For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Ephesians 2:8

Faith is not a work.

This is one of the places John Calvin, the leader of reformed theology,  in my opinion, missed it.  In depth doctrinal analysis of all of the branch of theology today called Calvinism aside, the essence of his argument for many of his works hinged upon the understanding of total depravity as being excluding using the faith God provided.  According to that branch of thought, any effort on our part was lacking when it comes to pleasing God.

Many people complain about having “faith in faith”, and saying that it is not what saves you.  Unfortunately, this steers very wide of the margin of scripture, and does nothing but raise a smoke-screen against the real issue, that many do not have a real understanding of what faith is.

I have faith in faith, because Jesus had faith in faith.  Through His own teaching and the apostles writing the scripture, Jesus explained faith.  He rebuked the disciples for their lack of it at times.  He commended people for their great or small measure  of it.  He expected His disciples to walk in it, and knew when they weren’t.  In His final instructions, He said that signs would follow those who have faith (who believe).

It was a discerned faith, known by the apostles, that led to a dramatic miracle at the gate called Beautiful (Acts 3).  It was an real faith that Abraham had, believing what God had spoken, the God credited to him as righteousness.  This too, was a gift from God, as all of life is, but it was his faith God recognized.  And, it was faith that the writer of Hebrews cited when he wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that faith was the substance of the thing hoped for.

So, what is faith in faith?  It is having the substance that what God said regarding faith is true.  It is having the substance that faith is the substance of the unseen, even though you might not see in the natural.

What faith in faith allows for you to do is to trust it.  I have faith in the blood Christ which saves me, and I have faith in Christ’s faith, that it is sufficient.  Because I understand that it is only a mustard seed that is required, I am able to eliminate doubt, focus the faith I do have, and resist the evil one.  Because I have faith in the way that God has ordained faith to work, I choose to live by it, proving that, in Christ’s righteousness, I am just (Romans 1:17).

Understanding faith does not save you, only faith in Christ does.  If you understand how a life-ring works in a bobbing ocean but do not put it on, you will drown!  But, if you know what faith is, if you have faith in faith, the moment you see even a mustard-seed sized portion of faith bobbing in the ocean, your entire gaze is instantly focused upon The One Thing, and, in the singleness of vision upon the True, your whole body is filled with light.  Instead of being pulled in by the rope, you rise up above the waves and walk upon them…  If you understand faith.

Grabbing a hold of the life ring thrown to you of faith is no more saving one’s self than having faith!  To merely use what another has provided does not negate the true doctrine of total depravity, that man can do nothing in and of himself, but what is often overlooked is, that the life ring is there for all, if we only believe.

Many have attempted to get the eyes off of faith, either because they simply do not understand, or possibly, they are simply in unbelief and bound by religion themselves.  This does nothing but focus us away from what Jesus caused us to look at.  Jesus came and taught faith (Matthew 13:44), and it is by faith that we have access to His Grace.

What saves?  Faith in Jesus’ name, and in His blood.  Nothing more or nothing else.  Yet, Jesus calls us to have faith in all that He is, including His faith.  Picking and choosing the parts of Jesus that make sense or satisfy us does not make the Gospel more glorious, it stupifies and strips us of it by disregarding its precious parts as useless.

It is also never the doctrine of faith that saves, but it is the actual faith itself.  If we have faith in the Lord, that is what saves us.  If we have teaching on faith, that teaching does not help unless we use it and apply it to what faith really is, the substance of the thing hoped for.  The teaching is not the faith, but the teaching helps us, at least, to begin to deal with this supernatural thing called faith.

If we get our eyes off of the real faith, and onto the teaching of faith, we have not understood as we ought.  But, if we have real, supernatural faith, and apply the teaching of it, we can maximize our yield (thinking of the parable of the four soils, where some had 30, some had 60, and some had 100-fold returns).

When we possess and hold real, true faith, we can operate in it, even when we do not understand it.  But, adding understanding, we can be sure that we are always in the fullest operation and possession of it.  Because we know that it only takes a mustard seed of faith, if we have that, and can keep our eyes focused on that, we know we only need to keep the doubt out of it!  It is not the size nor amount of faith, it is merely its purity.

Right understanding of faith must be more than a doctrine, but must be the basis for our interaction and our approach to it.

Faith is a real thing, and it must always be understood as such.  So long as we are in faith, we can never fail, so long as we are pure in Him.  In the true faith, we have access to the true grace, which overcomes everything that is in the world.

We have faith in faith, because Jesus did, and as we have faith in God, we have faith in Him, and by Him, we are saved!