https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gal+1&version=NIVUK

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased… 

They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’

Galatians 1: 15, 23

Faith is given by grace. Grace precedes faith. God has grace in store for us even before we realise it with faith, just as the father waits for his son before even the prodigal begins to think of returning home. That thought of returning home is faith; that father awaiting the son, having given birth to him, and being the father that he is is grace. Preaching any other gospel than this is under the curse of God, Paul says, because it undermines God’s grace! It is neither God’s will (freely giving us grace that he is; v. 4), nor does it rescue us from the present evil age that promotes our own ability and goodness (even our own faith!; v. 11).

Lord, thank you for your grace that lets me faintly remember your grace and come back to you. Until you lifted the veil, I could not possibly know. I do not remember your lifting of the veil, just as I do not remember the moment of my birth, but surely it happened, for otherwise I could not know you and have faith. Let me live the grace you gave me—the life you planted in me, the Christ in me, whom I used to try to destroy before your grace arrived in my being. Lord had mercy. Lord have mercy.

• What different gospel could you be promoting if you trusted in your own faith?
• None of us deserves the faith we have now. But why do you think God has allowed it to you?
• What report do you think you were getting before the grace of God touched you?