Faith is not a thing. It's not a thing you boldly push out of yourself. And it's not a thing God arbitrarily zaps into you. Both ideas exalt an abstract concept and diminish the actual Saviour, Christ.
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To say we're 'saved by faith' is true. But it's exactly like saying we're 'saved by grace'. Sure we're saved by grace, but Grace isn't our Saviour — no matter how many hymns we sing in her honour. We must define terms.
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Grace means 'the undeserved gift of Christ', faith means 'the unworthy person /receiving/ Christ'. But the Saviour here is not a formidable woman called Grace or a pretty young thing called Faith. Grace and Faith are not things. Properly speaking the Saviour is *Christ*!
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If this is so, what does it mean to say that faith is a gift? It means properly viewing the nature of faith. Faith is not pushed out of us, it's pulled out of us when, by the Spirit, we see Christ offered to us in the gospel.
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Faith comes out of us the way adoration is pulled out of the love-struck teenager, or awe is pulled out of the gob-smacked stargazer. We find ourselves believing and the origin of that belief is not in us but in the Object of our faith.
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If you want people to have faith then don't keep telling them to summon up a believing quality from within themselves. Faith is *not* a muscle to flex. But also, faith is not an abstract thing which God arbitrarily zaps into the elect.
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Faith is a gift because it's found outside of ourselves in the offer of Christ. If we want people to have faith, we must give them Christ. Offer him like Beauty to the love-struck teenager, like Wonder to the awe-struck stargazer, and watch the Spirit stir faith within them.
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Or, in other words, 'faith comes by hearing'. Romans 10:17
