Hearing and seeing the word “faith” used to cause me much anxiety. Sometimes it still does. I spent countless hours trying to muster up faith. It didn’t work. I prayed for faith. I asked others to pray for me to have faith. I doubted my faith. I wondered if I had “enough” faith to be saved. I questioned whether I had any “saving faith” at all.
I made faith and repentance into a work.
Like measuring out flour for baking a cake, I didn’t know if I had enough to make the recipe for salvation. At least in a recipe, you can see the flour. How would I know I had something that I couldn’t see and feel? I asked, “How am I ever supposed to know if I’m saved if it depends on my faith?”
Growing up, I remember thinking, “Why does salvation require the one thing that I can’t seem to produce, the one thing that I’m not good at? I can give You anything else, God, and I can follow You and serve You. I can do anything You want me to do. But faith, I can’t do that.”
Wow, the “I can’t do” is the most glorious answer to my lifelong crisis of faith. Big sigh of relief. That’s the point of faith. It’s the one thing that you can’t do and something you can’t produce. God commands people to repent and believe, but also gives them the ability to (Mark 1:15, 2 Tim. 2:25, Heb. 12:1–2). Paul, the apostle, gives the answer for why the promise depends on faith:
“That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring — not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all …” (Rom. 4:16).
It’s good news that salvation depends on faith, because salvation depending on faith means that salvation is dependent on grace. God’s grace is His goodness to guilty and undeserving sinners. Faith does not earn salvation; faith freely receives, all the while knowing you don’t deserve it (Rom. 3:23–25). Faith does not depend on itself; it depends on God’s grace. Salvation is a free gift.
“And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness …” (Rom. 4:5).
For many Christians, the concept of faith is simple. They just believed and didn’t think much about it. I think that kind of childlike faith is praiseworthy and biblical. But there’s a fretful bunch, of which I have been included, who are tormented as to whether they have “saving faith.” And for the one struggling, God offers grace through faith.
Salvation by faith alone, in Christ alone, is a glorious truth to rejoice in, instead of obsess about.
WHAT IS ‘SAVING FAITH’?
I first asked Jesus to come into my life when I was four years old. I do believe that God began some kind of work in my heart and gave me conviction of my sin. And I was baptized later when I was six. But the years that followed were plagued with doubt, fear, intrusive thoughts, pride, self-righteousness, and mental difficulties (specifically OCD/scrupulosity). Growing up, I sought the Lord, read His Word, and prayed for help. But I lacked assurance of my salvation and endured many seasons of despair.
God continued to work in my heart at college, and the gospel became clearer and clearer to me. I’ve intellectually known the gospel practically my whole life and believed it to be true, even shared it with others, but I doubted that it applied to me.
One night, I was in the library at North Greenville University and decided to pick up a book about faith. In my anxiousness, I read about “saving faith.” The author, John Redhead, divided “saving faith” into three parts. First, saving faith involves knowledge of the facts and an agreement to those facts.
Second, he said that faith is not just belief, but it’s trust in a person. It’s a trust that places the worries in God’s hands. Redhead gave the example of a doctor prescribing medicine. One can believe that the medicine will cure, but until one depends on it, he’s not trusting the doctor. Saving faith is trusting in a person. It’s trusting God’s work to apply to you.
Lastly, Redhead said that “saving faith” will result in action (good works). If one trusts God, but it never leads to action, does that person really trust God?
The second one challenged me. And I feared that I did not trust Christ in that way. I went back to my dorm and told God while I was in the shower, “You’ve been telling me all along to trust you, and I’ve tried.” All my life God had made it abundantly clear that trust was the answer.
I sat on the bed in my dorm and was about to “do it all over again.” At first, it didn’t seem any different than all the other times I said the “sinner’s prayer,” but I laid down my whole heart to God, telling Him my biggest fear: that I had committed an unforgivable sin. And then I sought to trust Him, despite the doubt. I said, “Jesus, I believe that You died for Mary Margaret.” I fully trusted Him in a way that I hadn’t before.
In that moment I felt the Holy Spirit fill me up. It felt like I had just crossed over a barrier. My heart started pounding and I felt like I was about to go to heaven. I said, “I’m saved.” Soon after I thought, “I need to get baptized.” God became Father to me, not just Lord.
God did that in me. It wasn’t something that I mustered up.
GRACE TO CONTINUE
From that point onward, the gospel began to change my heart and humble me. I had a deep assurance, an innate knowing that He was my Father (Rom. 8:15–16). But that didn’t take away the nagging doubts of my sinful heart and mind (Mark 9:23–25). Many times, I was tempted to give up and walk away, but God kept me and brought me through each season of restlessness. And He will continue to do so (Phil. 1:6).
Even when I have doubts that I’m excluded from the gospel, not forgiven, faithless, heartless, beyond repentance, and unpardonable, still there are these gospel promises. The gospel is a promise that will never go away. They will always be there. And God doesn’t break His promises, even when we lack the faith to hold on to them (2 Tim. 2:13, Heb. 6:18–19). He has the first and final say. It’s about His glory, not ours.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:9).