Can you mark the moment in your life where hearing the Word of God was no longer dull and dreary, but full of life giving power? You might have been exposed to the Gospel previously, but it had no effect on your heart. It was as though the seeds of the Word of God fell by the wayside where birds pecked it up or were sown among rocks and thorns. The Word had no power in your life and the worries and lusts of the world carried it away. Then one day, it was different. The seeds of the Word of God fell on good ground and yielded fruit. (Matthew 13: 4-9) Your ears were opened, your heart was touched and you received faith. The sermon was not better, the Word of God had not changed, but you did. You received the gift of faith and with that salvation. That heart change was a gift from the Holy Spirit (Romans 10:17) and try as you may, you could not have generated it for yourself. 

You cannot generate faith

To understand the mystery of this gift of faith, we will look at another illustration. One day a very famous preacher was preparing to deliver a crusade at a large venue. Chairs were packed out, microphones, speakers and dramatic lighting was rigged for the event. The crowds rushed in in their thousands and the long awaited event began. It was an enormous success. After the preacher drove away in his limousine and the crowds left, the backstage crew was busy packing up chairs. A man rushed in, desperate and out of breath. “What is going on? Where is the Crusade?” he asked. “It is over, you missed it” replied the crew. “I so wanted to be here. What do I do now, how can I be saved?” the man asked desperately. The crew replied, “ Nothing. It is finished.” This echoes Jesus' final words on the cross; “It is finished”. His suffering and dying on the cross was His most important work for us. It was the work of our salvation by the forgiveness of our sins, the gift of our righteousness by His blood. There is therefore nothing we can do. He did it all for us. 

Just as a drowning man cannot pull himself by his own collar from stormy waters, so we cannot generate faith within ourselves. It is an act of God, a gift. We cannot buy it or order it. It is God himself who plants the seed of faith in our hearts. One man can stand next to you and hear the same message or prayer, but not be touched by it in any way. There is nothing you can do to convince him, you cannot give him the gift of faith any more than you could give it to yourself. It is entirely from God. You cannot generate it by studying the scriptures or engaging in theological debates. 

You cannot brag about your faith

If faith is a gift from God and we have no idea what His criteria is for giving it to us, then we simply cannot boast in it. We must remember that we once walked aimlessly in darkness and can therefore not be haughty and arrogant for having faith now. The appropriate reaction to our faith is abundant gratitude. Knowing that we have nothing to do with our own faith inevitably leads us to wondering why God chose us. As we could not attain it by any works, we do not deserve it. It is out of His abundant grace that we received this gift. 

If we tried to generate our own faith, we would lie to ourselves and become slaves to our own lies. We would live according to rules that we do not understand, attend church and pray empty words. Christianity would seem like an endless list of do’s and don'ts and be very laborious. We would eventually grow weary and depressed. Elijah challenged the Baal worshiping Israelites by pointing out how absurd it is that they worshiped a god that couldn't even talk. Indeed, if we would worship a god who could not communicate his love and devotion to us, we would worship a lie that we fabricated for ourselves. We would fall victim to our own propaganda. But unlike Baal, our God speaks. He did it through the prophets and today He does it through His Word and the Holy Spirit. The Bible reveals who our God is, what His purpose for this planet and His followers are. In a sense, the Bible is the written declaration of His goodwill unto us. It is the evidence that our God lives and that He loves us. However, we can only see this evidence before us once the Holy Spirit gives us faith. Without faith, we cannot view the Bible for the truth that it is. 

Faith is a beautiful gift from God

The book of Hebrews sheds light on the mysterious gift of faith. It is “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The subject of our hope is God himself. We know that He is for us, that He holds our future. Even if we perish in this world, He has us in the one beyond. We have access to His promises. In a world where seeing is believing, we have assurance in the unseen. 

Faith is a gift from God. It is a seed planted in us by the Holy Spirit. If God didn’t instigate our understanding and opened our eyes and hearts, we would read and hear the Word without finding Him in it. We would be like infertile, rocky or thorny ground. The seed of His Word would not penetrate our hearts and bear fruit. Therefore faith is a miracle, a beautiful and mysterious gift from God that we must live out in gratitude. We cannot earn it, and if we try to generate it, we create a false reality for ourselves to live (and suffer) by. We can only be grateful as we are blessed with faith through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. 

This article is summarised by Christine Van Reenen from the semon of Ps Marko Kiroglu on 25 February 2024

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