FAITH IS A GIFT

The only effective way to deal with doubt is to give it to God. If you believe you are maintaining yourself in God's palm, when doubt comes, it will overtake you.

When I have struggled with it I pray even harder, and acknowledge that it's not me keeping myself in the faith, but Him. My doubt is brought on by a subconscious reliance of self—my own works or avoidance of sin, that due to some trial our tribulation has been exposed. I tell myself, foolish Daniel, of course you doubt, you aren't capable, trust God.

When major doubt comes, and it will, you need to double down on your faith. It sounds obvious but it's not easy. When you question everything you thought you knew until right now, tell yourself this wasn't your knowledge to begin with, it's Gods. The only reason you believe and know and have experienced wonderful changes is because He allowed it, He crafted it in you, He found you out there, He raised you up.

I suppose some call that imposter syndrome, and it's inward error. You truly are an imposter if you believe that all of the spiritual gifts you've been given were of your own merit or origin. When serious doubts appear in one's faith its origin is belief that faith was something they achieved, rather than were given.

Our response in salvation is faith, but even that is not of ourselves [but is] the gift of God. Faith is nothing that we do in our own power or by our own resources. In the first place we do not have adequate power or resources. More than that, God would not want us to rely on them even if we had them. Otherwise salvation would be in part by our own works, and we would have some ground to boast in ourselves. Paul intends to emphasize that even faith is not from us apart from God’s giving it.

Some have objected to this interpretation, saying that faith (pistis) is feminine, while that (touto) is neuter. That poses no problem, however, as long as it is understood that that does not refer precisely to the noun faith but to the act of believing. Further, this interpretation makes the best sense of the text, since if that refers to by grace you have been saved through faith (that is, to the whole statement), the adding of and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God would be redundant, because grace is defined as an unearned act of God. If salvation is of grace, it has to be an undeserved gift of God. Faith is presented as a gift from God in 2 Peter 1:1, Philippians 1:29, and Acts 3:16.