Faith that comes from where?
What caused you to have this faith!
Before your conversion, you heard the gospel preached, you read the Bible perhaps.
What about you was so inherently good that you were able to allow your sin to be exposed, by saying you will choose to believe what you heard or read, while another chooses not to believe what he heard or read and have his sin exposed.
Were you just the better man!
You might ask Timothy the same thing:
2Timothy 3:15 And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Mat 11:25-30 At that time Jesus answered and said,
"I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. (26) Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. (27) All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
(28) Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (29) Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (30) For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Sinners have ample opportunity to exercise faith:
Mat 7:7-8 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (8) For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Don't ask any in this category though:
1Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall
depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
1Timothy 5:12 Having damnation, because they have
cast off their first faith.
Observe the order of essential elements in the doctrine of Christ which is the foundation of Christian Faith:
- Repentance from dead works
- Faith towards God
- Teaching of baptisms
- Teaching of laying on of hands
- Resurrection of the dead
- Eternal Judgment
Note the effect of unbelief on Israel, and God's ability to graft them in if they don't continue in it:
Rom 11:17-24 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; (18) don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. (19) You will say then,
“Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.” (20) True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear;
(21) for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. (22) See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. (23) They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. (24) For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
Kia Ora