Actually faith isn't a gift anymore than anything else is, he wants us to have faith. we choose to believe/have faith. it's not a matter of deserving or not because you can't say someone doesn't deserve it! It's belief without proof.
Allow me to open your eyes:
Romans 5:5 (NKJV)
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5 [/SUP] Now hope does not disappoint, because
the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
If we have that loving FAITH, the HOLY SPIRIT gave it to us.
I know you want to believe you had a little something to do with your FAITH and deserving to be SAVED but that is not what Paul said:
Romans 7:16-25 (NKJV)
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16 [/SUP] If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that
it is good.
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17 [/SUP] But now,
it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
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18 [/SUP] For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but
how to perform what is good I do not find.
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19 [/SUP] For the good that I will
to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not
to do, that I practice.
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20 [/SUP] Now if I do what I will not
to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
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21 [/SUP] I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
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22 [/SUP] For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
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23 [/SUP] But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
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24 [/SUP]
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
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25 [/SUP] I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
GRACE = RECEIVING WHAT WE DO NOT DESERVE, AND CANNOT EARN.
MERCY = NOT RECEIVING WHAT WE DO DESERVE.