“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” Ephesians 2:8-9

In my last post, I stated that working faith is a gift we must receive. That means it’s not up to us to determine if our faith up to the job. That’s up to the one who gives it to us.

God gives us the gift of faith.

That God gives us faith is made clear in Ephesians 2:8-9. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works, so that no one can boast.”

This connects faith to another one of our “alone” words from the Protestant Reformation, which is grace. Being saved is the result of God’s grace through faith. This is a gift from God, not something we can earn or accomplish ourselves by working at it.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:17). But faith by works is not genuine faith (Eph. 2:8-9).

We are saved from the deadness of our sin by God’s gift of salvation. That gift is “by grace” because we do not deserve it. And it is “through faith” because we cannot earn it.

Receiving the gift of faith changes us because it takes us from being spiritually dead and makes us spiritually alive.

Once we have been made alive in Christ, we cannot help see the world differently. And, since we are given a new identity in Christ, we cannot help but see ourselves differently in the world. (Read more at RedemptiveLeader.com)

We need to grow in our understanding of our faith. And we need to build on (or add to) our faith to accomplish what God has called us to do. Faith is not unlimited. God has designed it to work in a specific way.

So, how does our faith work?