are to protect us from specific things. It's the same with the command to repent. It's gonna protect us from our own sorrow, our own self-loathing, our own, you know, displeasure, right? Our sense, that sense where we feel like we've failed, right? And that we've messed up and that we've gone beyond what we can do to fix it, right? And that's why he's given us the gift of the commandment of repentance. Because every time that we fail to keep his commandments or fail to keep our covenants, the only time we've truly failed is when we give up at trying to repent. As long as we're willing to repent and to change, he is offered that infinite grace and that infinite love to change, to be able to go back and fix it, right? Through the atonement of Jesus Christ. The atonement will fix it, it takes care of it. We don't have to worry about that. We don't have to carry that burden. We don't have to carry the fear, the anxiety, the anger and frustration, right? We don't have to carry that anymore because our Savior has taken that through the atonement. He's taken all of that. And as long as we repent, we get to stay in the clear, right? We get to reap the benefits of that atonement. And that's the greatest part about all these, all this that I've kind of talked about, is that as we are faithful and loyal to Christ and obedient to Christ, we don't have to worry about our salvation. We're not here wondering like, am I saved? Am I not? Am I doing enough? It's not about that. It's not about that. It's not about if you've done enough, it's about where you're going, it's about where you're pointed. It's about what you're trying and striving to do. And as long as you are going back and repenting daily and seeking to be restored and renewed, and you're going to the temple and you're going to your sacrament meetings and you're partaking the sacrament, renewing that covenant. That's what he's asked. It's just to keep trying, to not give up. That's what enduring to the end is. That's why that's part of those commandments, right? It's to keep this cycle of faith, repentance, of renewing that baptismal covenant, listening to the Spirit, knowing what to do. That's another big thing, is that these commandments are not just do's or don'ts. A lot of them are about guiding us to help further the work, to help minister to our brothers and sisters. And we can't do that if we're not, first and foremost, having trust in our Savior, expressing loyalty to him through obedience. All these things tie together. The gospel ties together. It's a very cohesive and very consistent thing. There's nothing that we do in the gospel that's just redundant or just for fun, right? There's a reason those are the core principles, right? And that's why, as little kids, those are some of the first things we learn about in primary. We memorize those articles of faith and we get to that one about faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, entering to the end. It all, it's a cycle. That's why I should say. It's all one cycle. We like to look at things linearly as humans. Things happen in like sent events linearly. When reality is life happens in a cycle. We age linearly, but our lives happen in cycles. And we continue. We can do good cycles or bad cycles. But the cycle that the Lord has given us is the gospel. And I know that as we follow it, we receive those blessings. And we receive an infinite amount of love and mercy extended from our Father in heaven through his son, Jesus Christ. I've felt it a lot in my life. I've had it, I've experienced it. I have lived, I've made covenants and then not lived up to those covenants, which I'm, which I for a long time carried a lot of shame and guilt because of that. I was given commandments from the Lord and I broke commandments. And I let that drive me away from my covenants. And I wish I had just realized that repentance is a gift, that having faith in my Savior, having that true piston, that loyalty to him, and obeying him was a gift. It wasn't a punishment. It wasn't to restrict me. It was a gift to free me from the effects of sin. So I just want to invite everybody who's listening or hears this to find ways to repent every day. Find ways to keep going, to not give up. And I promise that as you have that trust and loyalty in our Savior, as you act on his commandments, as you metaphorically grasp onto him as you're falling, as you stay within the walls of his kingdom, you will have blessings, you will have safety. And most importantly, I think you'll have peace. I think that's probably the most important thing is having that peace that can only come from our Savior Jesus Christ. So with that little flock, I think it goes fear not, do good, build upon the rock, and always hear him. But