Economics of Faith

I absolutely love economics--particularly political economics. On the mission, we aren't allowed to talk about politics with people, so I was thrilled when I came up with this analogy that shows faith's relation to keeping the commandments.

In economics, we measure a thing called "utility," which is essentially how happy an action makes you. It's hard though, because how do you measure happiness? "This pizza gives me 6 happies!" It wouldn't make sense. So, we use a term called "utils," but even that can only be measured by what we are willing to give up for it. Since we will pay $2 for a piece of pizza but won't for a dirt clod, we know the pizza has more utility, it makes us happier.

How do we measure our faith? Just like utility, you can't use a real unit on it. However, we can look at what we are willing to give up out of our love for Jesus Christ. What sins are we willing to set aside for Him? Are we willing to give our time and effort to building His kingdom? Are we willing to move past our pride and repent? Hebrews 11 describes what many prophets--Abraham, Moses, Enoch, etc.-- did because of their faith. So, how do we measure our faith? By our willingness to keep God's commandments.

Remember, James said, "Faith without works is dead," not "Faith is dead, so just work."