Why God is Not Asking You to Believe in Jesus
Does God know all things? If yes, then He must know where faith comes from.
Faith is the bridge connecting God with His saved people. Unsaved men think they must leap across the eternal fiery abyss (leap of faith); or they think God is asking them to build a bridge of faith across this crevasse of separation (works righteousness).
Those who are in right standing with God are justified by faith, which was Paul’s argument in Romans 4. So, the men who are working to build the bridge think they are justified (declared not guilty) by works, and men who think they must self-generate faith within themselves, making faith a work, are in the same state.
Justification is a gift of God (Rom 3:24). Justification is granted by the grace of God. Justification is evidenced by one’s faith. So, faith is a gift of God, not generated by men. The apostle Paul wrote, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom 4:5).
So, what people need is not works, but faith, and faith is granted by God (Gal 3:22). Again Paul wrote, “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake (Phil 1:29). Faith is revealed from God (Gal 3:23).
So, faith is revealed, granted by God, by the means of grace, which is how God produces faithfulness (Gal 5:22–23), in the vessel of mercy (Rom 9:23), when the Holy Spirit baptizes, indwells, and produces the faithfulness. Thus, the gift of God is God Himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, who brings grace and faith to God’s elect redeemed people.
Why would God ask you to have something you do not possess and cannot generate by bloodlines, human will, nor works (Jn 1:12–13)? Imagine me asking you to have a winning powerball lottery ticket. Now imagine me, rather, giving you the winning lottery ticket. The difference is immense. Can you generate the faith required to position you right with God? How would it make you feel if God gave you what is required of you?
God has made faith the means required for a person to move from wrong standing to right standing before God. Grace transfers God’s elect from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His Beloved Son (Col 1:13). For by grace you have been saved (Eph 2:8–9). Grace gives faith, the very means required for justification by God. It is impossible to please God without faith (Heb 11:6), and apart from Christ you can do nothing (Jn 15:5), including secure faith unto salvation by oneself.
Faith is a work of God, and this is the work of God…that you believe in Him whom He has sent (Jn 6:29). You believe in Jesus because God re-positioned you in Him by His sovereign will and grace. God works, and faith is produced in the vessel He fills. The life of faith, I now live, is the life of God working in me to will and to do His good pleasure (Gal 2:20; Phil 2:12–13).
It is written that faith without works is dead (Jas 2:17). If God, by the indwelling presence of His Spirit, an act of grace, gives you the gift of faith, then the works created for you in Christ Jesus will manifest (Eph 2:10), further proving faith has been given to you by God. These works are the produce of the One who lives in you.
Christ in me, by His Spirit, is accomplishing His will. He is doing His works. His people are the object of His works. He is the Potter, and we are the clay (Jer 18; Rom 9). The work of the Holy Spirit brings forth fruit, and this fruit remains (Jn 15). The goal is conformity to Christ, who is the icon of God. This ongoing-to-the-end-of-life process is called, “sanctification.” Sanctification is the work of God (Rom 15:16; 1 Cor 6:11; 1 Thess 5:23; 2 Thess 2:13; Heb 10:29; 1 Pet 1:2).
No one can produce faith of His own accord, No one can produce works that merit anything with God. Rather, grace gifts faith, and grace produces good works in clay vessels. God does all the work, and God gets all the glory. This is why God is not asking you to believe in Jesus.
David Norczyk
Eugene, Oregon
August 25, 2021
