Doubtless there were those listening to Alma who thought to themselves that Alma was speaking to someone else, not them. Therefore, Alma sets up questions designed to allow each person to measure themselves against what it might mean to have had a mighty change of heart.
First, and foremost, is “do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you?” This is a critical question.
How does one exercise faith? There are two problems in discussing faith. The first is that it is a term that comes to us through the New Testament, more than the Old Testament. It isn’t that the concept is different so much as it is a translation coming from Greek that wasn’t used to translate the correlated Hebrew terms. The second problem is that in English, the word faith is grammatically deficient in that it doesn’t have the full range of meaning in regards to parts of speech.
As a simple example, we can say “I am going for a run.” We can also say: “I run.” The word “run” can exist as both a noun and a verb. Of faith, however, we can say: “I have faith.” We cannot say: “I faith.” In Greek, the underlying verb did have a verb form. Thus, we need to have auxiliary words to help with that meaning. We “exercise faith.” Other times, the translators used “believe,” which had a similar meaning, but had the advantage of having both noun and verb forms.
For Alma the question is “do ye exercise faith?” because it is the action that is important, not a passive belief. A change of heart does not require the simple belief in “the redemption of him who created” us, but in the living of the covenants that we have made with Him who created us.
The next important aspect of this question is that it asks about redemption. This clearly points to the mortal atoning mission of the Messiah. It is the essential Nephite teaching to which a true change of heart will lead them.