If faith is a gift from God, why would Jesus have to pray that Peter’s faith would not fail?

Q. I have a question regarding Jesus telling Peter in Luke 22:23 that he had prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail. If I understand correctly, faith is solely a gift from God. So if God had given Peter faith, why did Jesus pray it would not fail?

I think the answer to your question is that the Bible uses the word “faith” in more than one sense.

It is certainly true that saving faith is solely a gift from God. Our salvation is not the result of what we succeed in believing. Rather, God opens our eyes to recognize that we need a savior and that Jesus is the Savior we need.

But the Bible also describes faith as one of the character qualities that the Holy Spirit builds into our lives and which we, for our part, need to develop. The Bible lists faith as part of the “fruit of the Spirit,” and in that context it means both “faith” in the sense of trust in God and “faithfulness” in the sense of loyally and consistently obeying God and serving others.

The “fruit of the Spirit” also includes qualities such as patience. We can certainly see how a person’s patience might fail during trying times, even though the Holy Spirit was building patience into that person’s life. I think the same applies to faith. In trying times, a person might find it very challenging to continue to trust God, and a person might even be tempted to give up living a life of obedience and service. This could be true even though the Holy Spirit had been building the character quality of faith into that person.

So we see how appropriate it was for Jesus to pray that Peter’s faith would not fail. His prayers contributed to the influence of the Spirit encouraging Peter to have faith. While Peter denied and abandoned Jesus during his trial and execution, Peter eventually returned to a consistent life of faith in God and faithfulness in service to Jesus. In that sense, I think Jesus’ prayers were answered.

And the application for all of us is that we should pray that our own faith, and the faith of others, would be strengthened. That is one good way in which we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s influence that is already leading us into stronger faith.