Whose faith is it?

I find it interesting that some pastors push their expectation of faith onto people as if it were something that one could do, as if you could figure out how to make it a commodity.

What about the whole idea of each person having their own measure of faith? I think the problem is that it comes down to the idea of who owns faith? If you own the faith, then it was yours before you were even converted, and then, yes, people should be able to be molded into who a bad pastor wants them to be.

However, if your faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Oh yeah! Ephesians 2:8, right?), then it is up to Him what happens to your faith, the way it grows, the way it develops, the way it changes. Your faith can't be demanded to anything because it really isn't your faith. It's His.

Moreover, it is the faith that is assuaged by the good news of Jesus Christ. Why? Because it's His in the first place! It's a faith that, no matter the circumstance, is always able to be comforted. For this argument, it doesn't matter what you're going through, all that matters is whose faith it is.

So, the takeaway lesson: if a bad pastor is going to preach the Law to Christians, to demand that they do something the right way or at the right time or in whatever else they think is best, then he should just be avoided. His "gospel" is not the Gospel, it is not anything that helps a person grow, except in the eyes of that bad pastor. He doesn't care about how the Spirit actually works in his congregation, only that he sets the terms of how he wants the Holy Spirit to work (which won't ever, ever happen - the Holy Spirit is even more stubborn than I am, holding Himself only to the promises that Scripture tells us He makes).