2 Answers

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can.

The GIFT is the grace of God. The verses are telling us that we must rely on God to forgive us our sins and transgressions because there is no way we can make up for the imperfectness of humanity. God forgives us with His graciousness. 

In This Passage, Paul cannot speak of this glorious work God does without reminding us that it is a gift of grace, given to the undeserving. We are not even saved by our faith (though faith itself is not a work), but by grace through faith.

We can think of water flowing through a hose. The water is the important part, but it is communicated through the hose. The hose does not quench your thirst; the water does. But the hose brings water to the place you can benefit from it.

The work of salvation is God’s gift. Paul’s grammar here indicates that the words apply to the gift of salvation mentioned in Ephesians 2:4-8, and not directly to the faith mentioned in this verse.

 Clarke emphatically states that the original Greek is clear in noting that when it says it is the gift of God, the it referred to is salvation, not faith. The great Greek scholar Dean Alford also clearly pointed out that the this not of yourselves referred to salvation, not to faithin this passage.

Yet, even our faith is a gift of God. We cannot believe in Jesus unless God does a prior work in us, for we are blinded by our own deadness and by the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4).

 “But it may be asked: Is not faith the gift of God? Yes, as to the grace by which it is produced; but the grace or power to believe, and the act of believing, are two different things. Without the grace or power to believe no man ever did or can believe; but with that power the act of faith is a man's own. God never believes for any man, no more than he repents for him; the penitent, through this grace enabling him, believes for himself.” (Clarke)

This shows us the essential place of prayer in evangelism. Since God initiates salvation, we should begin our evangelism with asking God to do the initiating, and granting the ability to believe to those we want to see saved.

Colleen

God demands nothing. Existence is the gift for us to use as we please. As long as God exists, Soul will exist and through experience learn the way of God. God only has one way and that is unconditional love. Anything else attributed to God has been put there by man. Religions first mistake is believing that God is a being capable of mankind's negative emotions. God is an energy and is far above negative emotions, IT is above judging others, IT is above hate or condemnation. IT is above disappointment in another. IT is above all that man attributes to IT. IT is love. That's it. IT's sole purpose for IT's creations is to love them. Nothing more, nothing less.